Hello, Cy, OMF II - Part 2

First topic message reminder :

dan wrote:Cy,

I'm not in favor of guns, but I understand that some folks need that extra sense of security.  

Yesterday we were at the national Cathedral doing the flower market for Kashmir-Rose.  Today we are headed to a WCUAVC flight day at a school down here.  


Was looking at the connection between India and Greece back in the day.  In fact there was a Greco-Indian empire, created by Alexander the Great.  The mutual influence



(cont.)

Well guns have their place, but that wasn't the point...the point was that Hillary equates gun possession with violent individuals or groups and I think I quite clearly illustrated the problem with that kind of thinking by saying I've never been responsible for hurting someone.

I'm not a violent person and my record attests to that. Hillary however is responsible for the deaths of two exemplary military members and one Ambassador, all by design. She also responsible for the arrests and loss of career of one General and one Admiral who attempted to send in a rescue party. They would have been successful in the rescue and then the creation of ISIS and the gun running that contributed to it would have been exposed. Nothing like wiping the proof of criminal wrong doing off the map to protect your own arse Hildebeast? Like any of us would forget and forgive her? Hillary apparently doesn't own guns and yet she's been responsible for the ending of at least three lives and two careers. She's five ahead of this gun owner. And that's just what we happen to know about. There's rumors her and her prior hubby were involved in the drug trade of Arkansas and S. America...then there's China and Walmart. I could go on but what's the point. Truth is too old fashioned and justice is also out-dated.

I'm a celt so truth and justice is not a cultural trait in the eyes of the modern umbrella society which refuses to acknowledge those traits as part of the nation's psyche, but rather as a personal neurosis that they'd probably insist a straightjacket and heavy medication be applied to if I were within reach in DC. Truth and justice equals neurosis? What kind of thinking is that?!! But that's the spew emerging from orgs like DHS since its inception. So when it comes to commentary, turn-about-is-fair-play. They and their flunkies make snide comments about us and we return the favor.

>>>on India and Greece...look at the Sanskrit language and old greek. Then compare it to Old Irish. Fascinating? Now look at some of the ideas each culture valued...same again. All three have same root system. Ah but why would anyone care about the legacy of the elder gods? 'er ET and the seeding of civilizations? Virmana are inconveniences...ah! and there once was one in the vicinity of Fermoy Eire of all places! That is if you can take the Christian overlay off the history.

>>> on the subject of the Glyphs:

432 Mystery

432 Mystery: the first lesson - the Abducted Preceptor

Ok, so we've got some sort of holographic model going here.  The holographic model we hear about, in connection with cosmology, was developed in the case of black-hole thermodynamics and information/entropy conservation.  

The holographic model has been extended to the entire universe, where, now, instead of the gravitational horizon of the black-hole, we have the future event horizon of the universe.  

But I believe that this 'horizon' is an arbitrary designation.  For one thing, it is assuming a physcial horizon.  I think we're looking more for an informational horizon.

Then we have the Pribram/Bohm holographic brain theory.  Perhaps we're looking for the horizon in the wrong place.  We should be looking inside, rather than outside.  This would make rather more sense for an idealism, in any case.  The internal horizon could then just be the Jungian CuCs.  

Also, with the holographic model, information replaces matter and energy as the primary medium of exchange.  This somewhat ameliorates the problem of photosynthesis.  

The future horizon is the Telos/Omega, and it is included in the CuCs.  Also included in the CuCs is mathematics.  Thus do we have the Wignerian UEM, unreasonable effectivenss of mathematics.  

IOW, why do stars shine......?  It's not because of their nuclear reactions.  They shine because, well, that's what stars do.  After the fact, we are able to rationalize it.  But the rationalization thereof is not something gratuitous.  It is part and parcel of the holographic imperative.  

Our virtual reality is optimally coherent.  Did someone have to calculate what the gravity on the moon would be?  I doubt it.  Is the Earth hollow?  In some sense, yes.  What sense?  It is hollow in the sense that its mass is abstracted from our experience, rather than the other way, which is how we moderns are trained to think.  

There is nothing very abstact about the oil wells that we drill, nor the minerals that we mine, nor the techtonic effects we observe.  Look, we have a CCs and a CuCs.  How does a CCs differ from Cs?  The CCs is just the phenomenal world.  The CCs is extracted from the CuCs.  The extraction is partly mathematical.  

The CuCs is also the monad. The extraction is partly by symmetry breaking.



(cont.)

Dan, the atomization of the mind is not the splitting of a personality (into a multiple personality). A better analogy would be to think of the "self-reflection" (self awareness) of the ordinary consciousness state as a single (self) mirror and atomization as a collection of mirrors representing the same (single) self after having undergone a phase transition -- an analog to the phase transition from a solid to a liquid state.

Gary,

I've not heard of this analogy before. It might help if your could cite a reference or two.
--------------------


Yes, we have the formulas for stellar evolution and dynamics, and we have the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Astronomy is a very coherent science. Does this prove that nuclear fusion is a ubiquitous astronomical phenomenon?

All the evidence says that it is. But all that evidence is gathered by us. Who else would gather it?



(cont.)

We have mind vs matter......  On one view, mind is alleged to emerge from matter fortuitously, by conferring survival value on the organisms that possess it.

All animals, except for sponges, are animated.  They are animated with a nervous system, which has sensory and motility functions.  Nervous systems generally exhibit some degree of centralization.  Sensory signals are processed, motor signals are coordinated.  

