Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Emergence is the opposite of magic; it highlights the physical limits of reality. For instance, objects cannot become ever bigger or ever smaller. There are physical thresholds, and when those thresholds are reached, emergence occurs, eg. star ignition.

It depends. Something of another kind "emerging" from something in which it is entirely absent is magic.

Not in the least. Stars and planets were entirely absent from the early universe. Biology was absent, as were humans. It wasn't magic, just physics.

You may argue that God lies behind the physics and I'll reply "maybe, maybe not", but emergence is clearly not magic, just the passing of physical or informational thresholds.

[Spectrum]

It depends. Something of another kind "emerging" from something in which it is entirely absent is magic.

It depends. Something of another kind "emerging" from something in which it is entirely absent is magic.
Not in the least. Stars and planets were entirely absent from the early universe. Biology was absent, as were humans. It wasn't magic, just physics.

You may argue that God lies behind the physics and I'll reply "maybe, maybe not", but emergence is clearly not magic, just the passing of physical or informational thresholds.

There are many perspectives to 'emergence'. According to Physics things emerge from elements within the reality 'soup'. This proposition is conditioned to the specific Scientific-Physics framework.

Greta, I understand you do not agree with my thesis.
My thesis of 'emergence' must imperatively include the human element.
This is similar to the observer's effect and QM [wave collapse function] where the observer is a pertinent element to the conclusion. My thesis re emergence is much more than the observer's effect in Physics.

Here is one clue [crude one] of emergence I often reference;

Note the emergence of a convex mask from a concave one is real emergence which happen only when one is viewing it, a sort of 'wave collapse function'.
Is this event of emergence that you are experiencing, 'magic'?
No, that is real.

My hypothesis is the all-things-of-reality that humans experience and speculate is similar to the above 'emergence' but on a more refined scale which require deeper reflection to understand.

I have proven 'God is an Impossibility' thus no room/possibility at all for the question whether God is behind this emergence.

[Count Lucanor]

At the risk of being mysterian, even our vast knowledge today is still much less than our ignorance of how reality works.

One comes with the other, doesn't it? It is precisely because of our vast knowledge that we're able to assess the dimension of what is yet to know. Socrates' maxim, "all that I know is that I know nothing", expresses with humbleness this paradoxical notion of wisdom. Not what you see in theologians, who's dogmatic thought is inspired by the idea that the big issues have been settled, revealed to them by the divine know-it-all creatures.

More specifically, the string theorists have posted an extra six to eight (note that string theory is not dead, it just smells funny). One may also wonder how tiny quantum entities can affect reality, but en masse they do. Meanwhile gravity remains only explainable with extra dimensions (so the boffins say).

Lots of theoretical speculative physics, which might refine our knowledge of how reality works, complementing or encompassing fundamental laws, but very unlikely to demand the rewriting of physics in whole. If the other dimensions in string theory have too little or no interaction with the observable world, they become irrelevant for our understanding and transformation of this one world we do live.

Re: the things being "brought into the fold" by knowledge, We know many things about black holes and QM, yet the limits of accessibility remain because they pertain to physical thresholds.

Not a fixed threshold, I must say, as historically it has been moving as science progresses. Interesting though, that what was once a realm of the unknown and filled up with supernatural forces and entities, eventually receded to give room to our true knowledge of the world. It's not different now: the woo-woo preachers will swear that beyond those frontiers of our knowledge, reside the old divine beings that once were the cause of rain and earthquakes.

Also, when you say "this dimension", apparently what we experience is four dimensions. I also wonder if there is at least another dimension in front of our eyes - in/out - to go with the familiar up/down, back/forth, left/right and past/future dimensions.

I assume you are referring to the space-time dimension as the fourth dimension. I can agree and acknowledge that Special and General Relativity gave us a sort of paradigm shift in how we traditionally viewed reality. Still it rested on things we already knew as physical realities (time and space), making the relations among them depending on the position of the observers, that is, referential rather than absolute.

