The Divided House of Faith and Reason

[SteveA]

Also, there may be an issue with deciding which pathways to begin searching first

Not a problem, for all paths happen all at once, superimposed.

I think there's a way to possibly expand in all possible dimensions while still passing a single "timeline" through them and keeping each one at a distinct position relative to a common origin.

(I say this because I problems with having perfectly orthogonal dimensions - imagine if there was some physical property that was perfectly orthogonal to all other properties - changing this property would have no effect on any other property and it wouldn't seem that the property could be interpreted as existing within the same space and related to anything else - it would just be a thing effectively detached and existing in it's own universe as its own thing ... though maybe there can exist one such thing for any universe that effectively defines everything in the set that defines the universe as the property that can remain stationary or change and yet they all possess it (like time), but it's not something contained as a subset of things within the space).

I've seen the problem mirrored in a lot of ways, such as trying to compute x/y if both x and y can become infinite and no relationship is specified between them - the ratio between two unknowns is still unknown and this would be like trying to locate the angle of an object in space at some x and y coordinate if the x and y axises did not share a common unit by which they're both derived, but if some relationship between x and y is specified, then there's really only one infinite quantity that's distributed or multiplexed between properties in both dimensions.

The reason it can't be designed is that Alain Aspect proved that there are no local hidden variables within the quantum. Cause had to end somewhere and lucky wee are that it was sooner rather than later..

Obviously, by definition, hidden variables could not be measured otherwise they wouldn't be hidden, but that's at one moment of time. In the next moment, something that's unknown can become known and is no longer hidden and so in terms of time these could be seen as adjacent elements and "local" in that respect, if not in spacial terms.

Basically, consider that if photons always travel faster than mass, then masses are effectively stationary relative to light and light speed - you can't physically follow in front of a photon and predict when and where it will be detected (light speed can be infinitely fast as long as the end result of the observed ordering of events remains the same - you saw the clock read 2:30 when you emitted the laser pulse and the clock read 2:31 when the pulse was detected to have returned. There isn't a speed, in terms of mass, at which light moves too fast, nor a speed at which it moves too slow as long as you can't see it while it's moving (if it even does "move" through space in any typical sense) - the restriction of light speed is simply one of cause and effect - notice that NIST conveniently defined what light speed is in terms of meters per second and it just so happens its an integer quantity of meters per second - coincidence? No. People aren't measuring the speed of light in any absolute manner. By looking at things and orienting them using round trip delays to define an experiment setup, the only thing being measured is that nothing moved - and even that's only provable in a statistical sense - things didn't move "much" and the larger the objects are (as defined by larger statistical collections of photons) the inconsistancies in each measurement tend to cancel and ultimately a supposed "stationary" observation is made (the larger the mass the greater the inertia and less sensitivity in the aggregate measure to the differences measured in each photon)).

Anyway, I'm just saying that there can be a "plan" or it could be simply "random", there's no way to prove that randomness is not planned as something random can easily follow according to a plan, though I don't think it's as easy to go from something planned and call it random (a randomly selected plan or planned (illusion of) randomness? As another sidenote, I don't think "perfect" randomness in all respects is possible. There are many characteristics that randomness is assumed to possess and it likely impossible to list all of them and have a single sequence ever successfully meet all the expectations, though there might be a way to consider some subsets of a sequence to be perfectly random, but with additional non-random "baggage" in between. It's similar to the idea that various different processes can be used to define a perfect circle, when you delve down to the infinitesimal details involved, they only appear to approach the same structure, but in most cases there is never a way to construct a 1 to 1 correlation between all these elements in one construction and the elements in the other construction so a perfect circle is either not just those things that appear to approach its form, or a perfect circle is actually a superposition of possible forms and does not exist as any one of these specifically - and in that case, none of the definitions independently would be correct as they're defining only a subset).

The Houses of Faith and Reason are divided since, while both claim the causeless, one imagines absolutely perfect order while the other actually sees no order whatsoever.

If ones experiences, knowledge and perspective grew larger, in which direction do you think these opinions would sway?