Sensations ensue.........  Here's where things might get questionable, according to your philosophical predilections.  If you have none, no interest in philosophy, you can be easy.  If you have no interest in philosophy, then, by default, you may be classed as a materialist..... yours is not to reason why.......  Well, you may reason to the point of realizing that there is no reason, if you can even be granted that much reason.  By strict materialism, science is a dubious enterprise, at best.  The survival value of science is demonstrable, up to a point.  We may now be beyond that point.  If there is any truth value to science, it would be fortuitous.  

Nevertheless, the great preponderance of individuals will take offence if you suggest to them that their mental states, along with their personal identities, are illusory.... are artifacts of language.  It is only philosophers who take consciouness seriously, as being a significant part of the more general mind-body problem.  

By the light of philosophy, humans have consciousness, and various capacities for reason.  Subjectivity and personal identity are widely recognized aspects of our mental states.  Linguistic capacity stands out as being behaviorly confirmable.  

Given that mind exists, here comes the next philosophical watershed.....  What about animals?  But already I have shone my hand, by implying that humans might not be mere animals.  It would be a category mistake to classify ouselves as animals.  

Yes, I'll readily admit that we have the bodies of animals.  But do we have animal minds?  For many of us, humans, this is a fighting question.  It's the sort of question that you would not care to bring up in polite company.  I don't.  But, here, I have.  

Ok, now we have to back up and survey the philosophical watershed that I, anyway, have just crossed.......

Animals have sensations.  They have subjective states that might be recognizable to us.  Well, that is quite a logical jump.  Animals experience pain.  Ok.  But how much further into their experiential can we go, must we go?  Am I just being politically correct to go even that far?  Somewhat.  Human pain is highly socialized.  Canine pain would be much less so, and that is between human and pet.  For animals in the wild, pain serves only survival.  Consider pain in a combat soldier.... it may be highly attenuated throughout the mission.  

Yes, there are sensations.  But what, I ask you, is a sensation without a sensor?  Yes, we have sensory cells.  Does the activation of a sensory cell = sensation.  

Flowers have sensory cells.  Do they have perceptions......?  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology)

Wikipedia assumes as much.  That is a big assumption, or the word 'perception' is being used very loosely.  

The same entry even has a section on plant 'intelligence'. I guess that's not much of a stretch. We all have 'smart' phones, after all. But 'perception' is a different matter. Thermostats have temperature sensors, but we don't suppose that they perceive the temperature.

Can there be perception without a perceiver? What constitutes a perciever? Individual cells react to stimuli. So do complex molecues. There is clearly a logical path, here, toward panpsychism. It is the default path for many of us.

It becomes a more serious matter in the field of artificial intelligence. The economic stakes are high..... not to mention the ethical ones.


This has been a long way around, just to get back the issue of persons. Only the most hard-core materialist would question, firstly, that there are any persons, and, secondly, that they have perceptions, or any sort of mental states.

But we've been here plenty of times before. It is no secret that I'm a personalist.

The last significant topic was that of virtual reality, which I often compare with idealism/immaterialism. It is a tempting comparison. But it gets us into trouble with the optics of it, for one significant issue. It becomes very cumbersome.

By approaching VR from an optical point of view, am I not conceding too much to the primacy of space? But isn't space primary? Not with idealism, that's for sure. Idealism is used, virtually synonymously, with immaterialism, but that can give the wrong impression. I think more accurate to speak of it as imspatialism(?). You can sense why we don't.

Space is a tricky animal, in many respects, particularly from a philosophical point of view. It may only be us moderns who grant space an objective status in its own right. There may not even be a word for it in other languages. It may have status only in particular instances, when subject to comparative measurement.



(cont.)

Hi Dan,

My apologies for not being in since mid-December. It's been a bit crazy here. Lots of Irons in the Fire.

The sign-up is sorted and new members can self-confirm. Paul is getting set up.

I'm going to try to get in more often. I've some updating I want to get to here with the Forum. But it won't be today I think. Yell if you need anything! Thanks for the email. Just remember now the dishmail email no longer works for me you must use the one that is my name at gmail.com

Cy

Cy,

Thank you very much for helping Paul to get set up.

I'm glad that you are keeping busy. I trust that the New Year is going well with you and you family.

Thanks again,

Dan

If I did not know better, I would say that the failure to rationalize away photons, geometrical optics and ray tracing would be a defeater for immaterialism/idealism/personalism.  

It's very hard to rationalize space as being a construct, rather that an absolute entity in itself.  I don't know that there is any more difficult task for the immaterialist/'imspatialist', especially in this 'space' age.  Evidently, this is why there are so few of us.  

But what is the alternative....?  

Materialism is the obvious one, but, I would that there are no more strict materialists in the world than there are full-bore immaterialist.  By some counts, there would be many more of the latter.  

That leaves the great bulk of humanity as default dualists.  They won't go out of their way to defend dualism, but its many assumptions are easy to pick out in their everyday figures of speach.

Very few support strong AI.  Nonetheless. there would widespread trepidation wrt the possibility, if you took a census.  But it is just one of many hypothetical threats, right up there with space-invaders.  

It is easy to suppose that Europe and Japan are ahead of the rest of the world, when it comes to their secularism/modernism/postmodernism.  I'm not sure where these secularists stand wrt mind-body issues.  Maybe I should check into it.  


But this is getting off the subject.... Are we immaterialists being rational in not allowing oursleves to be defeated by optics?  

Our best defense is to point to the visual robustness of dreams, and then to suggest that the collectivity of Cs renders it even more robust.  Can science ever prove that immaterialism is wrong?  But, still, I would not be candid not to admit that we immaterialist have a serious problem when it come to optics.  


12:30----------

All we have to do, as the olympiad of primordial persons, is commit ourselves to some 3D avatar/venue, which I refer to as a 'pokotok' arena, to start the logical process of 'virtual' world-building.  NB, that this is not an historical process.  If we can manage this much, we are halfway to the BPW, but this is no mean feat.  We need bodies and a kickball.  