I can relate to those who see our reality as one dimension, seeing the above parameters as practical constructs rather than reality. Seen as a single dimension, reality would seem to consist of one big thing turning itself inside out - the universe - and all of its constituents are doing the same thing (turning inside out) at differing rates. The process of life is one of turning inside out over a life span - where what was on the inside is cycled with the environment, ending with death, turning fully inside out / disaggregating. Not sure what that would mean for a god or God, though.

You might be describing substance monism. A god in a purely materialistic world would be plain nature. The next thing to ask will be if it can have consciousness. All empirical evidence and reasoning points at not being so.

[Sy Borg]

At the risk of being mysterian, even our vast knowledge today is still much less than our ignorance of how reality works.

One comes with the other, doesn't it? It is precisely because of our vast knowledge that we're able to assess the dimension of what is yet to know. Socrates' maxim, "all that I know is that I know nothing", expresses with humbleness this paradoxical notion of wisdom. Not what you see in theologians, who's dogmatic thought is inspired by the idea that the big issues have been settled, revealed to them by the divine know-it-all creatures.

As with everything, theology evolves in its own way. The ancients recorded what they saw, no doubt with some exaggeration to add traction (like today's scribes). Since they lacked scientific language, metaphor was the only referential tool, and simplified further with metonymy and synecdoches. I suppose it was inevitable that at some point their words were always going to be taken literally, not to mention being regularly doctored prior to the Gutenberg Press.

Increasingly it seems to me that more believers today are seeing literalism as naive and actually trying to understand what the ancients were trying to get across rather than mindlessly following instructions like biological golems in the idiot fringes of religion. Still, as you know, I also disagree with their continued certainty, and certainty per se. I just don't think we have enough information. It would really help if we could understand most of reality, ie. dark matter and energy, not to mention better understanding what matter and energy actually are.

Give it another few thousand years and the boffins will have a much better idea of what's going on unless they open up yet more seemingly endless rabbit holes.

More specifically, the string theorists have posted an extra six to eight (note that string theory is not dead, it just smells funny). One may also wonder how tiny quantum entities can affect reality, but en masse they do. Meanwhile gravity remains only explainable with extra dimensions (so the boffins say).

Lots of theoretical speculative physics, which might refine our knowledge of how reality works, complementing or encompassing fundamental laws, but very unlikely to demand the rewriting of physics in whole. If the other dimensions in string theory have too little or no interaction with the observable world, they become irrelevant for our understanding and transformation of this one world we do live.

I think that is unlikely thanks to chaos theory, where initial conditions (such as in speculative tiny dimensions from which these dimensions grew) dramatically change outcomes. Of course, if the speculative tiny dimensions are emergent from our known ones, then that wouldn't apply.

Re: the things being "brought into the fold" by knowledge, We know many things about black holes and QM, yet the limits of accessibility remain because they pertain to physical thresholds.

Not a fixed threshold, I must say, as historically it has been moving as science progresses. Interesting though, that what was once a realm of the unknown and filled up with supernatural forces and entities, eventually receded to give room to our true knowledge of the world. It's not different now: the woo-woo preachers will swear that beyond those frontiers of our knowledge, reside the old divine beings that once were the cause of rain and earthquakes.

Too much straw; the old divine beings have evolved, as per the above. Still, you speak of a way of thinking where the biggest thing around is a deity. Really, given the ambiguous range of definitions - between Big Santa and the ground of being - God is about as easy to critique as the concept of love - like wrestling with a cloud.

The way I'm seeing it, a fair few people have experiences that they interpret as communication with God, and then they need to work backwards in trying to posit what God is. Science works bottom-up, theology works top-down, and there's a whoppin' bloody great gap in between.

I can relate to those who see our reality as one dimension, seeing the above parameters as practical constructs rather than reality. Seen as a single dimension, reality would seem to consist of one big thing turning itself inside out - the universe - and all of its constituents are doing the same thing (turning inside out) at differing rates. The process of life is one of turning inside out over a life span - where what was on the inside is cycled with the environment, ending with death, turning fully inside out / disaggregating. Not sure what that would mean for a god or God, though.

You might be describing substance monism. A god in a purely materialistic world would be plain nature. The next thing to ask will be if it can have consciousness. All empirical evidence and reasoning points at not being so.

