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

[Felix]

"Just accept the world's cosmic forces and the ultimate fate"

Well Aurobindo didn't suggest that we just accept our collective fate but he also didn't give clear instructions on how to avoid it, no doubt because it's an evolutonary process that cannot be verbally explained.

Are there any science fictions books that explore the idea you've proposed?

[BigBango]

"Just accept the world's cosmic forces and the ultimate fate"

Well Aurobindo didn't suggest that we just accept our collective fate but he also didn't give clear instructions on how to avoid it, no doubt because it's an evolutonary process that cannot be verbally explained.

Are there any science fictions books that explore the idea you've proposed?

My theory is not science fiction it is a template that describes the nature of the world that existed before our world and is responsible for the nature of our world. I do not have a hero that has troubles but perseveres through it all.

Although you might consider me as the hero. You will remember me as BBB. Before the Big Bang or you will remember me as ABB. After the Big Bang.

[Atla]

Tamminen, let us say that before the BC/BB you were a civilization that was very close to your galactic center. Would you not try to save your ecological systems that support you. Would your civilization just accept its cosmological demise as inevitable or would it employ its technology to get the hell out of dodge city. Of course our technology would be completely ineffectual to do that. However a civilization's technology near the end of its collapsing universe might be billions of years ahead of us.

This collapsing universe before the BC/BB gave rise to the "separation" of civilizations that had the technology to flee the collapse and those that could not avoid extinction.

This story is about the world that collapsed. Its ratio of the mass of galactic centers to the mass of stars and planets is the ratio we find between visible matter and dark matter, 10% to 90%.

Escaping destruction by being subsumed by a black hole is a real theat. We must learn from our fractal forerunners that technology is our only savior.

How does a civilization escape the BC, when it's inherently bound to its universe?

[Atla]

This story is about the world that collapsed. Its ratio of the mass of galactic centers to the mass of stars and planets is the ratio we find between visible matter and dark matter, 10% to 90%.

Then why do we keep finding galaxies with almost no dark matter. Yeah your story is just bad science fiction.

[Felix]

"Yeah your story is just bad science fiction."

We'll have to wait to see the plot.... Hey, if Marvel comic book stories can become Hollywood blockbusters, anything's possible!

Have black holes been encountered in any of the Star Trek series? (or dark matter?) Seems like a topic they want to avoid.

[BigBango]

This story is about the world that collapsed. Its ratio of the mass of galactic centers to the mass of stars and planets is the ratio we find between visible matter and dark matter, 10% to 90%.

Then why do we keep finding galaxies with almost no dark matter. Yeah your story is just bad science fiction.

Atla I do not mind you calling my story "bad science fiction". My story was not intended to be science fiction. But I think you also were trying to say it is bad science.

The fact that we keep finding galaxies with almost no dark matter is of concern to me. Thank you for pointing that out. I am not that aware of current cosmological findings. My theory, developed over the last 10 years, just took in what was apparent then. My theory has many assumptions which I have not made clear. I am assuming that our galaxy, the milky way, is an average galaxy as to its ratio of dark matter to visible matter. If that can be shown to not be true then my calculations need to be adjusted. I welcome your insights as to what might be considered as a more realistic figure and I assume that as we learn more about galaxies we have not ever seen that the 10% to 90% figure for an average galaxy may change.

My calculations are just "ball park" speculations. I do not pretend to be doing good science. I am just trying to point the way to good science.

[Felix]

95% dark matter and energy is the figure I've read, but its density varies in galaxies:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 092327.htm

[JikanSurfer]

I came up with the rough idea years ago that since my experience of the universe was put together from nothing, as in there was nothing before my first memories and my experience gradually grew out of the void from my particular configuration of elements, that because it was possible for such a thing to happen, there is the chance given infinite time and space that such a phenomenon would happen again.

But only recently did I really start thinking about how I came to that logic and what exactly it would mean in terms of science and the brain and consciousness. Clearly, memories are stored in the brain, so those memories would not physically transfer to someone or something else once I am gone. But lack of memory was no barrier to my emergence from nothing the first time; it just meant that I had a fresh vessel to fill. What's to stop a second emergence of experience of the universe as some kind of physical memory forms?