I'd assume it would shift toward the ordered view, but then again, if the possibilities are unlimited and knowledge allows the discernment of greater options, then it could be possible to have an opinion shift toward there being no order - I gusess could depend upon what form of knowledge one prefers to pay attention to and grow.

There is also a feedback theory that suggests everything was created in our own future by some super-evolved universal mind that is our destiny to get to.

I enjoy mulling over all the possibilities

Thanks, Austin.

[austintorn@aol.com]

If ones experiences, knowledge and perspective grew larger, in which direction do you think these opinions would sway?

The House of Faith would have to admit to no order at all, which is as opposite as a state could be from a the imagined perfect order; however, no amount of facts can halt imagination.

Currently they claim an answer as a stopping point of the Ultimate and Infinite Complexity: God. This is not an answer but a larger question, an infinitely larger one.

No sweat, though, as a Designer would then require a DESIGNER.

And no sweat if a smart alien or a computer made the universe, for then we would skip over all that middle-man stuff and arrive at the same point that we are now, which is that there would still have to be a causeless bottom [where the buck stops] which was around forever, i.e., it had no creation, thus ruling out Anything Else right at the source. 'Something' was the natural state of affairs, not Nothing, thus, again, no creation necessary [of it]. A total Nothing couldn't do a darn thing; it is not even there; it has no existence but as a partial lack of something, such as a donut hole.

Complexity lies in the other direction [upward], not downward.

Now, suppose that all evolution took place in this possibility mode of superposition of all paths, some paths working and some failing… It went on and on, there being nothing outside of it to collapse the wave function, until…


note: Alain Aspect didn't measure for any local hidden variables, as Bohm wished for them to be, but proved that there couldn't be any, leeaving only the impossible superluminal ones.

[SteveA]

note: Alain Aspect didn't measure for any local hidden variables, as Bohm wished for them to be, but proved that there couldn't be any, leeaving only the impossible superluminal ones.

We can place unknowns whereever you want:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

Despite the theoretical arguments against the existence of tachyon particles, experimental searches have been conducted to test the assumption against their existence; however, no experimental evidence for or against the existence of tachyon particles has been found.

Again, what is it in the universe that warped spacetime in Relativity warps relative to? What's the ruler that does not bend in order to see that a pathway for light has been bent by gravity?

If something is seen as altered from some other form, then in order to verify this as true or not we need to also be able to witness its unaltered form to make comparisons against. (Basically this is physically impossible, yet people still claim to do it all the time - can you figure out what it is they're using to make these supposed measurements of physical change?)

[austintorn@aol.com]

Again, what is it in the universe that warped spacetime in Relativity warps relative to?

To its regular unwarped regions where light is not bent?

[austintorn@aol.com]

[Weir]

There is a blind spot that concerns the nature of space and time and that inflicts frameworks of understanding. Many academic scientists as well as the general population and contributors to this website have great difficulty in seeing that space and time are NOT determining conditions of this physical creation. Space and time are concepts derived from this physical creation a posteriori. There is no justification for raising them to a priori status to explain creation. How can space and time have an origin in space and time? It is a contradiction in terms. It is bootstrapping run amuck. Scientists used to know that there were serious philosophical contradictions in Big Bang theory and yet they have been swept under the rug of convoluted meta-languages. Language has a way of masking space-time assumptions implicit in the nature of language.

In his Essays on the Theory of Numbers in 1858 the mathematician Richard Dedekind showed that any continuous space can be shown to be everywhere discontinuous. There are bottomless irrational holes in it just as there are irrational discontinuities in a continuous line. We have known for millennia that the units of measurement used to measure the diameter of circle can not be used to measure the circumference with complete accuracy and vice versa, because pi is an irrational number. Yet the circle is clearly drawn there on the piece of paper.

There are discontinuities in space and time. Space and time are quantized. Light comes to us a series of discrete pulses consistent with the Planck constant. The year before he died Einstein expressed doubts that physics could be based on continuous structures in which case “his castle in the sky amounts to nothing but so does the rest of modern physics.”

