Outside-In vs Inside-Out Determinism

[Xray]

"God exists only as an idea in human minds" - Is Sheldrake trying to make the case for God existing not only as an idea in human minds?

Xray,

Maybe.

I would need to read the book or some other writing where he addresses this to know for sure.

For the moment, I prefer not to guess or insinuate anything one way or another. I prefer to take him at face value. He wrote a book arguing against dogmatism and calling on scientists to open up free lines of inquiry--or allow others to do so without kneejerk bashing or hauling out the tin hats and joke books.

It seems more logical that he would be calling for the same with respect to any claim or speculation about God. No?

Michael

Hard to say because Shedrake is neither an agnostic nor an atheist.

Sheldrake has quite an interesting history regarding his relationship to religion:

http://en.wikipedia....upert_Sheldrake

Sheldrake has a Methodist background but after a spell as an atheist found himself being drawn back to Christianity when in India, and is now an Anglican.^[15]

[Xray]

The morphic field, in my mind, becomes a pseudo-explanation for consciousness existing separate to matter when we assume it having an existence separate to known and measured fields. When we see it as forming and maintaining complex energy patterns without an underlying causal dynamic, we are stepping into the world of gods and ghosts. This strikes me as metaphysics built from consciousness first, with morphic fields being the hidden variable used to account for it.

Imo this addresses a key issue: if one accepts the premise of consciousness existing without a material substrate, the implications are dramatic indeed.

WSS mentioned Paul's question that led to the Sheldrake debate:

While I think no one here wants to inject supernatural explanations, is there the possibility of some basic principle in physics, outside of strict determinism, indeterminism and a supernatural grand designer, that can account for the emergence of an element of self-determinism or intrinsic determinism in the universe?

Paul,

Actually, there is. It is called field theory. A field is different than energy in that it emanates from an entity (from what I understand so far), but is only known by the effect it has on objects that fall within it. Gravity and magnetism are fields, for example.

So in phenomena like e. g. swarm intelligence, several entities would produce the 'energetic field' then?

[Brant Gaede]

The morphic field, in my mind, becomes a pseudo-explanation for consciousness existing separate to matter when we assume it having an existence separate to known and measured fields. When we see it as forming and maintaining complex energy patterns without an underlying causal dynamic, we are stepping into the world of gods and ghosts. This strikes me as metaphysics built from consciousness first, with morphic fields being the hidden variable used to account for it.

Imo this addresses a key issue: if one accepts the premise of consciousness existing without a material substrate, the implications are dramatic indeed.

Introducing God into this discussion is gratuitous. Consciousness itself has a material substrate. Metaphysical understanding is not metaphysical reality; it is epistemological understanding--a rundundancy. So too with metaphysical understanding. A redundancy. If it's not reality and reason and those mixed up and mixing them up by the mixer done for lucidity and advancement of knowledge as in science or comprehensible and usable philosophy, all you'll have is a PhD dissertation and maybe a book to pour more befuddlement on the already befuddled, aka Introduction to Philosophy 101.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

Just so we are clear, you did not ask if I thought Sheldrake believes in God.

You asked if, in his book, he made a case for the existence of God as more than an idea.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So in phenomena like e. g. swarm intelligence, several entities would produce the 'energetic field' then?

Xray,

From what little I know of Sheldrake's work so far, there is a point where I disagree with him. Your question highlights it.

If I understand him correctly, he postulates--down at the fundamental level--that the field creates the swarm. Whereas traditional science would postulate that--fundamentally--particles create the DNA mold for individuals and groups of individuals create the swarm.

I see both fields and particles as fundamental. Fields give the rules, so to speak, from the top down and particles give the rules from the bottom up.

So my disagreement with Sheldrake (if I understand him correctly) is the same as with traditional determinists. They all want to boil everything in the universe down to one thing only and have the rest be formed, or emerge, from that.

I see no need for it.

I'm happy with a top and bottom. Frankly, I don't understand one without the other.

Anyway, variety exists. Why does it have to disappear at the fundament?

If you hold that, you get the same kind of problem as how consciousness emerges out of unconscious matter. But in that case you get how variety emerges out of singleness.

That's OK as speculation, I guess, especially seeing how everyone is doing it, but it's stupid to me to postulate that as a fact.

The most plausible answer in my view is that neither emerge or are formed. They merely become more developed from their own distinct fundamental forms of existence.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Trying to get caught up a little...