Also there is the question of, if consciousness is a physical process, why do I experience it rather than anyone else? Other people could be philosophical zombies because I see them acting but I don't feel them. So if my experience is a physical process, why am I feeling it and aware of it rather than my brain and body being just another zombie separate of me? And how can such awareness be fashioned from the sandwiches and coffees that my parents were eating at the time?

If my current experience can be put together from bits and pieces of universe, then surely, minus the memories and habits and physical predispositions, that experience can be fashioned once again? The experience being the "perspective," the piece of me that is the universe observing itself, the eye that sees the flow of time go from infinitely fast before birth to the crawl of seconds on the clock proceeding it.

Recently I decided to search up on this idea, and with some difficulty I found that some people had posted similar conclusions years ago, and discovered the term "Generic Subjective Continuity," which sounded similar to what I had been thinking of as "the Eternal Observer," referring to that perspective of the thing through which the universe observes itself that manifests within conscious beings. Whether it's physical or spiritual, I can't imagine why it couldn't manifest the same way again, because I can't imagine what it would be like if one's experience did not emerge in the same fashion again, in some other universe, or any other possible concoction of the nothingness and infinity that we apparently exploded out of.

[Tamminen]

the Eternal Observer

A good term. I like that. You clearly see what this is all about.

[Tamminen]

In my vocabulary your 'eternal observer' would be a synonym for 'eternal present' where 'present' has the double meaning of 'here' and 'now'.

[JikanSurfer]

the Eternal Observer

A good term. I like that. You clearly see what this is all about.

In my vocabulary your 'eternal observer' would be a synonym for 'eternal present' where 'present' has the double meaning of 'here' and 'now'.

Thanks, it was a way to describe the part of us which is not the philosophical zombie, the part which is the universe observing itself. And in effect, the eternal present would only be experience by the eternal observer, without the observer there would be no present.

[ubojico]

I came up with the rough idea years ago that since my experience of the universe was put together from nothing, as in there was nothing before my first memories and my experience gradually grew out of the void from my particular configuration of elements, that because it was possible for such a thing to happen, there is the chance given infinite time and space that such a phenomenon would happen again.

But only recently did I really start thinking about how I came to that logic and what exactly it would mean in terms of science and the brain and consciousness. Clearly, memories are stored in the brain, so those memories would not physically transfer to someone or something else once I am gone. But lack of memory was no barrier to my emergence from nothing the first time; it just meant that I had a fresh vessel to fill. What's to stop a second emergence of experience of the universe as some kind of physical memory forms?

Also there is the question of, if consciousness is a physical process, why do I experience it rather than anyone else? Other people could be philosophical zombies because I see them acting but I don't feel them. So if my experience is a physical process, why am I feeling it and aware of it rather than my brain and body being just another zombie separate of me? And how can such awareness be fashioned from the sandwiches and coffees that my parents were eating at the time?

If my current experience can be put together from bits and pieces of universe, then surely, minus the memories and habits and physical predispositions, that experience can be fashioned once again? The experience being the "perspective," the piece of me that is the universe observing itself, the eye that sees the flow of time go from infinitely fast before birth to the crawl of seconds on the clock proceeding it.

Recently I decided to search up on this idea, and with some difficulty I found that some people had posted similar conclusions years ago, and discovered the term "Generic Subjective Continuity," which sounded similar to what I had been thinking of as "the Eternal Observer," referring to that perspective of the thing through which the universe observes itself that manifests within conscious beings. Whether it's physical or spiritual, I can't imagine why it couldn't manifest the same way again, because I can't imagine what it would be like if one's experience did not emerge in the same fashion again, in some other universe, or any other possible concoction of the nothingness and infinity that we apparently exploded out of.