The point is that there is a Cosmic Order that determines the nature of creation. It projects physical events as a series of discrete synchronous frames in a cosmic movie. Space and time derive from creation as a consequence. The Cosmic Order can not admit of an order more fundamental than itself. It can have no beginning or end in space or time. It can not change the dynamic way that it works, even though it determines the pattern of all change. It must embrace all possible varieties of phenomenal experience. It alone determines the nature of universal truth if there is to be such a thing as a transcending timeless basis to truth. We must have intuitive right brain faith that there is such a thing as universal truth that can be known directly in personal phenomenal experience. This is what the quest is all about. It is blind only to the extent that we can not yet actually see the truth. This is not to confuse blind faith in this regard with blind belief where one only THINKS they know as a rationalization in language.

This does NOT mean that universal truth can be reduced to left brain language, logic and reason. The Cosmic Order determines the meaning implicit in all language, not vice versa. So even if one does actually have the phenomenal experience of realizing universal truth, the experience itself is private and can not be reduced to language for others to experience, although things may be said about it. Communication in words requires a shared basis of experience. Please have a look at the article Inside Our Three Brains at www.cosmic-mindreach.com. There are a variety of other related articles there as well.

[SteveA]

To its regular unwarped regions where light is not bent?

Does there physically exist such a place? If so, what tool(s) are needed to find it?

There is a blind spot that concerns the nature of space and time and that inflicts frameworks of understanding. Many academic scientists as well as the general population and contributors to this website have great difficulty in seeing that space and time are NOT determining conditions of this physical creation. Space and time are concepts derived from this physical creation a posteriori. There is no justification for raising them to a priori status to explain creation. How can space and time have an origin in space and time? It is a contradiction in terms. It is bootstrapping run amuck. Scientists used to know that there were serious philosophical contradictions in Big Bang theory and yet they have been swept under the rug of convoluted meta-languages. Language has a way of masking space-time assumptions implicit in the nature of language.

The same is true in many areas of mathematics.

In his Essays on the Theory of Numbers in 1858 the mathematician Richard Dedekind showed that any continuous space can be shown to be everywhere discontinuous. There are bottomless irrational holes in it just as there are irrational discontinuities in a continuous line.

Yes, and this causes problems for calculus using infinitesimals also.

We have known for millennia that the units of measurement used to measure the diameter of circle can not be used to measure the circumference with complete accuracy and vice versa, because pi is an irrational number. Yet the circle is clearly drawn there on the piece of paper.

And if we delve in we find that both the mathematical and physical versions are dynamic constructions using discrete objects on larger and larger scales.

The static infinite form of a circle doesn't exist in nature, logic or mathematics. It's a structure that grows by discrete units over time. The constant component is the seed process (but it does nothing without access to space and time, which in many ways can be seen as an entropy that "feeds" it).

There are discontinuities in space and time. Space and time are quantized. Light comes to us a series of discrete pulses consistent with the Planck constant. The year before he died Einstein expressed doubts that physics could be based on continuous structures in which case “his castle in the sky amounts to nothing but so does the rest of modern physics.”

But mental inertia is difficult to overcome, it's good to see that Einstein was still working on it. Too bad he didn't have better mathematical/logical tools to work with.

The point is that there is a Cosmic Order that determines the nature of creation. It projects physical events as a series of discrete synchronous frames in a cosmic movie. Space and time derive from creation as a consequence. The Cosmic Order can not admit of an order more fundamental than itself. It can have no beginning or end in space or time. It can not change the dynamic way that it works, even though it determines the pattern of all change. It must embrace all possible varieties of phenomenal experience. It alone determines the nature of universal truth if there is to be such a thing as a transcending timeless basis to truth. We must have intuitive right brain faith that there is such a thing as universal truth that can be known directly in personal phenomenal experience. This is what the quest is all about. It is blind only to the extent that we can not yet actually see the truth. This is not to confuse blind faith in this regard with blind belief where one only THINKS they know as a rationalization in language.

Something that "hit me" recently was that we actually base our thinking implicitly on unchanging/unwarped/unaltered etc. concepts in order to see change/alterations etc. in time.

I was trying to point that out above when I was referring to the space that must not warp or bend if we're to be able to know that some other space does warp or bend.

If we bent a ruler, the ruler is bent. The unbent ruler does not physically exist yet we could consider this ruler to now be bent.