I believe both views of science exist and are valid. I believe we are masters of what we can control metaphysically. But I also believe we are evolving.

So, metaphysics-wise, I see one kind of scientist as a Big Shot (to use my literary term) devling into reality and bringing everything he can observe and ferret out into the pool of mankind's knowledge, then fiddling with it. He is on the top looking down.

And I see the other as a Witness and pioneer, pointing to areas that are beyond the perceived horizon and trying to go there. He is on the bottom looking up.

I believe the jobs of these two types are different.

And I believe it is an error--on many levels, including a public relations error--for a Big Shot to keep trying with massive effort to discredit a Witness. All it shows is that the Big Shot is not so big after all and there is not as much shot in his rifle as he claims.

In other words, his thing is power at root, not truth. Truth is only a means to get power to him.

And to me, that is such a small, insignificant reason for living and working...

Michael

When I first came onto OL I would refer to the fictions each of us carry about the world and to seeing the world through lenses and to acting in the world from modes. This way of framing the story of me and my world is still very much at my centre. Much of what you are writing, Michael, about stories and modes sounds very familiar. I talked about having orientations of consciousness that could be related to different sub-selves. I could see that much of how we learn comes from our ability to immerse ourselves deeply and empathically into the perspectives of others, allowing us to experience the universe from a multitude of perspectives and orientations. I came to realize that much of what defines us as individuals is the pattern of owning and disowning that we apply to the different parts of our psyche. Much of what we disown to survive childhood is our authentic, separate selves so we can keep the love and connection we receive through our empathic connected selves.

It seems one of the stories we all seem to adopt along the way is the story of shoulds. Rand talked about how just as what a thing is determines what it does, what we are as volitional beings determines what we ought to do. I am in absolute agreement with what I consider to be some of Rand's deepest ideas here. Shoulds that come from who and what we are, from how we authentically see and feel and think things, are the healthy shoulds. The shoulds that come from others, the blame and shame and guilt and judgement (meant to cut without understanding) that works via empathic connection on our perceptions, are the disgusting, manipulating controlling shoulds at the base of every power game which bypasses our immune system of awareness causing so much disease of mind. One of the most powerfully devastating shoulds we take in is the shoulds about what parts of us we should disown. It is literally a soul destroying virus injected into our minds.

I have struggled to find a different story that allows me to be all of me. I never wanted to disown any part of me and I wanted to understand how to nurture wholeness of being for me and for those I care about. I found a story that guided me a lot in an Alanis Morrisette song, Everything:

I can be an asshole of the grandest kind

I can withhold like it's going out of style

I can be the moodiest baby and you've never met anyone

Who is as negative as I am sometimes

I am the wisest woman you've ever met.

I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.

I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen

And you've never met anyone

Who's as positive as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part

You see all my light and you love my dark

You dig everything of which I'm ashamed

There's not anything to which you can't relate

And you're still here

I blame everyone else, not my own partaking

My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating

I'm terrified and mistrusting

And you've never met anyone as,

As closed down as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part

You see all my light and you love my dark

You dig everything of which I'm ashamed

There's not anything to which you can't relate

And you're still here

What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know

What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go

I'm the funniest woman that you've ever known

I'm the dullest woman that you've ever known

I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known

And you've never met anyone

Who is as everything as I am sometimes

I have come to see that when we embrace the different parts of the self from a place of understanding, instead of a place of judgement, we start to create inclusion instead of exclusion in the self. We can have the different parts of us, like the authority of the Big Shot or the objectivity of the Witness, all as part of us. Some parts I find myself centred around are the Explorer, the Adventurer, the Playful Child, the Entrepreneur, etc. Each describes a certain mindset, a specific orientation of consciousness that shapes how I process information, construct my stories and act in my world. I have found, by bringing in all these different and sometimes conflicting parts, a great deal of chaos is created as I shift from lens to lens, mode to mode, orientation to orientation. I've even found that once in a given orientation, it doesn't like to let go of control. When I'm in writing mode I don't want to shift to work mode. When I'm in work mode I don't want to shift to Dad mode. I call this psychological inertia. You can see it in the kid who doesn't want to stop playing to take a bath, and then doesn't want to come out of the bath to play again.