How do we do even do that much, w/o resorting to computer graphics?  But even if we had the graphics, do we have the eyes to see it?  No mean feat.......

No, we begin and end our foray into the BPWH with our mind's eye.  We use the pokotok game to train our mind's eye.  And that metaphor is very liable to be misleading.  We're not looking, we're projecting.  

Projecting.......?  

I'm a monist, and then a 'strong' personalist, in the sense of positing a cosmic person, an Adam Kadmon, if you will.  That puts me in striking distance of also being a monadist.  Generally, monadists or Neoplatonists are not necessarily personalists.  The closest they have to a cosmic person is the Demiurge, which Christians often suppose to be the Devil.  It is the demiurge, partly through ignorance, who creates the world, and somewhat as an afterthought.  Rather that a monadist, I would be much closer to being a monistic trinitarian.  

Neoplatonists make much of projection.  The demiurge projects the world into being.  It is projected out of the Monad.  

Or, you could say, that this is the immaterialist version of the Big-Bang, just slightly more deliberate and purposeful.  

Nowadays, the big-bang is presented to us, along with dinosaurs, as a fait-accompli.  It is hard to imagine how it would be, if it were to be presented to us de-novo, along with Monadism.  Would we be quite so uncomfortable with the optics problem?  I think not.  Optics might be dismissed as a blip on the metaphysical radar screen.  But, no, the history of human thought does not present itself in that manner.  There always seems to be too much water under the bridge.  

The Monad might just have to 'goose' us a little bit..... wake us up.  It's time to smell the coffee, we might suppose.  

That first game of pokotok would have been something to behold.  Who's on 'first'?  Who's got the ball?  No hands!  What are hands?  

After that exercise, building the LHC would be a dream.  Hey, who's got the God particle?  

Getting the players all on the same page would be a major task.  This would include having a common time dimension.  This is something that we sledom worry about.  Coordinating the present moment has never been conceived as problematic.  But with time streching out, indefinitely, in the past and future, how do we all manage to be present and accounted for at the same time?  No one has ever shown up late for the 'party' that we call the present moment.  Only with physicalism, might the issue even arise.  If we took monism seriously, the issue would never get to the floor.  

Monism and the collective Cs (CCs) are all about the hegemony of the Present/Presence.  

The CCs is not the problem.  It's not the problem to coordinate the individual consciousnesses.  They come precoordinated, virtually as part of the Monad.  That is the source of their 'objectivity' or intersubjectivity.  

Then we have the specifically visual aspect of the world.  Superficially, it is highly variable, with changing lighting conditions.  The underlying scene does not vary, accordingly, needless to say.  Vision becomes, for us, the dominant mode of perception, yet, it is the most superficial.  On the monist hypothesis, the underlying mode of perception is direct, rather than indirect, as mediated by photons, in accord with physics.  

I'm a direct perceptionist, in accord with my immaterialism, yet, I'll hardly deny that I am constantly confronted with all the 'blandishments' of vision and geometric optics.  I could use a good story for explaining those blandishments.  What could be their unique function, in the larger scheme?  What would life be like with direct, rather than indirect, perception?  The latter seems to be a cover for the former.  


6pm---------

There is nothing very superficial about photosynthesis and the Sun.

It is what makes our physical world go around. Was vision just a fortuitous add-on?



(cont.)

Now we see as through a glass, darkly........

This is our indirect perception.  Were our perception not mediated through our five senses, we would be overwhelmed by the direct perception of the Monad.  We could perceive nothing other.  

Our five senses act as a prism and a filter.  The primary filter, however, is space and time.  As has been said, space and time are God's way of preventing everything from happening at the same time and place.  

Being able to place photosynthesis and vision into the same 'communication' channel is, I guess, a lucky break.  Who'd a thunk it?  Drink to me only with thine eyes.  

Easier said than done......  How do we make it work?  

Certainly the phenomenon of synaesthesia is suggestive of a more integrated, primary mode of perception.  

Direct perception is always operating in the background.  In the foreground, however, it is overwhelmed by the 'sensory'/superficial data.  

Yes, this is a very significant part of the self-concealment of the cosmic Self.  Creation is the grand runaround.  We are the mice on the exercise wheel, but, KIM, it is the best possible exercise wheel.  

How, exactly, indirect perception emerges from dircect perception, I have not a clue.  But I haven't quite posed the question in this way, before.  

It is part of the symmetry breaking that goes into Creation.  There are many 'prismatic' mechanisms at work.  Thesis/antithesis is emblematic of the entire process.

Light and dark......? Warm and cold, sweet and sour, and we could go on and on..... We attach these comparatives to objects.



(cont.)

I neglected to mention good and evil........

How do we get from felt meaning to the color chart?  It seems a stretch.  We must extract meaning from all kinds of extraneous data.  That is what we do.  We're quite good at it.  

The best possible world is also a puzzle palace. The thing about the truth...... half the 'fun' is getting there.


(cont.)

Next to vision comes hearing, in importance.  For our verbal species, hearing is a not so distant second, but, still.........

A significant fact about light is its speed...... very fast..... but not infinitely so.  

The speed of visible light might seem a bit abstract, but a great deal of technology rests upon the equivalent speed of electrical signals.  

The value of the speed of light plays a very significant role in all aspects of physics, and so it is critical to the fine-tuning that constitutes the anthropic principle.

That speed figures in the phenomenon of light/vision indicates that that it is difinitely something 'physical', rather than metaphysical. Of course, I don't believe in the physical, per se. What we call the 'physical' is a special intersubjective phenomon. That it should present itself as something so objective is most impressive. I hardly deny the impression.