This is exactly what I've been thinking about, and went a step further. You are right, there is no reason why I'm not a philosophical zombie but everyone else seem to exist without the need to experience them. When I die, this Eternal Observer will observe again from a new perspective, but at the same time, there is nothing special about dying that "opens a slot" for a new experience, those experiences are already here and now. This is how I came to the conclusion that not only will "I" observe again after my death, "I" am actually currently observing all observations happening, there just isn't a direct link between them. I am experiencing everyone's experience right now.

[Tamminen]

I am experiencing everyone's experience right now.

I am not experiencing your experience now that I am writing this text, as we both know. Subjective time is something very concrete. It is possible that each individual subject's subjective time is part of the eternal subjective time, but successively, not simultaneously. I think there is only one "eternal observer" or "eternal present" that goes through all the subjective time that existence consists of. However, 'eternal' does not mean 'timeless' but 'endless'.

This scenario is paradoxical as we are here discussing, knowing that each of us is a genuine other to everyone else. But I find no logical contradiction in it, as opposed to the simultaneous experiencing of everybody's experiences. However, this presupposes some kind of solipsism, which may be too much to accept for most of us. And because of this, all we say here is really beyond words.

[ubojico]

I am experiencing everyone's experience right now.

I am not experiencing your experience now that I am writing this text, as we both know. Subjective time is something very concrete. It is possible that each individual subject's subjective time is part of the eternal subjective time, but successively, not simultaneously. I think there is only one "eternal observer" or "eternal present" that goes through all the subjective time that existence consists of. However, 'eternal' does not mean 'timeless' but 'endless'.

This scenario is paradoxical as we are here discussing, knowing that each of us is a genuine other to everyone else. But I find no logical contradiction in it, as opposed to the simultaneous experiencing of everybody's experiences. However, this presupposes some kind of solipsism, which may be too much to accept for most of us. And because of this, all we say here is really beyond words.

Successive experiences (only my current experience until I die and only then the next one comes) would basically mean only I currently am conscious and everyone else is a philosophical zombie, until it's my turn to be them.

I don't see that as the case. Your current consciousness is as real as mine. I don't have access to it so it appears to be a separate thing, but it is the same thing, all experiences belong to one experiencer.

[BigBango]

I am experiencing everyone's experience right now.

I am not experiencing your experience now that I am writing this text, as we both know. Subjective time is something very concrete. It is possible that each individual subject's subjective time is part of the eternal subjective time, but successively, not simultaneously. I think there is only one "eternal observer" or "eternal present" that goes through all the subjective time that existence consists of. However, 'eternal' does not mean 'timeless' but 'endless'.

This scenario is paradoxical as we are here discussing, knowing that each of us is a genuine other to everyone else. But I find no logical contradiction in it, as opposed to the simultaneous experiencing of everybody's experiences. However, this presupposes some kind of solipsism, which may be too much to accept for most of us. And because of this, all we say here is really beyond words.

I am experiencing everyone's experience right now.

I am not experiencing your experience now that I am writing this text, as we both know. Subjective time is something very concrete. It is possible that each individual subject's subjective time is part of the eternal subjective time, but successively, not simultaneously. I think there is only one "eternal observer" or "eternal present" that goes through all the subjective time that existence consists of. However, 'eternal' does not mean 'timeless' but 'endless'.

This scenario is paradoxical as we are here discussing, knowing that each of us is a genuine other to everyone else. But I find no logical contradiction in it, as opposed to the simultaneous experiencing of everybody's experiences. However, this presupposes some kind of solipsism, which may be too much to accept for most of us. And because of this, all we say here is really beyond words.

Good posts everybody. You are all making these hard to grasp ideas clearer and clearer.

My only reservation to what you are espousing is that your metaphysics fall very near to what Kant criticized in his "Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics". You must find some empirical credence to your theories and quit relying on our sympathetic agreement to your intuitions.

To do that has been my mission and yet all I get is my theories are bad science fiction and bad science.

Aldous Huxley was the first to say that the "nervous system" is eliminative rather than expansive of sensation. That is why we are focused on our corner of reality instead of the infinite connections we have to all other subjects.

I am trying to develop a metaphysical explanation, that is empirically testable, to explain what Tamminen is saying and bring his theory back into one which does not just have to be intuited. I wish I had some help!