I have allowed myself to live through and witness the chaos of allowing these different parts to flow in and out according to the needs of context and my inner motives. I guess I have been combining an Explorer with an Experimenter self. What has emerged is a need for an Executive self that monitors and manages and balances the flow between the sub-selves. This executive sees through a dialectical lens, allowing multiple ways of being and responding to a situation, to exist suspended in a superposition of possibilities. It then has the executive position of choosing amongst outcomes. I see this as being where much of the "free" comes from in free will. And this, ultimately, is the only way to step out of the story to find the truth hidden between the stories. It's a very powerful truth finder.

Paul

PS: WSS- I was hoping to respond to your post tonight bringing things back to the original thread but have run out of time. It is a priority.

[anthony]

The driver is self-awareness, I think. Being conscious of being conscious, thinking about thinking, feeling about feeling. All that sets man apart from other life.

It seems simple enough or evident, that it all starts with electro-chemical processes in a lump of organic matter reacting to stimuli (at first level) correlating that data, and forming conclusions (at higher levels.)

But at top level, it is as though there's a 'circuitry' overseeing those processes - call it the "inner eye" - assessing its own assessments. In instants, it can direct or dictate which neural pathways to follow - doubling back, changing course, and plotting new pathways - at one's will - for necessity's sake, or merely for the exercise, and pure fun of it.

The permutations and combinations are endless, and put us well out of reach of physical

determinism: at least, as primary; at least, if one wholly pursues it (choosing to

choose.)

That's why I don't see 'outside-in determinism': only in-in, and in-out consciousness.

Achieving an integrated balance of them, 'self'-consciousness, outward consciousness,

with the reality of existence, I'd consider the ultimate state of happiness - as a minor side-benefit. ;)

[caroljane]

This is a discussion forum of ideas, generally with light-hearted banter to keep it all going pleasurably. Except for the political things, when people tend to get more inflamed. But even then it stays within a limit.

That doesn't happen naturally.

Michael

I know it doesn't, and I have come to see how fine a line you scan between trollery and drollery to keep OL what it is, which is great.

Thank you.

Carol

[Xray]

Xray,

Just so we are clear, you did not ask if I thought Sheldrake believes in God.

You asked if, in his book, he made a case for the existence of God as more than an idea.

Michael

That's what I asked, yes. And If Sheldrake is criticized by R. Dawkins, maybe RD's critcism is directed at what he suspects to be religious premises on Sheldrake's part

My interest is always on the fundamental position, the 'root premise', which provides the basis for an individual's philosophy.

And doesn't all human philosophical reflection ultimately center on two essential questions: Why does the cosmos exist at all, and does it have a 'purpose'?

We are beings that think in relations of 'causality' and 'teleology' (goal-directedness).

Every single act we perform has a cause and goal - maybe this human psychobiological condition makes it so hard for us to think of the cosmos as (possibly) having ('deep down', so to speak), "no cause" and "no purpose"?

[william.scherk]

WSS- I was hoping to respond to your post tonight bringing things back to the original thread but have run out of time. It is a priority.

Great. I wil hold off my responses and the Sheldrake video mash-up till then.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Every single act we perform has a cause and goal - maybe this human psychobiological condition makes it so hard for us to think of the cosmos as (possibly) having ('deep down', so to speak), "no cause" and "no purpose"?

Xray,

Another out-of-the-box woo-woo dude who causes quite a stir with the determinist crowd is Terence McKenna. Here is a phrase generally attributed to him. (He probably said it, but I have not found where, yet. So I prefer to say "attributed to him.")

Modern Science is based on the principle: Give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest.

To me, one perspective on fundamental stuff we don't know is just as valid as the other. Or just as not valid.

Why? Because we don't know it.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Modern Science is based on the principle: Give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest.

Or, from a transcript of a podcast featuring McKenna's 1994 talk "Eros to Eschaton," at the University of Washington:

Every model of the universe has a hard swallow. What I mean by a hard swallow is a place where the argument cannot hide the fact that there’s something slightly fishy about it. The hard swallow built into science is this business about the Big Bang. Now, let’s give this a little attention here. This is the notion that the universe, for no reason, sprang from nothing in a single instant. Well, now before we dissect this, notice that this is the limit test for credulity. Whether you believe this or not, notice that it is not possible to conceive of something more unlikely or less likely to be believed! I mean, I defy anyone – it’s just the limit case for unlikelihood, that the universe would spring from nothing in a single instant, for no reason?! – I mean, if you believe that, my family has a bridge across the Hudson River that we’ll give you a lease option for five dollars! It makes no sense. It is in fact no different than saying, “And God said, let there be light”. And what these philosophers of science are saying is, give us one free miracle, and we will roll from that point forward – from the birth of time to the crack of doom! – just one free miracle, and then it will all unravel according to natural law, and these bizarre equations which nobody can understand but which are so holy in this enterprise.