(cont.)

We think how important light is, and it is easy to overlook the importance of its contrast..... the dark.... the night sky.  The expansion of the universe and the finite speed of light affords us the contrast, the dialectic of light and dark.  

Light would be nothing without dark.  It is no mean feat of cosmology to arrange for that thermodynamic contrast.  That is the concern of physical cosmology.  That is not our primary concern.  Is an immaterialist just allowed to take all this fine-tuning for ganted?  Yes and no.  

What then is my business with physics?  

I must show that physics is a facade.  Why such an impressive facade?  The 'desginer', or our teleological/cosmic Selves, outdid ourselves, evidently.  The best and the brightest are just totally convinced by this facade.  Are there no chinks in the physical armor?  It's hard to see any, besides anthropics and the mind.  I've sure been looking.  

I mean, I've come up with my fair share of just-so stories.  The main challenge is to be able to focus on the biggest obstacles presented by the received/physical worldview, and then attempt to deconstruct them metaphysically.  I'm thinking that the speed of light might just be the single greatest obstacle.  If that's correct, it's taken me forty years to focus in on it.  I'm looking for the string to pull that will help to unravel the rest of our physical 'tapestry'.  

C, the speed of light, is crucial, physically.  Metaphysically, with monism/monadism, simultaneity should rule.  The Presence/present should be all encompassing.  The Parmenidean Monad should be unchanging.  OTOH, the Herakletian flux should be all pervasive.  Somehow, in this BPW, that paradox is resolved.  C is the fix.  Yes?  No?  

How big is this BPWH/SWH/CTC?  ~12,000 years, more or less, I'm guessing.  

12K lyr.......?  

Light travels around the Earth about 10^10 times in one liftime.  So what?  There are 10^10 lifetime-circuits in one CTC.  And 10^10 light-circuits in one lifetime.  There is a rough equivalence between the CTC and a lifetime when measured in human lives or light circuits.  A life-circuit and a light-circuit are both 10^-10 of the cosmic unit.  So what?  

10^10 is an important magnitude in many branches of science.  It seems to be pointing to the significance of the microcosm.  The significance of the microcosm is manifest with the SWH.  It disappears in conventional cosmology.  

Chemical signals, wrt the brain, travel at rates similar to electrical signals wrt the Earth. This similarity adds some credence to the notion of a global brain.

Similarities are curious, but there seems to be a great gap wrt the strictures encountered in physics. We're missing the imperative aspect.

If there is an imperative floating around, it must relate to the Monad.

Perhaps the microcosm is where we reconcile the Parmenidean unity with the Herakletian flux.



(cont.)

I'm thinking that the solidity of matter may have a lot to do with the speed of light.  This is a perfectly true physical statement.  I'm suggesting that it might be something more than merely physical.  

I'm thinking along the lines of 'registration'.  Light figures prominently in almost any measurement process.  This was Einstein's insight into relativity.  

The speed of light is also closely related to matter's particularity.... to its atomism.  

The speed of light is an intersubjective phenomenon, par-excellence.  It requires a single, precise, 'objective' measurement.  The fact that is does not travel instantaneously has profound 'physical' implications.....physics would be impossible to imagine, otherwise.

There is a clear temptation to ascribe the finite light-speed to some sort of logical/mathematical structure.  But, as far as we know, C is an arbitrary constant within the Standard Model of physics.  There could be at least 10^500 other theories that are equally probable.  Of course, we wish to invoke anthropics.  The AP will be able to specify some optimal range for C, along with all the other 'arbitrary' physical constants.  But that fact says nothing about immaterialism, other than invoking an 'ideal' design.



(cont.)

Alright, hold that thought, now, about the possible metaphysical significance of the very great but finite speed of light.  That fact needs to be complemented with the more obvious metaphysical significance of the Quantum.  

I have been fairly dismissive of its metaphysical significance by saying two things about the quantum..... first, by pointing out the fairly obvious fact that it is much more an effect of immaterialism than any sort of cause of it.  Secondly, by implying that it should be viewed as just one of the many 'design' parameters available for the anthropic principle.  

The quantum principle had, of course, figured much more prominently in the initial dualistic phase of my metaphysical inquiry.  

When, in 1981, I took on the MoAPS, in my shift to immaterialism, I did not bother to reexamine the quantum.  Where it had figured very prominently in my quantum dualism phase as the quantum 'aperture' of the mind, it had now become subsumed under anthropics, generally.  

There is another important consideration, here.... it was quite awhile before I latched onto the notion of a special, individuated human soul.  I should say that it is individualizable, but that we are all time-sharing on the singular cosmic Soul that we share, right along with God.  

And, also, there is the all important MoAPS, mother of all paradigm shifts.  Hmmm........  This is rather the crux of our little story.  Well, back in the ancient of days, before the Halloween escapade in SF, there was the R&D show, along with the 32 Vectors pointing to a September, 2016 Surprise, not to mention the 12/'15 cruise to Nowhere, where I took a pass.  That was then.......

Now, the bets are off.  The R&D show is a no-show.  I get to cool my heels, and contemplate paradigm shifts, anew......


I've always thought is would be best, as in BPW, for the paradigm to be quasi-spontaneous and indigenous, ie. the aspect of (governmental) Disclosure would be minimal wrt our anti-Copernican revolution.  Still, the UTH, ultra-terrestrial hypothesis, would be needed to underscore the SWH, small world hypothesis.  But it would be much easier on the cosmologists/physicists if they could get a preview of immaterialism, gratis the SoT.... just sayin'......