But consider it the other way around - if I had a circle and snipped one edge and "bent" the circle into a straight line (segment), is the line a bent circle or a straight line? (And because real and mathematical circles contain discrete points - oh I can hear the groans already - we end up with a string of discrete "events" like a timeline, but with many perspectives depending upon assumptions about what it's properties should be - if we assume it's infinite and straight, then it leads from an unknown past to an unknow future, if we consider it finite then it has a beginning and an end, if we assume it's finite, but bent as a circle, then it repeats, if we assume it's infinite and bent then it's a beautiful paradox ... and then if that wasn't enough subjective warping to space, we have another semi-objective view (interestingly symmetrical for events travelling both forward and backward in time and correlated with the construction of a number line) if we continually slice a circle into halves we have the equivalent linear construction of cutting line segments in half (which is an operation that's symmetrical from both direction in time) and we have the appearance of a fractal structure when travelling along the line segment linearly - though this would all depend upon an underlying ability to retain a record of its unaltered form - if you didn't know what it was, there would be no way to see it as being different or bend or have objective views or various textures etc. all of these require an inherent reference to their "unaltered" states - though there's still a question of which is being altered - it or you, it's still symmetrical in that a difference is a difference and memories may not be very reliable - you can't construct a copy of something and rely on it as a reference of how something should be unless you can be certain that the copy is not altered - but if something is truly an identical copy of something else, then one should be just as alterable as the other and it doesn't help to make a copy of the copy ad infinitum or you end with democracies, voting and statistics to define what is unchanging ... hmmm ... sounds a lot like "reality", very interesting ).

Notice that at no moment was any of it other than what it is at the time. Something that never changed would never need a reference to verify it against anything else.

This does NOT mean that universal truth can be reduced to left brain language, logic and reason. The Cosmic Order determines the meaning implicit in all language, not vice versa.

Yes, objective concepts must share a common reference - if I made up new words at whim they wouldn't be seen as referenced to anything specific.

It's also interesting to recognize that if something was capable of understanding all possible languages they would not be able to understand any language at all because there would never be a word, sentence, paragraph or book that wouldn't have a potentially infinite number of meanings in an infinite number of languages.

The sentence "I'm speaking English" means "Thalaxian I speak" (in the Thalaxian language, of course ).

There are innate assumptions made as to what truth is and these lie beyond physical measurement (whether or not a "correct"/valid etc. physical measurement is made is based upon a large number of assumptions and beliefs).

So even if one does actually have the phenomenal experience of realizing universal truth, the experience itself is private and can not be reduced to language for others to experience, although things may be said about it. Communication in words requires a shared basis of experience. Please have a look at the article Inside Our Three Brains at

www.cosmic-mindreach.com. There are a variety of other related articles there as well.

I'll check out the link, though I'd hazard a guess that everyone experiences universal truth already, but it's not until a sufficient quantity of fallacies are constructed that the patterns become recognized (though I admit that for me personally, it's still much like trying to unravel layers of an onion - there's always just a little bit more and I've already got a growing pile of onion rings I can hardly begin to know what to do with! - so who knows, and there remains an unknown which appears physically and logically insurmountable).

I'll check out your link. Thanks for the post.

[austintorn@aol.com]

We humans mirror and recapitulate all of evolution while growing in our mother’s womb, racing through the stages through which life evolved. During this nine months, and even beyond that, we move from mindlessness to shadowy awareness to consciousness of the world around us onto consciousness of the self and even then to becoming conscious of consciousness itself.

For the first two and one-half years of life, the inexplicable holistic world is experienced less and less holistically as the child discovers the bounds of discrete objects. The holistic right brain remains, of course, for us to take in the overall view, while the logical left brain is also there to recognize the detailed relationships between objects. As such, so is the universe, since we are formed in its image.
So, then, this gives us a clue to the nature of the universe. Seeing that the brain is divided into two hemispheres, each with their own characteristic mode of thought, that can communicate with each other—means that we are looking very deeply into the way that reality itself is constructed.