Well, I say then, if science gets one free miracle, then everybody gets one free miracle.

Edited September 1, 2012 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Thank you so much!

In fact, I like the following quote right from McKenna's mouth a lot more than the attributed one I posted.

... if science gets one free miracle, then everybody gets one free miracle.

Also, from your link, I really like McKenna's closing (albeit I am not on board with the drug stuff). I like the individualism and the call for individuals to take ownership of their minds--right or wrong.

There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let’s not sell it straight. Let’s not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let’s not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination.

Michael

EDIT: I want to add a thought. The human imagination "transforming itself" as McKenna says has a name in science, a realtively new one. And it's now widely accepted in the science community. It's called neuroplasticity. (The mind physically changes the brain, which changes the mind, which physically changes the brain, which changes the mind, and so on...)

[Paul Mawdsley]

William,

I have to say your authentic self-disclosure and forthrightness creates a ground for an honest sharing of ideas and insights. And your treatment of my original question is truly impressive and validating. You have set a tone that can allow perspectives to flow freely, without the resistance created by defensiveness. Thank you.

I will respond to each of your points with some thought and depth, hopefully equaling your self-disclosure and forthrightness.

Xray and Bob, Tony considers you determinists. Is this how you see yourselves? My sense is you are both open to whatever the evidence presents and to the best theories that connect the dots. While I think no one here wants to inject supernatural explanations, is there the possibility of some basic principle in physics, outside of strict determinism, indeterminism and a supernatural grand designer, that can account for the emergence of an element of self-determinism or intrinsic determinism in the universe?

Determinism clashes with my sense of self-determinism and my sense that intrinsic determinism is an unaccounted for element in our understanding of a causal universe. Determinism is built from a view of causality that sees how things are influenced by forces outside themselves. What if there is a fundamentally intrinsic force within things? How does the universe look when we start by looking at things through a metaphysical lens from the inside-out instead of a physics lens from the outside-in? Is there an element of self-determinism built into every thing that exists? I'm NOT talking about intelligence or goal directedness here, although this may be a higher form of this principle. I'm simply suggesting the possibility of a simple intrinsic force in the fundamental stuff of existence that breaks strict determinism from the outside-in and adds an element of inside-out causation. Would this produce a very similar view of the physical and biological universe but better account for the appearance of and our inner sense of inside-out determinism? Is such an idea compatible with existing evidence, maybe even able to produce causal explanations of anomalous evidence like quantum entanglement, the causal leap between inanimate and animate matter and our enduring sense of free will?

I take a very humble position on Determinism. In the 'macro world' determinism is a given. What comes before determines what comes after. Today is a product of yesterday. The past determines the future. My thoughts determine my action.

That is so general as to be tautological, but that is what I see at the level of my own perceptions. I have never seen anything, perceived anything directly in which I came to doubt causality as a function of time. Because I am what I am (a man/human) I am carried away by the 'arrow of time.' From a human vantage, what preceded is the very best clue to what will succeed.

While I agree with you that "what preceded is the very best clue to what will succeed," I do not agree that "determinism is a given" in the macro or micro world. To say everything is causal is not the same as saying everything is determined. (I think you can feel a sense of the distinction in this very sentence.) Determinism comes from a very particular view of causality and causal modelling that assumes actions are caused from the outside-in. Implicit in the concept of determinism is a sense that the actions of all entities are determined by the rules, the laws or the actions of something outside the thing that acts. The view of causality that has grown through Aristotle, Rand and N. Branden (ARB causation), and which has sparked my own thinking, starts inside the thing that acts: what a thing is determines what it does. Despite the wording, this does not fit within the framework of determinism. While it is completely causal, it opens the door for intrinsic or self-determining factors and sheds light on a model of the universe that is completely causal while not deterministic. There are two factors to be considered in causal processes: those that operate from the outside-in (as is understood in deterministic models); and those that operate from the inside-out (as in ARB causation). In my own thinking I have seen how ARB causation can account for the appearance of a deterministic universe but the reverse is not true. For the last 20 years or so, I have played with modeling the universe from the basis of the ARB causation and seeing how I can make it fit with the known evidence from physics, biology, evolution theory and psychology. I find it does a much better job explaining things.

