Philosophy Now Forum

Scott Mayers wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: But according to your comment on the apples before, you'd argue that no two beans are the same.

By the way, what were you even referencing this to (with regards to this thread, that is)?

Have you never heard of humour?

I got the humor. I was only asking as I couldn't determine how you related it particularly to the discussion at present unless you were thinking about those apples earlier (?). And if you got the humor, if it was about this, then this is why I pointed out the apparent interpretation you placed on differentiating the uniqueness of apples you used before to state that we cannot classify any two apples collectively.

Humour does not always stand up to philosophical analysis. It's chief function is to make you smile, hopefully laugh. Have you ever seen "Black Adder"?

The apple I was thinking about yesterday is not the same apple as it is today. It has lost some moisture is at a different temperature and exist in a completely different place in the universe; eventhough it has remained in the bowl where I perceived it to be. Additionally it probably has more yeast and other organisms of decay on it that it did yesterday and will have lost some mass.
The apple is not even the same apple. This shares the thought from Heraclitus that you cannot step into the same river.

This apple analogy is a very important one to understand in the philosophy of knowledge because that no two physical entities can be identical is expressed in Leibniz's Principle of the Indiscernibles. It applies to quarks as much as it applies to apples and it is universally regarded as a mainstream principle in the philosophy of science. The same goes with the idea that the apple cannot be the same entity from one Planck interval to the next, a truth illustrated in the ancient metaphorical story of the Ship of Theseus. These are principles which have been central to metaphysics since forever and yet they are discarded in an insolent and cavalier manner by a cabal of four-eyed gits with bad skin who prefer to present science with a universe which makes no sense. What amuses me most is when I come on to forums like this and encounter people who claim that they can understand these models of physics. I've been studying them all my life at at a very advanced level and find myself in agreement with Richard Feynman, perhaps the most intuitively gifted physicist of the 20th century after Planck. Feynman reckoned that anybody who claims to understand physics is somebody who hasn't thought about it properly.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing"...Alexander Pope

"One should never let one's education stand in the way of one's learning"....Mark Twain

"It is a miracle that human creativity can survive a modern education"...Albert Einstein

"Take two apples from three apples; what so you have?"

"One, since 3-2 = 1."

"Wrong. You took two and so that what you have, right?"

"OK, right. Two."

"Wrong again, for the two apples are connected to their two anti-matter apples as a whole, right?"

"Yes, I have four apples."

"No, wrong. They just annihilated. You don't have any apples."

"OK, then give me the one that's left."

"Too late, I just made apple sauce out of it."

"I just can't win in philosophy forums."

To put it plainly, I believe the multiverse enhances the chances of miracles, e.g. the human brain, evolution, our universe coming into existence, etc. And I would add we live in a lucky universe.

PhilX

Self-causal systems evolve progressively more informationally complex sub-structures within themselves without any need for divine intervention or pre-determined laws. They do this purely because they are self-causal so the outcomes may seem to be the result of chance but this notion of chance must not be conflated be with the assumption of the uncaused event. Randomness cannot exist in comprehensible universe.

Obvious Leo wrote:
Randomness cannot exist in comprehensible universe

Now it is important to emphasise what randomness means in this context for it is unfortunately an ambiguous term
And it means a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because of the number of possible variables
It does not mean a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because absolutely anything can happen

surreptitious57 wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:
Randomness cannot exist in comprehensible universe

Now it is important to emphasise what randomness means in this context for it is unfortunately an ambiguous term
And it means a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because of the number of possible variables
It does not mean a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because absolutely anything can happen

I agree completely. There is no such thing as an uncaused event and what we call a random event is simply a caused event which cannot be predicted in advance because it is multi-causal. This is simply chaotic determinism and this is how all naturally occurring systems in the universe are determined. Such systems evolve from the simple to the complex, which is where the term "complexity from chaos" derives.

Obvious Leo wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:
Randomness cannot exist in comprehensible universe

Now it is important to emphasise what randomness means in this context for it is unfortunately an ambiguous term
And it means a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because of the number of possible variables
It does not mean a physical process whose outcome cannot be determined because absolutely anything can happen

I agree completely. There is no such thing as an uncaused event and what we call a random event is simply a caused event which cannot be predicted in advance because it is multi-causal. This is simply chaotic determinism and this is how all naturally occurring systems in the universe are determined. Such systems evolve from the simple to the complex, which is where the term "complexity from chaos" derives.

What about a circular one? A definition acts in this way. As long as it maintains being non-tautologous (only genus or species but not both).

That's 'self-feeding'. All that is not to all that is. Then all that is to all that is not. ...