These two complimentary aspects to the cosmos are thus absolutely essential, one being the whole: the apparently indivisible, continuous fluid entity[although discrete at unnoticable levels], the other being the interrelationships of the parts. Each interpretation cannot appear at exactly the same time, but the Yin gives way to Yang and then back to Yin, and so on, the rounded life of the mind thus continuing to fully roll as the cycle of this symmetry turns and returns; if not, one either gets totally lost in the details or prematurely halts after the apparent whole.

The holistic right brain mode is unfocused, as we see in some people who are unconcerned with details, it always building the scene in parallel to form a single entity; whereas, the focused left side of brain isolates the target of interest and tracks it and its derivatives sequentially and serially.

Yet, the two sides of the overall brain are connected to each other and so the speed of the juggling can meld them together into a balance like that portrayed by the revolving Yin-Yang symbol, each receding and then giving rise to the other. Such does the universe go both ways, too, its separate parts implicated with everything else in the whole.

During conscious observation, the ‘hereness’ and ‘nowness’ of reality crystalizes and remains; we establishing what that reality is. We define and refine the nature of reality that must itself lead to mind. Counterintuitive? Cyclical? Yes, but it is the universe in dialog with itself. The wave functions, and yet the function waves. The universe supplies the means of its own creation, its possibilities supplying the avenues and the probability and workability that carve out the paths leading to success.

So, what paths led us to the light at the end of this dark alley of an idea? Well, Nothing ever begets nothing, and defined things can’t have been around forever since there is no first place to define things with any definite definition, not to mention that ‘forevers’ can’t exist since they cannot ever complete. There was ever the simplicity of the chaotic causeless possibility, it having no creation— as 'something' had to be the normal state of affairs, not Nothing.

So, here we are, then and now, the rains of change falling everywhere, the streams being carved out, the water rising back up to the sky, the rain then falling everywhere, the streams recarving and meandering toward more meaning and so on.

[SteveA]

Great post Austin, though I think there's more to it than you left room for at the end in these last two paragraphs.

...
So, what paths led us to the light at the end of this dark alley of an idea? Well, Nothing ever begets nothing, and defined things can’t have been around forever since there is no first place to define things with any definite definition,

Why can't a definition last forever? (I'm not talking about about a physical object here, but a definition)

For example, do believe "Everything" (assuming it has a definition) end in time?

And if a definition is indefinite, what defined it to be so?

not to mention that ‘forevers’ can’t exist since they cannot ever complete.

Yes, I'd have to agree that sequential logic doesn't appear capable of computing things at the end of forever.

There was ever the simplicity of the chaotic causeless possibility, it having no creation— as 'something' had to be the normal state of affairs, not Nothing.

Agreed, though there may be some perspective within it, in which it appears to be created from nothing.

So, here we are, then and now, the rains of change falling everywhere, the streams being carved out, the water rising back up to the sky, the rain then falling everywhere, the streams recarving and meandering toward more meaning and so on.

Ok, when you say "more meaning" you imply that there was previously less meaning.

Was there a first meaning, or are you trying to imply the quantity never changes and there is always some fixed or finite quantity of meaning and these simply change ... or what else am I not considering?

If we drew a line on a chalkboard and had to describe how the implied quantity of meaning gathered over time by a flowing river progressed, would there be an origin, or if not, I'd assume you'd have to agree that river always had a meaning or it never did, or at some point it began with no meaning and was given the first meaning ... anyway, if you can clarify this better, I'm all ears.

[austintorn@aol.com]

And if a definition is indefinite, what defined it to be so?

Can't have a definition with nothing defining the causeless. The indefinite requires no definition.


Yes, I'd have to agree that sequential logic doesn't appear capable of computing things at the end of forever.

Nor at the no-beginning forever back from now. The sequence from back then could never complete its forever unto now.


In which it appears to be created from nothing.

If all was a total Nothing [not even 'there'], there would still be Nothing 'here'. Must have been a 'something' that was just a near 'nothing'. It was unstable and perhaps just an attempt at a Nothing would also be. The great philosophical question of Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing is not so great, for there was no 'instead of', for 'something' is and was the natural state of affairs. An absolute Nothing just can't cut it, for it has no existence.


Ok, when you say "more meaning" you imply that there was previously less meaning.

Yes, but I mean some kind of feedback system and also personal meaning derived from more learning.