We have come to see the issue as a choice between determinism and indeterminism (between causation and randomness) or between physical determinism and supernatural determinism (between body and mind causation). I see these as false dichotomies. It's like choosing between politicians when there isn't one I would choose. Michael talks about the balance between form and content and the balance between top-down and bottom-up processes. I think I see things the same way when I say there is inside-out and outside-in causal processes and reciprocal whole-to-part processes. Determinism only views the outside-in part of the process and we conclude either that inside-out cannot be real or, when confronted with evidence that determinism cannot account for everything, we conclude that causality is an illusion.

Interesting that you mention the arrow of time. I find it interesting that when the universe is reduced to mathematical descriptions we have trouble accounting for the arrow of time and wonder if time could be bidirectional. If we start with a physically causal description of the universe there is no such trouble. I take this to be a sign that we fundamentally live in a physically causal rather than a mathematical universe.

I am otherwise pretty much bereft of well-seated philosophical beliefs. At the Cosmic Level there are grand puzzles of causality. If I can only feel the arrow of time going forward in my organism, and if my field of vision extends only to the horizon, and if that horizon is constantly moving forward in time as the mark of the future beyond the now, my perceptions are still constrained. How do I make sense of such things as 'dark energy' or 'vacuum energy' or 'dark matter,' when these notions are implicate in a physics I do not understand? I have never perceived dark energy or matter. I know only that these two things are predicate on measurements/perceptions of anomalies in the equations following the Standard Model.

My understanding is much the same as yours. Dark energy and dark matter are something predicted in order to make the standard model fit the facts. Whether these are something real or just an "epicycle" used to make an empirically challenged model fit the facts, only time will tell. I have read some things from the lens of plasma physicists that have me leaning very heavily towards the latter.

Vacuum energy, or zero point energy as it was called when I first read about it, is something that is directly measurable and tangible and has powerful implications. One such implication is that there is energy implicit in the EM field that can cause action without an outside-in force or antecedent.

At the quantum level, Paul, I am utterly ignorant in comparison to the names we associate with quantum theories. I can barely comprehend the lessons of causality from quantum effects and observation, yet I understand that the mechanics (Quantum Mechanics) are exquisite prediction machines. I understand from my science reading only the basics of why our silicon-world of instantaneous GPS is possible due to our understanding of the quantum world.

Our ability to manipulate technology through what we know about the mechanics of the quantum world is distinct from our interpretation about the underlying nature of the quantum world. Ptolemy could make very accurate predictions based on his models but was very mistaken about the nature of the universe. I actually think the mathematics of QM is a very accurate description of our measured universe and a profound predictor. I have no grounds, nor the credentials, nor the knowledge to question the mathematics. I am satisfied that the peer review system does its job here. I do question the interpretations offered on metaphysical and epistemic grounds.

The very fact that there is no agreement on interpretation alerts my antenna. That the disagreements centre around the issue of causality, starting with Einstein himself and his challenges to the Copenhagen interpretation, puts my attention on full alert. That some major players in the QM arena have wrestled with this-- including Einstein, de Broglie, Bohm and Bell, tells me that something important is missing in current interpretations. Despite the contribution and importance of these figures to modern physics (contrast with what you have said about Sheldrake), they have been pushed out by the powers who control the establishment and have become the heretics.

Bohm presented a causal interpretation of QM but, thanks to Bell's Theorem and later experiments, had to accept the reality of non-locality. This non-locality runs headlong into conflict with relativity (this made Einstein reluctant to accept it) and is one of the major reasons it hasn't gained headway against the neo-Copenhagen interpretations. If a view of causation can be presented that can account for non-linear and non-local effects from entities acting in a linear and local way thru reciprocal whole-to-part causation, the door opens wide to Bohm's causal interpretation.

So, it is only at the level of my greatest competence, the personal, perceptual level, that I feel able to comment intelligently on causality. I just do not have the chops for cosmology or for the quantum realms.

I get it. There are some heretics I have read, who have had well respected contributions to QM and cosmology, who I think are worth taking the time to have a look at. I have mention Bohm in QM. There is also the astronomer Halton Arp who made a reputation for studying phenomena that do not fit standard theories, especially the Big Bang. For this he was excluded from the worlds telescopes. Hannes Alfvén and Anthony L. Peratt have made significant contributions to plasma physics and have presented an alternative theory to Big Bang cosmology which has gained little ground in a funding controlled political climate dominated by a Big Bang establishment. I am attracted to each of these "heretics" of science because their work has a better fit with my view of causality than does the established theories. I am not attracted to heretics for the sake of being heretic. IMO they are worth looking into and reading about.

