The is no Objectve NOW.


BaalChatzaf

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11 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Seeing your brain at work is seeing your mind or consciousness at work. The brain of course does more than manufacture consciousness.

--Brant

Seeing my brain at work is seeing my brain at work.  You have a mind.  I have a first class brain...

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4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Why is you brain "first class"?

--Brant

 

 

It cranks out solutions to difficult problems.  That is how I earned my bread prior to my retirement.  I solved difficult technical  problems.  It was actually my brain that did all the work.

One of the nice things about software and mathematics is that you know if your work works. 

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3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

It cranks out solutions to difficult problems.  That is how I earned my bread prior to my retirement.  I solved difficult technical  problems.  It was actually my brain that did all the work.

One of the nice things about software and mathematics is that you know if your work works. 

I was thinking of some different metrics, but this is fine.

--Brant

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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎11‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 1:47 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

One of the nice things about software and mathematics is that you know if your work works. 

Same with moral values... you know if they work by the objective reality of their results in your own life.

 

Greg

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On 11/20/2016 at 3:20 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

Most of physics does not really deal with time.  Time is just a parameter.  And most of the laws of physics  are time symmetric.  They work both backwards and forwards.  The main law that is asymmetric  is the second law of thermodynamics.  Total entropy either remains constant (n a system in equilibrium)  or it increases.  It never decreases. Energy spontaneously dissipates where there are temperature differences.  Energy spontaneously flows from the hotter body to the cooler body until both bodies are at the same temperature.  That is the way the cosmos works.

We still lack a genuine theory of time that  can define Now.   

I don't think there is a "Now" except that which is bordered by the past--which existed but does not now--and the future which is what will exist. Into this divide we can investigate for there are things and energy in the "Now" that can give us results. So, let me ramble on, "existence exists" is "Now" (now) and that's everything open to identification as such. All else is inference and/or historical and unmeasureable and/or unidentifiable through experiment or observation. Now we see (infer) a distant star but the light we see is not the star but starlight. The star is historical. It's present state is inferrable, not observable.

The irony is the starlight is also historical because everything is in motion. We can't affect it. If we can affect something I'd call that the real "Now." We conduct an experiment which has effects. So "now" is affectable existence. 

--Brant

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To restate and recap and buff it up: mind is a metaphor for consciousness. Consciousness is produced by the brain which contains measureable activity. We don't have to measure consciousness and couldn't if we tried for consciousness is axiomatic. Reality exists and, concomitantly, we are conscious of reality, of our own individual existence. To deny consciousness is to deny knowledge of reality and reality itself.

--Brant

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8 hours ago, moralist said:

Same with moral values... you know if they work by the objective reality of their results in your own life.

 

Greg

I see.  Today we are a consequentialist.   And what if a situation is so complicated that one can not clear infer consequences from principle?  

And consider where your idea leads:  A successful thief will steal even more because the results of his theft  are so rewarding to his life.   I imagine Bernie Madoff had such thoughts. 

Your principle (unfortunately) implies what you can get away with  should be repeated. 

I think morality is more complicated than that.  There are morally ambiguous circumstances.  

Whereas software is binary.  It either behaves according to the given specifications  or it does not and the matter is testable (at least in principle).

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10 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I see.  Today we are a consequentialist.   And what if a situation is so complicated that one can not clear infer consequences from principle?  

And consider where your idea leads:  A successful thief will steal even more because the results of his theft  are so rewarding to his life.   I imagine Bernie Madoff had such thoughts. 

Your principle (unfortunately) implies what you can get away with  should be repeated. 

I think morality is more complicated than that.  There are morally ambiguous circumstances.  

Whereas software is binary.  It either behaves according to the given specifications  or it does not and the matter is testable (at least in principle).

Your criticism is apropos to you as an Aspie. Us "normal" folk suffer negative, mostly psychological consequences. You lead with "successful," which is obviously a materialistic  reduction and even by that metric controversial. That said, Greg's idea of morality is only as good and as far as a non-philosophical morality can go. The morality of a body politic and the laws from that is a whole another ball of wax.

--Brant

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14 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Your criticism is apropos to you as an Aspie. Us "normal" folk suffer negative, mostly psychological consequences. You lead with "successful," which is obviously a materialistic  reduction and even by that metric controversial. That said, Greg's idea of morality is only as good and as far as a non-philosophical morality can go. The morality of a body politic and the laws from that is a whole another ball of wax.

--Brant

I am made of atoms which move according to physical dynamical laws.  What else could I be but a materialist? 

Reductionism,  warts and all is the most successful program for understanding the world we live in.  Two cheers for reductionism. 

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6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

And what if a situation is so complicated that one can not clear infer consequences from principle?  

Morality is only complicated to the stupid, Bob. 

And it's your own fault for lacking the self awareness to see what's obviously right and wrong. This process is self correcting because you're already getting exactly what you deserve in your own life for being so dense.

Greg 

 

 

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3 hours ago, moralist said:

Morality is only complicated to the stupid, Bob. 

And it's your own fault for lacking the self awareness to see what's obviously right and wrong. This process is self correcting because you're already getting exactly what you deserve in your own life for being so dense.

