[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Case]

Round 2 with Case on Case:
[Case]
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.

[Ham]
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..

[Case]
No, this is not a small point. It can not be brushed aside or dismissed. We
do not live in the present at all. We live in a post hoc reconstruction or a
recursion of the present. We are an echo of the present.

[Ham]
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?  

[Case]
What we have is our reconstruction, so the question you ask would seem to be
how accurate is this echo? Does our experience accurately match the external
world? I would answer that it is good enough. If it weren't we wouldn't be
here. But it is still an echo. Like an echo in a canyon it is changed by the
surfaces that reflect it. Awareness is shaped by the equipment we bring with
us and the structure of the vessel that contains it.

[Ham]
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 probability are you willing to
give to such an idea?

[Case]
Actually I have a problem with whether "reality" or experience is discrete
or continuous. But to the extent that it is discrete, the frames of a motion
picture are static. They can be scratched or faded with time but I think our
experience is more flexible than that. Memory becomes more static with
repeated recall, not necessarily more accurate but more fixed. 

[Ham]
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.

[Case]
Anything at all is inevitable given worlds enough and time. It is up to
physicist and cosmologist to work that out. It is up to them to count how
many beans are in the hill.

[Ham]
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.

[Case]
I see no connection at all between inevitability and intent. So I guess the
answer would be yes I do contest the difference. 

[Ham]

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!

[Case]
Actually Case sucks at math.

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

[Case]
Glad you liked it thanks to the comments and you do the same.

Case