So, here we are, almost back to square-one...... with possibly the quantum aperture to reconsider.  I'm also thinking of BICEP2 and its possible view of the cosmic equivalent of the Omega/Alpha 'spark-gap' of the SWH/CTC.  

Here we are..... 'BICEP3'...... Our quantum apertures are similar to a multiple telescope are when we are properly wired together via the internet, etc.  Our individual apertures, properly arrayed in an interferometer configuration, will, hopefully, provide us with a 'high-resolution' image of the Monad, whatever that might be.  

This will be our combined microcosms on steroids, if you will.  

We're thinking about the Noosphere, the Global Brain.  Now, our previous comparison of electro-chemical signals in the brain and the fiber-optic signals around the world begins to make some sense.  

The Teilhardian Noosphere takes on the aspect of a synthetic aperture the size of the Earth.  Teilhard predicted that his Omega/Noosphere would be a million years in the future.  I'm saying that, with the MoAPS and the internet, we will have a prototype in place whenever we wish it, and the actual Omega will be some 1,000 years hence.  


Ok, let's get back to the Quantum........

The quantum is trying to tell us, as Eddington pointed out, that the world is more mind-like than machine-like.  A central feature of the quantum world is the collapse of the wave-function...... This 'collapse' is the primary intersection between physics and metaphysics.  

Collapse is the opposite of decoherence...... well, not quite.....

Decoherence is supposed to be a thermal/entropic effect.  It happens naturally, along with or as part of the irreversible heat decay of 'prepared' states.  

The quantum is a primary battleground between the materialist/physicalists and everyone else, particularly the quantum-mind dualists.  I contemplate rejoining this battle as one of the minuscule number of quantum immaterialists.  I just ran into one here......

https://unmaterialism.wordpress.com/argumen/

This is a website by Trevor Thompson in Sydney.  He is not a physicist, however.  
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12:40------------

In some sense, what I'm now saying is that the global aperture is bi-directional. Pehaps it operates primarily as projective from the Monad through us and onto the world. The world is our collective projection. That has been the theory, all along.



(cont.)

I do note that Cy is proactive with the Oregon Occupy movement..... just sayin' I am aware.  I'm glad that Cy is involved.... that 'we' have boots on the ground, so to speak.  But I will go on to say that it is a very complicated issue.  Even my Montana sister, Louise, would have had mixed feelings about some of land-management issues, despite the fact that she supported Ruby Ridge, for instance.  My head is not in sand about any of this, but it is complicated.  The most basic issue is about trust of the government.  There are many reasons to not trust the government, but........ who do we trust, in the end?  

That question of trust is the primary question wrt the BPWH/SWH/CTC (4M/K/SoT/X2).  That's exactly what all this blogging has been about.  


Ok........ We have been talking about the speed of light and the quantum.  I have discussed a little about my many year engagement with quantum-mind/quantum dualism.  It is time for me to revisit that issue...... but the quantum issue brings up another issue...... the measurement issue......

Normally, when one speaks of mesurement, philosophically, one is specifically speaking of the quantum measurement problem.  That is the conventional philsophical/scientific context for discussing measurement, but there is nothing conventional about the BPWH.  

Many lifetimes have been spent on the quantum measurement problem, but very little progress has been made, except to prove that it is a well-nigh intractable problem.  

My modest suggestion is that the only way to understand the quantum measurement problem is to understand that it is part and parcel of a much bigger measurement problem.  Almost everyone will say however, that there is no measurement problem, per-se.  I agree...... it's a problem only from an immaterialist point of view.  

Of course, all of science is based on our ability to make accurate, objective measurements.  There's just one problem..... the phrase 'objective measurement' is, technically speaking, an oxymoron.  

A specific measurement might or might not be 'objective'.  But, in the final analysis, everyone would agree that the measurement process, per-se, is necessarily a normative process.  It is an intersubjective process.  

In addition, there is the necessary condition, that any 'good' measurement will be replicable.  It goes without saying.  Yes?  

Let's, then, slightly generalize the 'measurement' problem by calling it an 'observer' problem.  And, yes, the quantum measurement problem is often referred to as simply the 'observer' problem.  

In classical physics, there is no 'observer' problem. The observer might be taken to be any physical measurement device. Isn't this also true in the quantum situation? Not quite.......

Specifically, there is the 'collapse' issue...... Measurement explicity entails the collapse or reduction of some probability or wave function of the system being measured. The problem is how or when does this collapse occur. It occurs only when there is a 'registration' of the result.



(cont.)

dan wrote: The most basic issue is about trust of the government.  There are many reasons to not trust the government, but........ who do we trust, in the end?  

That question of trust is the primary question wrt the BPWH/SWH/CTC (4M/K/SoT/X2).  That's exactly what all this blogging has been about.  


Ok........ We have been talking about the speed of light and the quantum.  I have discussed a little about my many year engagement with quantum-mind/quantum dualism.  It is time for me to revisit that issue...... but the quantum issue brings up another issue...... the measurement issue......

Normally, when one speaks of mesurement, philosophically, one is specifically speaking of the quantum measurement problem.  That is the conventional philsophical/scientific context for discussing measurement, but there is nothing conventional about the BPWH.  

Many lifetimes have been spent on the quantum measurement problem, but very little progress has been made, except to prove that it is a well-nigh intractable problem.  

My modest suggestion is that the only way to understand the quantum measurement problem is to understand that it is part and parcel of a much bigger measurement problem.  Almost everyone will say however, that there is no measurement problem, per-se.  I agree...... it's a problem only from an immaterialist point of view.  

That there is already a broader measurement problem in classical physics was of course discussed at great length by Pierre Duhem in his "Aim and Structure of Physical Theory" (first published in 1906) Duhem argued that theory plays an essential role in the design and execution of the measurement process, exposing the intersubjective character so-called "empirical" observations.