The monist approach is basically Spinozan pantheism. It doesn't seem to be conscious but, then again, if our bacteria or cells were sentient, we probably wouldn't look conscious on the inside either. The fact that we don't know how far the universe extends or its ultimate nature means we are only left with speculations.

[Count Lucanor]

I don't think that our experiences are purely subjective, it is clear that often our opinions correlate to external facts...I do not take my thoughts and assume that they embrace the whole of reality

Man, that was fast. I've never seen someone changing opinion so quickly. You went from: "thought is all that exists", "the program is everything" and "why materialists believe there must be mind independent 《motherboards》" to stating the existence of external facts. In a nick of time you made peace with the mind independent "motherboards".

With regard to how things like programs arise...there is only one way , through will. Experience tells us that complex , balanced ,systems require will in order to come into being ( unless you think that an F-35 fighter can possibly come into being , slowly over time, by chance alone..."slowly" must be the magical element lol.)

I suppose you believe that will is an independent singular force floating around somewhere that is applied to objects. Actually will is something developed inside the complex systems, it's a sign of their development and complexity.

[Dark Matter]

The fact that we don't know how far the universe extends or its ultimate nature means we are only left with speculations.

How sad! Unlike those who worship intellect, for religionists it’s not all about beliefs and certainty.

[Spectrum]

The fact that we don't know how far the universe extends or its ultimate nature means we are only left with speculations.

As long as one speculate grounded on Physics and the empirical in this case, there is no issue.
However from philosophical POV we need to take note of 'infinite regression' i.e. turtles all the way.

The problem is theists do not even speculate, but they take a groundless leap of faith, stop infinite regression and assert with certainty there is a first cause, i.e. God at the other end who has created reality.

An explanation for such a God is most likely to be grounded on evolutionary psychological drives as driven by an existential crisis.

This existential crisis is very real and can be empirically proven as has been done by non-theistic Eastern spiritualities and philosophies.

Resolving the existential crisis based on the idea of God is double-edged as its immutable doctrines contained evil laden elements that are feasted upon by evil prone believers to commit terrible evils and violence upon non-believers and even their own believers.

Non-theistic approaches to the existential crisis are not immutable and thus are dynamic to cope with changes in time and they morally exclude all evil elements in their philosophies.

In the longer run, humanity must wean off theistic approaches and replace them with foolproof alternatives, i.e. non-theistic approaches to deal with that inherent unavoidable existential crisis.

[Fanman]

Spectrum:

The problem is theists do not even speculate, but they take a groundless leap of faith, stop infinite regression and assert with certainty there is a first cause, i.e. God at the other end who has created reality.

Its interesting that you phrase theistic reasoning as a "problem". I agree that their reasoning includes faith, but I don't see why you define that as a "problem" in what sense is it a problem? I also think that there is grounding to a theist's reasoning, as their reasoning is usually based upon a particular framework of "God", not something that they simply invent, like an imaginary friend. I'm not saying that any frameworks of God are correct, but I don't think that "groundless leap of faith" correctly describes a theist's reasoning, as many theists are intelligent people – who may think they have credible reasons for their beliefs. We can dismiss their claims, because they are not supported by evidence, but that does not automatically mean that their reasons for belief are groundless.

It is correct that theists believe in a first cause, but that is understandable given the nature of infinite regression, a never ending sequence of causes is counter-intuitive. I understand your views on theism, but your comments towards theists seem quite insulting of their intelligence, whilst conversely, you hold to have proven things through logical arguments. There's a dynamic to your comments which makes it seem as though you think that theists are somehow inferior. Is that the case here?

[Chester]

(Nested quote removed.)


Lol, I ain't trying to push religion mate, this is just a pet theory of mine and I like to test its validity with philosophically minded people...who are usually very bright or complete wack jobs...either way their input is usually interesting.

As for emergence I don't see it as relating to natural development, things changing because of the worlds effect upon them is not emergence, emergence is when, for instance, a bunch of atoms decide to get together to form life forms with consciousness...atoms certainly don't get any survival benefit from it . The only time I've ever witnessed anything new emerging into the world that hasn't been witnessed before is when man consciously wills it...like the F-35 fighter jet that I referred to earlier.

