[MD] False Messiah

[David M]

I agree with Scott that this is a very strong argument.

DM


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885 at localnet.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] False Messiah


> SA,
>
> Let's start over, forgetting about the role of reason, since that is a 
> more
> esoteric level of discussion. All I want to get across is the idea that
> sense perception turns the nonspatiotemporal into the spatiotemporal. Here
> is how Avery (in "The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness") puts it in
> his introduction:
>
> "The approach in this theory is with consciousness as a first principle. 
> We
> will consider all things, material and otherwise, to be manifestations of
> conscious experience, and we will presume the existence of nothing that is
> not conscious experience. There are no objects "out there" waiting to be
> perceived. All consciousness is composed of the same primal substance --
> that which appears "material" is dimensionally structured conscious, and
> "nonmaterial" (thought and imagination) nondimensionally structured.
> Dimensions, therefore, are understood to be structures internal to
> consciousness itself, rather than external structures of a universe we 
> live
> "in". This, of course, has tremendous consequences for the understanding 
> of
> all physical phenomena. For instance, light is visual consciousness
> itself -- it is not "in" space at all. The structure of space, in fact, is
> derived from light."
>
> Please note that the above is a statement of what he intends to make clear
> in the rest of the book. That is, he will show how taking consciousness as
> the creator of dimensional structure explains the quantum data in a better
> way than taking consciousness as something that exists within this
> dimensional structure. To this I will add what I wrote in a post to Peter
> that indicates why this approach is a better explanation, namely that it
> avoids the Munchhausen fallacy as described below:
>
> [From a 3/25 post in this thread]
> 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.).
> [end of 3/25/post]
>
> - Scott
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Heather Perella" <spiritualadirondack at yahoo.com>
> To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 6:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] False Messiah
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>> SA said:
>>      What I am saying is 'non-spatiotemporal without
>> reason', yet, with reason we have spatiotemporal
>> existing in our lives, in our perception, and thus,
>> the way we see the world.  The former
>> ('non-spatiotemporal without reason') does not exist
>> due to us having reason.
>>
>> Scott:
>> If reason, in some esoteric sense, is fundamental,
>> then reason creates/is
>> the non-spatiotemporal, and unconscious (to us)
>> reason (in its guise as
>> sense perception) also projects it as
>> spatiotemporal. Note that I am not
>> restricting reason to human beings. You might also
>> note that what I said
>> sounds like John 1:4 "By [the Logos] were all things
>> made that were made",
>> though I began thinking this way before making that
>> connection. So it is
>> important to remember that reason has levels. The
>> reason to which we
>> ordinarily refer, for example that which theorizes
>> about spacetime and the
>> non-spatiotemporal, is not the Reason that creates
>> them.
>
>     Ah, I see.  You are talking about different
> levels of Reason.  How do you perceive (or how have
> you concluded) reason is non-spatiotemporal creating
> spatiotemporal?
>
>>  SA said:
>>     What do you mean photons are not perceived?  We
>> see light.  Sure we don't see a photon as a particle
>> or wave, but we notice the larger scale version
>> called
>> light.
>>
>> Scott:
>> I meant that we do not perceive massless, spin 1
>> whatevers. Photons,
>> neutrons, etc. are physicists' constructs. And what
>> we *do* see is particle
>> effects or wave effects, while photons are neither
>> particles nor waves, so,
>> no, we don't see photons.
>
>     Ok, I understand you here.
>
>> SA continued:
>>   Maybe you are stating that photons are
>> filtered out via experiment and we do use theory to
>> guide us into having these 'things' we call photons.
>> Maybe you are saying as long as the theory holds, we
>> value photons or the theory of photons.  I guess
>> maybe
>> I am jumping from theory of photon to photon itself
>> at
>> times.
>>
>> Scott:
>> On the last sentence, yes, I think you are, which
>> makes your other sentences
>> off-base with respect to what I am saying. A
>> physicist uses a concept called
>> 'photon' in his or her theory. I don't think we can
>> say anything about
>> photons beyond that.
>
>     Ok
>
>> SA continued:
>>   So using theory of photons (theory is our
>> perception, our reasoning) to notice photons (as
>> long
>> as our reasoning holds up, or in other words, as
>> long
>> as the theory of photons holds up) then our
>> reasoning
>> is not just valuing, but supporting something we
>> call
>> photons.
>>
>> Scott:
>> I seem here to be using 'perception' differently
>> than I have been. I have
>> been using it strictly as "sense perception": our
>> seeing, hearing, tasting,
>> smelling, and touching, not in the more vague sense
>> of "how one perceives a
>> situation (e.g., as good, bad, etc.). So theory is
>> precisely *not* sense
>> perception in the way I have been using the term.
>> Theory is our reasoning.
>> Our reasoning (thinking) does not turn the
>> non-spatiotemporal  into the
>> spatiotemporal. Our senses do.
>
>     How do you know that sense perception does and
> not reason (thinking)?  You may have mentioned
> somewhere the answer, but now that I am more on the
> same page as you, I may understand more clearly now.
>
>> SA continued:
>>   Our value of photons, is in other words, our
>> reason and consciousness of photons, thus, photons
>> exist as long as we value and perceive photons as
>> existing.  Is this what you are saying?
>>
>> Scott:
>> No. I presume that if we all die, there would still
>> be the
>> non-spatiotemporal reality that, while we were
>> alive, we understood as
>> photons, etc.
>
>     And this is why intellect is a higher level than
> social, biological, and chaotic levels.  Without our
> reasoning and becoming conscious of photons, photons
> would not exist for us, yet, now that we have reasoned
> (intellectual level) photons to exist, we can assume
> with high precision that photons exist without our
> (social level) being (biological level) conscious of
> them.
>
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