Greg 

 

 

Bullshit  Greg.  Try your hand at the Trolley Problem.  Tell us how simple it is.

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12 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

So, let me ramble on, "existence exists" is "Now" (now) and that's everything open to identification as such. All else is inference and/or historical and unmeasureable and/or unidentifiable through experiment or observation.

Brant,

Time is time.

A is A.

Existence exists.

If you don't like tautology qua tautology, let's do a syllogism.

All things and attributes of things exist.
Time is an attribute of all things.
Therefore, time exists.

Or another syllogism:

Time exists.
Time includes the past and future.
The past and future exist.

:)

Michael

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10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am made of atoms which move according to physical dynamical laws.  What else could I be but a materialist? 

Reductionism,  warts and all is the most successful program for understanding the world we live in.  Two cheers for reductionism. 

Two cheers for reductionism is two cheers for the foundation. It's not your beloved entropy for it's epistemological. C'mon, Bob, have a mind to build on it.

--Brant

mild snark

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24 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Two cheers for reductionism is two cheers for the foundation. It's not your beloved entropy for it's epistemological. C'mon, Bob, have a mind to build on it.

--Brant

mild snark

You have a mind.  I have a brain that works rather well.

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2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You're mixing up motion with time, Time is the measurement of motion. Motion is an attribute of all things. Motion is metaphysical. Time is epistemological.

--Brant

And, you can't perceive time, you can only perceive change.

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3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You're mixing up motion with time, Time is the measurement of motion. Motion is an attribute of all things. Motion is metaphysical. Time is epistemological.

Brant,

With all due respect, I've seen you write this before, but it sounds like semantic bullshit. 

:)

What kind of universe is it when you can only move in one direction? I would call such a universe an artificial epistemological construct, not a metaphysical fact. (That's a euphemism for bullshit. :) )

Time and space do not exist independently from each other, that is true. And that's because both are attributes of something more fundamental--the background container of everything so to speak (the universe). Besides, water is not an attribute of a fish. It's the background container a fish lives in, the only kind a fish can live in. The same kind of thinking holds for the universe and all within it.

But to go further, space does not negate the existence of time. To use an analogy, it's like saying walking is the only thing a body can do to be mobile so only legs exist as appendages, arms don't. That arms are really legs, they are just arms by illusion. :) 

And don't get me started on analogies right now... I have a dirty mind...

:) 

Michael

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Earlier today I listened to a charming interview with Freeman Dyson (it's right here on OL).

He was asked what he thinks about the contradictions that exist between the behaviors of the quantum level and the macro-cosmos.

He basically asked why there had to be similarities, why there couldn't be two realities, or two levels of reality where these things (like natural laws) operate differently.

I agree with this and it blows the concept of emergence in reductionism all to hell. Big things that emerge from small things cannot change the nature of their building materials, so to speak. So something else has to be involved with large forms.

Funny business with space and time comes to mind... As does a (possible) level of reality humans have not evolved to perceive yet...

:) 

Michael

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6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Bullshit  Greg.  Try your hand at the Trolley Problem.  Tell us how simple it is.

The trolley problem isn't real life, Bob.

Only people with rotten values try to complicate right and wrong. What is right and wrong in your own life is simple. And the objective reality of the consequences of your own actions let you know in no uncertain terms whether your acts are right or wrong...

... that is unless you feel the need to try to complicate things in order to intellectually justify your own wrong actions. Then of course, be my guest. Obfuscate all you want. That's what your secular government educated you to do like a trained monkey, because they need trained monkeys for employees.

Greg

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10 hours ago, moralist said:

The trolley problem isn't real life, Bob.

Only people with rotten values try to complicate right and wrong. What is right and wrong in your own life is simple. And the objective reality of the consequences of your own actions let you know in no uncertain terms whether your acts are right or wrong...

... that is unless you feel the need to try to complicate things in order to intellectually justify your own wrong actions. Then of course, be my guest. Obfuscate all you want. That's what your secular government educated you to do like a trained monkey, because they need trained monkeys for employees.

Greg

Yes it is real life.  It is an example of situation where no matter what you do (including doing nothing)  means an innocent person or person will die.  The hypothetical  is abstractly similar to real problems. For example in a medical emergency when the medical facilities are swamped. what to do?.  The ethical response is triage.  This is not obvious, but it is the correct and rational response. 

When the Titanic sank  the theoretical way of handling  2200 people with lifeboat room for only 1600  was women and children first,  then elderly grown ups  and after that every man for himself to get to whatever remaining room there was.   Unfortunately the handling of the sinking was so f***ed up only 700 survived including Sir Bruce Ismay the owner of the ship.  Many women and children perished.

Situation like this happen every day of the year and every year of the century. 

I have reluctantly concluded you are  not even a first rate second rate thinker.  Most of what you say is not even wrong. 

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11 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Yes it is real life.

 It's theoretical, Bob. It's not real. Intellectuals like you don't know what's real.

Quote

The ethical response is triage.  This is not obvious...

It's only not obvious to you. It's obvious to me.

Quote

I have reluctantly concluded you are  not even a first rate second rate thinker.

And I've concluded that you are a third rate doer... and that's why you were only fit to be a government employee. And now you're only a government pensioner.

 

Greg

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