Really, mate? So everything that exists has always existed? If nothing emerges (since that is magic) how did the stars, planets, galaxies, animals and people survive the hot ultradense plasma of the early universe?

Emergence is the opposite of magic; it highlights the physical limits of reality. For instance, objects cannot become ever bigger or ever smaller. There are physical thresholds, and when those thresholds are reached, emergence occurs, eg. star ignition.

I'm working class English so "mate" would be my usual way of addressing someone, no offence was implied.

I think loads of things have "emerged" but not via causation (which is a myth), I think that the things that have emerged have been willed into "emergence"...that's what I have witnessed in any case...like the internal combustion engine, non-will could never cause that into being so why should I assume non-will could cause something far more complex like the Universe?

[Scribbler60]

We can dismiss their claims, because they are not supported by evidence, but that does not automatically mean that their reasons for belief are groundless.

Please show, with an example or two, a claim that is unsupported by empirical evidence that is not groundless.

[Chester]

I don't think that our experiences are purely subjective, it is clear that often our opinions correlate to external facts...I do not take my thoughts and assume that they embrace the whole of reality

Man, that was fast. I've never seen someone changing opinion so quickly. You went from: "thought is all that exists", "the program is everything" and "why materialists believe there must be mind independent 《motherboards》" to stating the existence of external facts. In a nick of time you made peace with the mind independent "motherboards".

With regard to how things like programs arise...there is only one way , through will. Experience tells us that complex , balanced ,systems require will in order to come into being ( unless you think that an F-35 fighter can possibly come into being , slowly over time, by chance alone..."slowly" must be the magical element lol.)

I suppose you believe that will is an independent singular force floating around somewhere that is applied to objects. Actually will is something developed inside the complex systems, it's a sign of their development and complexity.

There was nothing fast about it at all, most human beings believe that their thoughts can relate to external reality, the only difference with this proposition is that external reality is constructed by a greater mind from the substance of thought alone . As I have said , reality is composed by the laws of nature which in no way necessitates mind independence...this is a dream like experience, but what makes it real is the laws.

My belief is that will is the ultimate force, it is the foundation of reality, it is the thing that you misconstrue as physical material or energy. Will is the cause of complex development.

[Dark Matter]

I suppose you believe that will is an independent singular force floating around somewhere that is applied to objects. Actually will is something developed inside the complex systems, it's a sign of their development and complexity.

Why not simply say what you mean? Just call it "magical."

[Fanman]

Scribbler60:

Please show, with an example or two, a claim that is unsupported by empirical evidence that is not groundless.

There are many claims made by people with beliefs of religious or spiritual encounters. Such claims are anecdotal in nature and are not supported by empirical evidence. Whether or not all such claims are groundless is debatable, as I think that a person's beliefs or lack of beliefs directly influences if they perceive veracity in any such claims.

Since you asked for an example I'll attempt to provide one:

Some years ago I became interested in astral projection, and I read accounts from people who claimed to have projected their consciousness outside of their body, which took the form of themselves only not physical in nature. I was sceptical about whether they were experiencing something real, but I practised the techniques and eventually I was able to, seemingly, project out of my body, whereby I was in the same room and observed myself (or my body) sleeping. I don't know if the experience was a hallucination, but it seemed as though what occurred was a controlled out of body experience. My point is, if the experience was as it seemed and not a hallucination, it may give some anecdotal grounding to the idea of a non-physical essence or "soul". I don't believe that my experience does that, but I could understand if people interpreted such an experience in such a way that they surmised it gave some credence to the idea of a soul or that the experience had some grounding.

[Dark Matter]

Scribbler60:

Please show, with an example or two, a claim that is unsupported by empirical evidence that is not groundless.

How about the validity of science?

[Sy Borg]

We are doomed if people cannot agree on even the most fundamental aspects of reality, which is all science is. If science isn't valid, then nothing is aside from the noise in our skulls. Fake moon landing. Flat Earth. Anti-vax. Evolution denial. The list goes on. It's pure hubris - the notion that a nation of people can create their own reality. Let's see how that nation competes with others who take reality seriously.