If you line up your own interpreted universes with respect to time like this where the end actually meets up with the other side given all possible worlds in all ways, you have the parallel mutiverses with respect to dimensions either in parallel or perpendicular everywhere. Since you cannot travel between you linear like cycles of universes one after another, this is the same too as being parallel ones by perspective. Thus in an eternity of expended unique universes is not distinctively different as you can't pass the barrier to the other places at the nodes between your universes at its most compresses or zero. Imagine cutting a long ribbon of paper at those nodes of absolute similarity on your 'crunch' states to infinity in which you place them anywhere you want. Thus multiple worlds fits there too.

Scott Mayers wrote: Thus multiple worlds fits there too.

I've made exactly the same point countless times. The Universal Turing Machine is an eternal reality maker but because it is self-programming it can never make the same reality twice. However this is a totally different model from the universes of Platonist laws which you speak of because the only law needed is the meta-law of cause and effect. Any talk of "parallel" universes implies the existence of a time dimension in which they exist contemporaneously which is both illogical and unphysical.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: Thus multiple worlds fits there too.

I've made exactly the same point countless times. The Universal Turing Machine is an eternal reality maker but because it is self-programming it can never make the same reality twice. However this is a totally different model from the universes of Platonist laws which you speak of because the only law needed is the meta-law of cause and effect. Any talk of "parallel" universes implies the existence of a time dimension in which they exist contemporaneously which is both illogical and unphysical.

I'm primarily against the presumption of 'cause and effect' unless you recognize that this can operate both forwards and backwards as this lacks the symmetry needed. I don't count this out. Nor to assume a Platonic version is anything I prepose from nothingness. Nothingness doesn't contain even cause nor effect. It's 'abstract' only because it has nothing in it to care how we or anything even laws prior to its own contradiction. You just have to recognize that this 'place' of nothingness has no time and so what follows logically from it until time evolves out of it acts as simultaneous.

That is, if a nothing, symbolized as 0 exists that begs 1 from contradiction, since 1 follows it logically, the originates the 'cause to effect' relationship and is cyclic with no time. I'm sure you may have a good means to put your ideas all together differently that words. That's your pet and I get it. I'll leave you be but to note that this thread is precisely one for which I support (the multiverse exists!). Good luck.

[You saw the recommend to the science forum I mentioned somewhere, right?]

Scott Mayers wrote:I'm primarily against the presumption of 'cause and effect' unless you recognize that this can operate both forwards and backwards

Fine. Give me an example of an event where the cause is preceded by its effect.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:I'm primarily against the presumption of 'cause and effect' unless you recognize that this can operate both forwards and backwards

Fine. Give me an example of an event where the cause is preceded by its effect.

Can you not see this as a form of chicken-egg question, right? That is, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" was/is a question that is common among Christians I've heard often in light of questioning this same confusion you have with respect to our lack of being able to present direct proof of evolution. I'm not attempting to associate you with Christians here but only to point out that this question was a reasonable question that many people asked in sincerity with regards to religion. They assumed it so obvious that this logic was sufficient to mean that either this would mean mankind would have to have an eternal unending source OR, what they assumed was a rational solution by most to an uncaused cause they personally believed was their God.

It was mainly a question to dismiss evolution, not to assert that their God is true though by default. (at least for the sincere apologists)

So up front, I just need to be sure that you recognize that you understand that with regards to totality, it MAY be impossible to argue for either of our views as able to be DISPROVED. AND, it can be the case that both an infinite and finite interpretation to totality are equivalent with respect to totality. Do you at least accept this?

I'm wondering if perhaps you could possibly see that an infinite version can be equally interpreted as a finite version?

I refuse to be diverted from my point, Scott. The notion that effects are preceded by causes is a definitional statement without which our universe could have no order, which contradicts the evidence. Give me an example of where the effect of an event is preceded by the cause of the event.

Obvious Leo wrote:I refuse to be diverted from my point, Scott. The notion that effects are preceded by causes is a definitional statement without which our universe could have no order, which contradicts the evidence. Give me an example of where the effect of an event is preceded by the cause of the event.

You don't have this supposed evidence. Supply if you do. But let me try to illustrate what I mean as it may help. In your expansion-to-collapse version of worlds are such that at each collapse, the next universe (or continuation of the whole collectively) acts the same as independent ones with no logical distinction because there is no way that we can go from any one universe to the other to prove it. As such, it can be the case that each world in your perspective can still be parallel. I created the following illustration to provide what I mean. [I place a note of copyright here but you or anyone can use it as long as they leave the note for their uses.]
Now to extend this with regards to 'cause and effect', if this is equal in meaning, even the order to which these worlds connect have no need to be ordered in the same way. Therefore, you could also take the parallel world perception and reverse this in an opposite order. Although this may not provide an argument for 'time' allowing for cause and effect within any one universe (are sub-world of it), the arbitrary order shows that it is irrelevant which world comes first or last. Thus cause-to-effect with respect to distinct worlds can be interpreted as effect-to-cause or even no relation at all since the orders can be arranged in an infinite set of ways like random access memory.

Scott Mayers wrote:it can be the case that each world in your perspective can still be parallel.

What does parallel mean? Do you mean contemporaneous?