[MD] False Messiah

[Scott Roberts]

Peter,

Peter said:
in answer to your questions: 'What about the claim that inorganic static
patterns are static patterns of value? Or the Buddhist faith in the
possibility of Enlightenment? Do you reject these as well?'

No problem with the first, sticks and stones definitely have value;

Scott:
How do you know that, given that you are not a stick or a stone? They have 
value to us, of course, but the MOQ says they have value in themselves, and 
that's what I'm asking about.

Peter continued:
 re the
second I have had many light bulb moments, and I'd even say some minor
satoris - a guy once asked me what is the sound of one hand clapping and I
spontaneously but lightly slapped him across the face since he was younger
than me and his question was a little impertinent.  How the solutions to
problems arise in the mind has always fascinated me and I know that
relaxation helps. I know something of the value of sitting.  But  you mean
enlightenment as 'complete and perfect sanity, or awareness of the true
nature of the universe'  then my answer has to be no - I don't  think that
is possible.

Scott:
I don't know what enlightenment means -- it is a mystery. That's why I 
listen to mystics. From what they say, I would say it is closer to the 
"complete and perfect sanity" than what you describe as your experiences, 
though I personally don't like "complete and perfect" talk or "true nature 
of the universe" (sounds too static). I do like "sanity" talk, though, as I 
think that we nonmystics are, in an esoteric sense, insane.

Peter said:
After I said 'we know nothing of the source (or even if there is one)' you
said 'In that case you should reject the MOQ, since we know nothing about
electrons experiencing value, right?' Wrong we do know some things about
electrons through scientific instruments

Scott:
What we know through scientific instruments tells us nothing of whether or 
not electrons experience value. Yet the MOQ says they do. In other words, 
you are dodging the issue.

Peter continued:
 but we can't see far enough to say
we know about any postulated source, and linking back to the enlightenment
question I think that state of maximal information will always be beyond us.
You followed with 'one must make some assumptions, or the only alternative
is nihilism'; Ham called me that too but I won't be labelled - I'm not
without value or morals, I am discriminating. When you say 'assumptions' you
are thinking back to faith; an assumption is like a trial idea born from
intelligence and then you have to wait  for  time to reveal the quality of
your assumption. Sure, I make assumptions but I don't think that his the
same as having faith.

Scott:
You skipped the part of my post where I acknowledged just this difference 
between making assumptions and faith, where I said: " I don't want to 
conflate "operating under certain assumptions" with faith".

Peter said:
I can''t respond clearly to what you said about quantum physics and
neo-Darwinism; if you can expand a little more maybe I will be able to
reply.

Scott:
The story of evolution that neo-Darwinists tell assumes that life, language, 
and consciousness all developed within a spatiotemporal structure. Quantum 
physics shows that what is going on at the microstructural level does not 
fit into a spatiotemporal structure, that it violates spatiotemporal 
causality (what's called quantum non-locality). The uncertainty principle 
(that exactness of position (space) results in inexactness in momentum (a 
quantity that involves time)) indicates that at the Planck limit the laws of 
space and time do not hold (there is also uncertainty with energy and time, 
by the way). Theorists who are trying to merge relativity and quantum 
mechanics are now looking at what they call "background-independent 
theories", by which they mean theories in which space and time are not 
assumed, but derived in the theories.

Now consider consciousness. In the simplest act of sense perception, what 
one is aware of is extended in space and time. If one sticks to 
spatiotemporal rules, this is impossible, since every microscopic event 
(like a photon impinging on the retina) is separate in space and/or time 
from every other event. This separation extends throughout the neural 
system -- there is nothing there that can amalgamate all these separated 
events into a unity. This leaves two possibilities. One is some kind of 
dualism, where consciousness transcends space and time in order to observe 
it. I don't like that, because I don't like dualism. The other is that 
consciousness creates the spatiotemporality of what it observes, just as it 
creates color, sound, and so on. Hence, the quantum measurement problem (how 
the superposition of states -- something that isn't possible in spacetime --  
"collapses" into a spatiotemporal object -- a wave *or* a particle) can be 
solved by saying that consciousness measures the non-spatiotemporal in terms 
of spacetime.

What this adds up to is that the neo-Darwinist -- more specifically those 
who think that consciousness is some kind of spatiotemporal process that 
developed in time -- are taking the product of perception 
(spatiotemporality) to explain perception. That is fallacious reasoning (I 
call it the Munchhausen fallacy, after Rudolf Steiner who compared this kind 
of thinking to the fabulous Baron Munchhausen who claimed to lift himself 
off the ground by pulling on his hair.).

Peter said:
You said that 'faith poses a greater challenge to one's thinking precisely
because what one has faith in is a mystery' and 'I'm not sure if it matters
just what one has faith in, as long as one has it'. I can't relate to that
at all. I like mystery though because there is a challenge to see through it
whereas a lot of believers seem to be limited at that point precisely by
faith and their thinking stops. Scott, I still think that faith is neither
necessary nor desirable.

Scott:
Goethe said: "One is only truly thinking when that which one thinks cannot 
be thought through". I agree with him. I obviously agree that if faith 
results in one's stopping one's thinking, then it is bad. But what I've 
tried to show is that -- for those who take to heart the dictum "reason 
requires faith and faith requires reason", faith leads to a new and higher 
level of thinking, not its stoppage. That makes it desirable.

- Scott