That might be a good place to start a discussion.

dan wrote: Of course, all of science is based on our ability to make accurate, objective measurements.  There's just one problem..... the phrase 'objective measurement' is, technically speaking, an oxymoron.  

Exactly. One brings one's theoretic presuppositions along when designing experiments, evaluating their reliability, and interpreting the results.

dan wrote: A specific measurement might or might not be 'objective'.  But, in the final analysis, everyone would agree that the measurement process, per-se, is necessarily a normative process.  It is an intersubjective process.  

I agree.

dan wrote: In addition, there is the necessary condition, that any 'good' measurement will be replicable.  It goes without saying.  Yes?  

If this is to be regarded as a scientific measurement process, yes.

dan wrote: Let's, then, slightly generalize the 'measurement' problem by calling it an 'observer' problem.  And, yes, the quantum measurement problem is often referred to as simply the 'observer' problem.  

In classical physics, there is no 'observer' problem.  The observer might be taken to be any physical measurement device.  

If the "observer problem" is defined as dealing with the effects of physical interaction of the observer with the system under observation, then yes, but there is also a broader problem of how the presuppositions of the conscious observer enter into the construction of a intersubjective reality, even in classical physics.

Again, I would refer you to Duhem and his "theoretic holism" (which is closely akin to epistemological coherentism).

dan wrote: Isn't this also true in the quantum situation?  Not quite.......

Specifically, there is the 'collapse' issue......  Measurement explicity entails the collapse or reduction of some probability or wave function of the system being measured.  The problem is how or when does this collapse occur.  It occurs only when there is a 'registration' of the result.  

And of course what is characteristic of the quantum measurement problem is disentangling the subjective vs. "objective" (i.e., physical) aspects of the quantum probability distribution -- most famously, in the context of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment.

In any case, I completely agree that wave function collapse is a the core of the measurement problem in QM, and that this raises a number of interesting issues from the POV of metaphysical "immaterialism" (aka ontological idealism).

Regards,
MrZ

Mr Z, Paul,  

Thank you for making this initial post.  I understand that it took some time to get you properly logged onto the forum.  I hope that process may now have been expedited for any prospective future members.

Thank you for your supportive comments.  And thank you too for your private references to several other articles dealing with the issue of immaterialism........

There is one by Trevor Thompson, who was mentioned above.....

https://unmaterialism.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/thompson_consciousness_in_science.pdf

Then there is..... On why Idealism is superior to Physicalism and Micropsychism by Bernardo Kastrup.

And then....... Is There a Reality Out There? by O. Costa de Beauregard.  

They are all worth reading.  

And thank you for the reference above to Duhem's early work on theoretic holism.  

On the phone, we discussed the question of the possible instantaneous propagation of gravity. This was the original assumption made by Newton in his theory of gravity.

There are just two sets of binary quasars which currently exihibit orbital slowdown in agreement with the assumption of gavitational radiation, radiation that presumably propagates at the speed of light.



(cont.)

Let's go back to the ETH, extra-terrestrial hypothesis..........

If the ETH turns out to be correct, the BPWH/SWH will have been disproven.  It will have been falsified.  For all I know, this could happen tomorrow.  It could come out with Disclosure.  

IMHO, X'tianity would also have been disproven, in its most fundamental element..... that, through the J-man, humanity has a singular place and role in the cosmic scheme of things.  

Nowadays, the majority of X'tians try to play down this fundamental message of x'tinaity.  They are trying to be modern, to keep up with the scientific times.  I was arrested a year ago, at Grace Fellowship Church, for my pre-Copernican take on the x'tian message.  Now, the church idolizes Galileo, and throws folks, like me, in jail....the irony of history.  

But don't get me wrong, I sympathize.  In fact, had the roles been reversed, I would have thrown myself in jail.  Why?  It's simple..... folks are not yet ready for the BPWH.  Today, it would only confuse everyone, x'tians and non-x'tians alike.

When will we ever be ready........?  That depends on many factors.... some are know, most are not.  

Most  significantly, it depends on the state of our CuCs, collective unconscious.  I'm rather convinced that the Truth is within.  All of us have access to the cosmic truth.  The Truth is closer to us than the nose on our face.  

The only thing that comes between us and the truth is the Katechon.  What's that?  I guess you could say that the Katechon is the backside of the Lord..... the dark side of God, what many would call Satan.  It's the evil twin of God, in the cosmic dialectic.  Ok, the antithesis of God.  

Historically, I would say the the Katechon/Restrainer is primarily scientific materialism.  Yes, the closer you get to the Truth, the more subtle it becomes..... the more dangerous is becomes.  When you wish to engage the truth, you are 'playing' with fire...... do keep that in mind.  

Science is a narrow form of truth.  With all the unsubtlety of science and technology, it blocks out the more coherently subtle form of truth, the way the sunlight blocks the moonlight.  

Yes, this modern age is the Space Age, among other things.  We all have entertained blue-sky dreams.  ET's were the ultimate repositors/signifiers of those hopes and dreams.  

Many suppose that the government is covering up the truth of ET's, and for good reason.  

My bbq-buddy, Ron, was as close to being the real life Mr X, of X-file fame, as anyone known to the 'public'.  If anyone would know that the BPWH had been falsified, it would be him.  All that he has ever told me was..... yes, Dan, we have a phenomenology problem.  

If we can't rely on science to spoon-feed us the truth, who or what can we rely on?  It's sua-sponte..... rely on yourself.  

If I'm right, the truth is not out there..... it is in here.  But everyone has a different opinion about everything, from the trivial to the ultimate.  

