[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Ham Priday]

Round 2 with Case on Case:


> There is only one point in space and time where the probability of
anything
> is at 100%. That point is NOW, and then it is gone, replaced with a string
> of new NOWs. NOW is that point in the present where all of the wave
> functions, all of the guess work, all of the coulda-woulda-shouldas are
> resolved, everywhere in the universe all at once. NOW transcends space and
> time and focuses everything in a singe instant. This happens continuously.

I have no problem with that.

> We as beings have no access to this instant of NOW. It is, in principle,
> theoretically, actually and metaphysically beyond our reach. Our sense
data
> of it, even our mystical connection with it, are limited by the time it
> takes a thought to form or a nerve impulse to travel. By our very nature
we
> are always one step behind. It is limited by the fact that even looking at
> it changes it. In this sense "Reality" IS undefined.

I agree that what we experience as "the present" trails a bit behind the
actual present.  For practical purposes, though, I think we can say that we
live in the present..

> Outside of that instant of 100% probability; every other instant, in both
> temporal directions, Past and Future can, in principle, be assigned a
> likelihood. The future will be thus and so, or the past was like this...
> These are estimates of probability because they contain some element of
> uncertainty.

I was going to ask you what the element of uncertainty regarding the past
was, but I see you've answered it:

> I believe the same can be said about the past. In the case of the past we
> have stored information available to make guesses, but the elements of
> uncertainty inherent in our recollection make accurate statement about
what
> has already happened as problematic as our guessing about the future. The
> farther you stray from the present the more uncertainties compound.

This is an excellent précis on probability, Case.  And as an intellectual
understanding of how things came to be the way they are, it is quite
reasonable.  But, as you note in your second paragraph, human sensibility is
a sequence of experiences limited by time and incapable of experiencing the
future or even the real 'now'.

Here's where we start to run into problems:

> To speak of how all this came into existence is to ask; if not a
meaningless
> question, then one that can not be answered. We can and do speak of the
> likelihood of this or the likelihood of that.

How "unlikely" would you regard my thesis that time and space are not
"real" -- that is, not indigenous to the universe -- but instead constitute
the mode of human awareness?  In that case, what we experience at any given
moment is analogous to a single frame of a motion picture, with the
preceding frames providing some continuity with the past.  What degree of
probablilty are you willing to give to such an idea?

The reason I bring this up at all is because of something you said in your
sarcastic note of 7/3:

> But [Case] thinks that if it has ANY likelihood at all it is inevitable.

Despite your brilliant monograph on probability, its significance to
existence as we know it pales if the truth is that it's really "inevitable".
I suggest that Case's belief system is not based on the probability of
things being the way they are, but on the law(s) of inevitability.  If this
is the case [pun only partially intended], then, the millions of millenia
required to achieve this inevitable outcome amounts to a hill of beans.
What really matters is that the result was inevitable or, as most
intelligent people would have concluded by now, "intended".  Now, unless you
want to contest the difference between what is inevitable and what is
intended, this conclusion begs the question: Who or what intended it?  I
needn't tell you where this has led us, except to point out that it is CASE
not Ham who got us here.

You also made a rather revealing admission:

> I believe that all of this has profound moral implications and that there
is
> purpose here, but it all arises from, is contained within and is solely
> relevant to US.

Absolutely!  Case is not just a statistician but a philosopher after all.
By George, there may be hope for him yet!

Thanks for the dissertation, and have a bang-up Fourth.

--Ham