I am then a 'soft' determinist. I recognize the 'hard problem' in philosophy at its juncture with science, but it occurs to me that much practical work in unravelling the puzzle can be done in the sciences while philosophy grapples with itself, new findings and new theoretical approaches.

A soft determinist is pretty much what Xray and you and Tony and I all are, all we can be. We know from personal perceptions that we have will. We know that actions are usually preceded. We tend to be surprised when events appear to be disjoint with this background expectation of action preceding reaction.

Again, here I would say I'm not a determinist but am a believer in strict causality. Causality and determinism are not the same thing. This may seem very disorienting. I'm still trying to make my perspective clear here. As I see it, determinism describes a world where the actions of an entity in a given moment are determined by the chain of interactions that preceded it such that there is never another possibility than the one that unfolds. This does not fit my sense of life, of reality or of causality. In me there is the possibility of creative volition fed by an awareness and understanding of my world that can change the course of my life should I orient myself to proactivity over reactivity.

Determinism is defined by a reactive causation. I see the existence of proactive causation in the Aristotelian sense of energy intrinsic to the entity that acts. Proactive causation breaks strict determinism because there are both intrinsic and extrinsic causal factors. An account of only the extrinsic factors will never produce a full description of events. Starting with intrinsic energy produces a view of the universe that is a better fit with the facts than starting with a strictly reactive and deterministic model of causation.

Since our view of causation typically takes shape subliminally, adopted on a unconscious level from the way others share their vision of the world or from how we connect the dots of our experience without focused thought, few of us ever come to explore or question its nature. It is hard to even imagine what the universe might look like through a different causal lens. Difficult as it may be, there is no way to assess an alternate view of causality without taking time to explore it, look at the world through its lens and test whether or not it creates a better fit to reality. In my opinion, the power of Aristotle's, Rand's and N. Brandens vision of the world came from the particular model of causality they carried with them that shaped their visions of existence. If I had the chance to ask Nathaniel Branden a question about his work, this would be the question I would ask him: how important was your model of causation in shaping your vision of human nature and of existence? (I write this thinking there may be a slim possibility that NB could respond.)

A soft determinist like me will have to fudge over things he does not understand. If what goes before generally determines what comes after, what are the exceptions? In my crude personal philosophy, I just open two envelopes into which I can put the things I do not intuitively understand, Quantum and First Cause.

Does that make sense? As an individual, I know nothing of quantum mechanics or cosmology, certainly not enough to puzzle out in my own brain all the details of who is right and what is suspect, which is leading edge and which is debris.

As a realist, I have to acknowledge my ignorance. I can follow along argument to a certain point with comprehension, but beyond is beyond.

Here is something I have learned. Once we challenge our implicit notion of causation and open to seeing other possibilities, we open to knew ways to thinking about these questions of QM, cosmology and Will. Michael has said we experience the world through the stories we carry inside. We need to take the covers off this story and look to creatively rewrite it to make it better fit all the facts. Causality is embedded in the language of the stories themselves. It is a story implicit in every story. It is the framework that gives shape to every story. This makes it harder to penetrate but not impossible.

My orientation and point of crossing with Objectivish things is as a Realist. My basic orientation since a young age was to separate what is real from what may be illusion. I have a few tools in my kit, but no great sword with which to cut through ultimate puzzles. I can only assemble my knowledge by my best application of Reason.

Causality is the sword for the philosopher just as measurement is the sword for the scientist. For each these are the standard of objectivity.

All this long blather on my ignorance to return to field your question to Bob and Xray:

Is there the possibility of some basic principle in physics, outside of strict determinism, indeterminism and a supernatural grand designer, that can account for the emergence of an element of self-determinism or intrinsic determinism in the universe?

This is dense, with many qualifiers. What is at issue, where is the question's centre?

Here? -- "emergence of an element of self-determinism or intrinsic determinism to the universe"

Here? -- "[outside] basic principle in physics"

Here? -- "outside of strict determinism, indeterminism, and a supernatural grand designer"

Three determisms, then: Strict Determinism, Indeterminism, Grand Designer. I read Grand Designer as gawd,, frankly, so set that aside, because the question asks me to set it aside as Outside. Similarly, I can view the qualifiers as a list, not descriptives. Then we are asked to find something outside of basic principles (of physics), outside of strict determinism, outside of indetermism, outside of a supernatural grand designer.