Where do we start......?  Descartes:  I think, therefore I am?  Many  question that simple statement.  Even I would, further down the road, but it is a place to start.  

But, no, there is a more powerful place to start.... this is with the question of mind vs matter, which is actually quite similar to Descartes' question.  We're simply asking, at first, quite innocently, if mind exists.  Then we can ask whether you or I exist.  

Professionally, many would have to deny the mind.  Once you accept that mind exists, you are on a very slippery slope, ontologically, as we will shortly see.  

Many would wish, professionally, to deny the mind.  Personally, though, how many would go on to deny that they exist.....?  Precious few.  How many would deny that that they have free-will?  In claiming a free-will, many would point to quantum uncertainty, and all that, demonstrating their mondern mindedness.

Me.....?  I'm skeptical, both on the face of it, and on the fact that this approach leads into the incoherence of Cartesian, mind-body, dualism.  

As a coherentist, I am a monist and monadist..... almost.  Like I say, truth can be rather subtle......

Well, if the brain is not a thinking machine, what is it good for?  This is a tricky question, and, to-date, it has not been properly answered.  I'm the only one who ever seriously/honestly tried to answer it, and that is more of a challenge, than a statement of known fact.  

It all goes back to pokatok, that primordial, level playing field.....

Let's see....... why do we need a level playing field?  

Hey, it's lonely at the top...... God needs company.  Yes, I say that quite deliberately..... the Creator needs the creatures.  But, no, this is not just people who need people.  No.  This is the 'pure' logical necessity of it.  

It goes back to the cartesian I, and the primordial tetragrammaton, YHWH..... I am that I am.  

I don't buy it.  In this instance, I would go with Hegel...... I am that you are, or with Martin Buber, I - Thou...... with the Tao, male and female, etc......

There is no primordial YHWH.  Entertaining the concept of YHWH was the nearest thing we have to a primordial sin.  Take that thought to GFC, and see how long it takes them to call the cops.  

Well, at least, though, it was a sin of commission.  With everyone else there was the complementary sin of omission.  


A little while back, I was suggesting that a brain and a level playing field amount to about the same thing or same concept.......  Saying that any two things amount to the same thing is the game that we, monists, love to play, in case you hadn't already noticed.  

With any game, there has to be an object, and there are to senses of the word 'object'.  Both come into play.  There is a ball, and there is a goal or objective.  

Wait.... let's back up....  Monism/monadism is a stasis.  It's the Parmedian One.  Nothing happens.  But then we have the Heracletian flux.  Something happens.  Many call it Sin.  I call it a game.  Nay, I call it The Game...... as in harvard/yale?  

With the Game, we introduce uncertainty, we introduce flux.  

Ok, but why can't we just be angels in heaven?  Why do we have lug around these bodies that keep getting in the way, and getting sick?  

My modest claim is that angels can't play.  Well, ok, maybe they can play around, but, by definition, angels can't get down and dirty.  

What's the point of getting down-and-dirty?  Well, angels can't get serious.  They cannot play for serious stakes.  Their game is fixed.  It could never be more than a gentlemen's game.  Life, on the other hand, can get serious.  

In these last few paragraphs, I've said something I've never said before.  Well, I've thought it, but that's not quite the same thing, monist though I am.  I'm a Heracletian monist.  


12:45------------

But now I'm going to throw what I hope is the ultimate curve ball......

We are angles in heaven, the rest of you just haven't had the time or inclination to sit down and figure it all out.  I believe that I may have had the proper time and proper inclination.  Let's find out.....


The panthiests, mystics and aborigines have been telling us, from the ancient of days, that this is all a dream.  Fortunately, a lot of us were skeptical.  The pain and suffering seemed all too real.  And what about the other side.....?  If this is a dream, then what happens on the other side?  

Well, the pantheists are being consistent/coherent when they say that there is no other side.  WYSIWYG?  Well, not quite......

There is the uCs, and the CuCs, for starters.  There is the abyss.  There is the dark night of the soul.  There is blatant, in-your-face, Evil.  

And then there is materialism, in all its many splendors.....

What would history be, what would time be, without the history of 'progress'....... technological/scientific/social progress?  

Social progress......?  Many social conservatives would/could legitimately disagree on that lattter point..... show me the social/spiritual progress!  

Every day, it seems, that our count-down to midnight continues, inexorably.  Who sees the light at the end of this tunnel?  

There are just two kinds of people who claim to see the light.  The Transhumanists and the scripture believers.  They both are operating strictly on faith.  

Me.....?  What shall we guess......?  50% faith and 50% reason.....?  I'm guessing.  

Hey, I would then be bringing 45% more reason to this table than has been brought before.  That might not be anything to shake a stick at and/or it might be no great shakes.  

But, I'll be perfectly honest, it's that last 5% of reason that's likely to break the bank, either way.  

How, for instance, am I going to explain the spin-down of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar, without invoking gravitons, etc.?  The Devil is in the details, or is it the cosmic Genius..... our very own Telos?    

The problem is to stick to the telic Monad..... not to always get sidetracked.  

Is that all.......?  Hmmm.........

Look, Ma, we have no holes, no gaps.  Nature presents an invinceable facade.  Would we have had any other way?   Our Creationist friends keep looking for gaps, in all the wrong places.  They can't see the gap between their ears.  

What am I looking for.......?

I keep trying to look behind the scenery.  I want to know if the tree falls when we don't look.  It all depends on which tree and when.

The tree on the Quad?  Sure.  No problemo.  The tree on planet X?  Sorry, there are no trees on planet X.  

The Jurrasic Tree.....?  Well, this is where the crunch comes.......