And then knit physics back in, since the question begins, "Is there ... some basic principle in Physics ..."

OK. Outside of strict determinism, outside of a gawd, outside of indeterminism, is there a basic principle in Physics ... that can account for .... the emergence ... of an element ... of self-determinism/intrinsic determinism ... to the universe.

OK. I discard the things to discard and confront the emergence of an element of self-determinism in the universe. That is what is being examined. We have the emergence, the self-determinism (or element therein/preceding) ... in history. Do I understand this correctly if by way of example I insert Will? I do not add in qualifier human will or free will, because Paul may be describing a lesser holon, perhaps the first glimmering of sentient action, a new agency in the universe, a thing that acts to move itself and position itself and react to external events in ways outside the usual repertoire of mere lifeless matter.

Paul, this is an effort to re-establish bona fides in this thread. Long before I got teary-eyed in this thread, long before scapegoats had their throats slit, you put up a good question. Michael answered the question with Sheldrake/fields ... which eventuated the throatslitting and goat hunt when I countered that Sheldrake's stuff was fruitless.

So, do I understand the question correctly so far? It is intriguing that this causal spark led on to the events we witness, so maybe I can reset the anger meter by going back to first things.

Put simply I see the basic stuff of the universe as having the energy for action built into its nature as opposed to the idea that some ethereal energy is transferred between things (as in deterministic theories). In my mind this is a more realistic perspective than assuming the stuff and the energy are distinct and separate, leaving us in the state of dualism. I have found it quite amazing how easily this starting point creates a model of the universe to fit observations, even accounting for the emergence of relativity, gravitation, QM, life from inanimate matter and creative volition from more basic life forms. All this from a simple substance with a simple nature with a more complex model of causation. Parts with proactive causation combined with a reciprocal whole-to-part causation produces a non-deterministic worldview that is completely causal and can account for why relativity exists and why non-local QM effects exist. I figure this is worth exploring.

Paul

[Paul Mawdsley]

The driver is self-awareness, I think. Being conscious of being conscious, thinking about thinking, feeling about feeling. All that sets man apart from other life.

It seems simple enough or evident, that it all starts with electro-chemical processes in a lump of organic matter reacting to stimuli (at first level) correlating that data, and forming conclusions (at higher levels.)

But at top level, it is as though there's a 'circuitry' overseeing those processes - call it the "inner eye" - assessing its own assessments. In instants, it can direct or dictate which neural pathways to follow - doubling back, changing course, and plotting new pathways - at one's will - for necessity's sake, or merely for the exercise, and pure fun of it.

The permutations and combinations are endless, and put us well out of reach of physical

determinism: at least, as primary; at least, if one wholly pursues it (choosing to

choose.)

That's why I don't see 'outside-in determinism': only in-in, and in-out consciousness.

Achieving an integrated balance of them, 'self'-consciousness, outward consciousness,

with the reality of existence, I'd consider the ultimate state of happiness - as a minor side-benefit. ;)

Tony,

I have read and reread this probably a dozen times since you posted it. I had a general sense of what you were saying but had difficulty really getting inside it. I think I've been distracted and tired but also I was missing context. I didn't know what your jumping off point was. I went back and read what I wrote about sub-selves, and specifically The Executive self, and started to clue in.

Each of our sub-selves has roots in a basic orientation of consciousness, or lens, that allows us to see the world from a particular angle. There are core lenses that can compete with each other for time and space in the psyche. We can often see these as conflicting. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, based on Jung's theory of types, strikes me as being based on some of these core lenses, the conflicts between them and the resultant pattern of owning and disowning that define us as we grow up. The details of this are best saved for another thread.

I agree with you about the importance of self-awareness, of what we can call meta-consciousness (consciousness of our conscious processes). My daughter made the point a couple of years ago (she was 8 at the time) that she noticed how sounds and images and thoughts stayed in her head like an echo even after the moment had past. She was quite happy to hear she was not alone and that I experience this as well. This ability to raise awareness of experience echos allows her to question and think about her own insides and to build a picture of her own processes. She is incredibly intuitive in this regard, able to paint wonderful metaphors of her own insides.

I think these experience echos are the roots of self-awareness and give birth to the sub-self we can call The Executive self. The Executive self is the complex of experiences, responses, thoughts and habits that grows from these experience echos and our raising of awareness to them. I also agree with you that as The Executive self grows it gives us the chance to open to new possibilities within. It gives us the chance to choose the principles by which we function as we come to see the principles by which we function. It gives us the chance to shape our own identity and be self-determining. This allows us to shape our functioning around what we learn feeds our nature. This makes us the engine and the driver of our own happiness.

Paul

PS: I am playing with the idea that the meta-consciousness lens competes with the more objective outward looking lens which gives rise to the introvert/extrovert divide. I like looking beneath the labels we give things to find the underlying causal dynamics.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Michael,

Love your story of stories. I find myself immersed in this social lens in every facet of life right now. I'm finding it especially interesting to think about the difference between people who make the stories more important than facts and those who make the facts more important than the stories. There is very interesting psychology and social dynamics in this difference.

Have you created a discussion anywhere to open up the story of stories?

Paul

[Xray]

To me, one perspective on fundamental stuff we don't know is just as valid as the other. Or just as not valid.

Why? Because we don't know it.

When it comes to fundamental stuff we don't know, the only acceptable position would be agnosticism then.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

When it comes to fundamental stuff we don't know, the only acceptable position would be agnosticism then.

Xray,

I go beyond that.

Agnosticism means we can't know. It's a form of certainty over something we don't know--a claim in the present that we can't know something in the future.

I merely believe we should say we don't know something when we don't know it. Whether we can know it or not is a question that can only be addressed with certainty in the future--and even then that might only be a possibility. In other words, I prefer to leave the question open.

Once you acknowledge that don't-know-now-but-might-know-later state, I think it's OK to have druthers and suspicions and speculations.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Causality is a philosophical concept.

That it is. Hume pointed out that causality is mostly in our heads.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hume was wrong.

How we identify causality is mostly in our heads. (Actually, all in our heads.)

But there is causality outside of our heads to identify that we actually do observe and identify.

Hume's problem was that causality does not fit into a concept that leaves the future open. He wanted to hamstring the future like the past is hamstrung. And the future doesn't exist that way.

I would say that Hume's future is a strawman. He set up a strawman future that doesn't exist. He claimed that it doesn't work like a strawman should work. Therefore, causality in reality is merely in our heads.

It's his strawman that's in the heads of those who advocate this. Not reality. (At least, not the part of reality that pertains to the future.)

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Causality is a philosophical concept.

That it is. Hume pointed out that causality is mostly in our heads.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Causality is just as much in the world or just as much in our heads as gravity. We have the same issue pointing to gravity as we do pointing to causality. Without a concept of causation we don't discover our concept of gravitation. Physics has only thrown out the plans and box of tools after building its house and now says the plans and tools never really existed. I find this jaw-dropping!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I find this jaw-dropping!

Paul,

I think you just made Bob's day.

That's what he does it for.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

I feel so used and cheap! :-)

[Xray]

When it comes to fundamental stuff we don't know, the only acceptable position would be agnosticism then.

Xray,

I go beyond that.

Agnosticism means we can't know. It's a form of certainty over something we don't know--a claim in the present that we can't know something in the future.

I merely believe we should say we don't know something when we don't know it. Whether we can know it or not is a question that can only be addressed with certainty in the future--and even then that might only be a possibility. In other words, I prefer to leave the question open.

Once you acknowledge that don't-know-now-but-might-know-later state, I think it's OK to have druthers and suspicions and speculations.

Michael

From the Wikipedia article on agnosticism:

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Agnosticism

In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that humanity does not currently possess the requisite knowledge and/or reason to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist.

"Does not currently possess" is the crucial part. It is not claimed that humanity will never possess the requisite knowledge.

Separating belief from fact is crucial.

It is baffling with what 'certainty' representatives arguing from the 'opposing sides of the fence' present their speculations and hypotheses as if they were statements of established fact.

Deepak Chopra for example wrote:

"To arrive at DNA, life on Earth, the universe was self-aware and knew what it was doing."

(D. Chopra/ L. Mlodinow, War of the Worldviews, p. 35/36).

Chopra arbitrarily claims that the whole universe is a thinking and conscious entity.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

I agree with that view. But that's Wikipedia.

Look in any dictionary.

The first definition includes the word, "unknowable," or something to that effect.

That's the view I don't agree with.

The Wikipedia view almost always comes as a later definition.

Michael