Short answer....... yes and no.......  Hmmm, there's the rub.....

Is there an ontological difference between the Amazon forrest and the Jurrasic forrest?  I'm claiming that there is.  But I have not previously explained this difference, not even to myself.  This is called winging it.  

Ok, here goes nothing........  What we have is the BPWH/SWH/CTC, which is, say, on the order of 12,000 years in 'circumference', i.e. the temporal circumference of our CTC, closed time-like curve.  

All the rest........?  It's 'cosmetic'.  It's the background scenery.  Ok, but what is the ontological difference between foreground and background?  

No, maybe I should ask where lies the difference.......?

I'm tipping my hand....... No extra-terrestrial life, and I mean zip.  Not even any pond scum........ That's a relatively easy call.  

Why so easy.......?  Life is a top-down phenomenon.  Life comes from mind/sapience.  No extra-terrestrial sapience, no extra-terrestrial life.

Hmmm....... Not quite so fast, there, smitty.......  Doesn't matter come from mind, also.  Is there no extra-terrestrial matter?  Hey, there's no terrestrial matter, FWIW.  But that's not quite the problem.  We're talking phenomenology.  The tree falling on the Quad, is a phenomenon.  

The pokatok ball is an intersubjective 'object'.  We attend to it, and thereby reify it.

We attend to the Earth.  Do we attend to the Earth's molten core?  Yes, especially in the End, teleologically.  

Do we attend to Pluto......?  We have.  

Do we attend to planet X......?  Well, if the astronomers could have find no planets, it would have been 'embarrassing', all around.  

How embarrassing......? Well, I think that the MoAPS might have happend twenty years ago, had we been finding no planets. As they say..... timing is everything, especially in the End.




(cont.)

My claim is that we inhabit a small, anthropocentric world that has been cosmetically enhanced to appear natural/physical.  This appearance was designed into the system so as to cover our own teleological tracks.  

This appearance was designed to enhance our sense of existential freedom and to give us an historical/technological mission here on Earth.  

Our technological mission has nearly been accomplished.  We have run to the end of the physicalistic appearances.  It is now time for us to switch to the spiritual/eschatological mode of our existence.  

The Earth has now been '(un)wired' for us to undergo the metamorphosis to our Noospheric/'butterfly'/Monadic form of being.  

As for the Earth itself, the logic of our historical, closed time-like curve (CTC) will ensure that the Earth completes its singular circuit.  Our descendants become our ancestors.  Our final Megalopolic cities revert to our aboriginal Megalithic sites, in our temporary Monadic absence.

I probably cannot stress sufficiently that we are _not_ speaking of an eternal return.  We are speaking of the best possible, cosmically singular, quantitatively finite world.  This quantitative finitude is an essential aspect of the coherence/rationality of the world.  

Only the qualities of love can be unbounded/infinite.  This fact is to be seen as the essential aspect of the MoAPS that we, within the next decade, will undergo, presaging our Omega, some thousand years hence.  


What material claims, then, am I making wrt the fossils and stars.....?  

I am saying that it is only we, sapient creatures that we are, who are able to flesh out any specific times or places.  All else is simply the logical filling-in of our blind-spots.  

It is only we humans who can be here, now.  What is it that all those merely sentient creatures, out there, are lacking wrt their ontological potency?  

Their ontological potentiality is only derivative from our cosmic sapience.  

IOW, _only_ we, sapiens, can flesh out our best possible, here/now, CTC.  Everything else, beyond this, is pure projection, teleologically enhanced by our Monadic, cosmic Self.  It is just the logical fiiling-in of our cosmic blind-spot.  

Extra-terrestrial existence is our projection of what we suppose to be the God's-Eye view of the Universe.  But, note-bene, that _only_ we are God's Eyes.  We are God's Sensorium.  We are teleologically/Monadically God..... pure and simple.  We do not yet realize it.  We have yet to reify it.  We are the essential/eternal/singular Self-Creation of God.  

Get used to it...... get over it!  


11:40---------

Protagoras pronounced.... 'man to be the measure of all things.'  

We moderns have somehow deemed this to mean that there is no Truth..... that everything is a matter of public opinion.  

We cannot crawl back into Protagoras' mind to see what he actually meant, but I have chosen to put a very different meaning on that ancient declaration.  We are God's measurers.  

OTOH, we have that medieval image of 'God the Geometer' measuring/designing the world, entirely without our help.  

Can an inch-worm not also measure the world....?  Hmmm..... So to speak?  

Does the world have any need to be measured, by us or by the inch-worm?  

Cannot _the_ world just exist, all by itself?  Well, one problem here is that I snuck in the definite article, in denominating a specific world.  

Can a world not exist w/o any specificity?  It is very common to suppose that worlds can and do subsist without any specificity.  But what then are we claiming to actually exist?  What sort of abstraction is this?  Do I need to claim that abstracted worlds don't exist?  Might a non-specified world not exist?  

Look at all those extra-solar planets that astonomers are discovering.  
Might they not discover many more?  Might we not build a probe, and launch it toward any one of those planets, just as we have toward the Solar planets?  We might, indeed.  Hey, we have all the time, all the potential in the world to do so..... to specify those other worlds.  

Cannot something exist probably?  Isn't what what electrons do all the time, especially when we're not watching them?  

But a planet is not an electron.  It is many electrons.  Surely, the more electrons that a planet has, the more real and less merely probable its existence becomes.  

Is existence just a matter of semantics?  Is it a 'sorities' problem..... as in when does a collection of grains of sand become a sandpile?  Surely, existence is something that is more robust than this game of words implies.

How about the stars that are invisible to us, on the opposite side of our galaxy?  Their existence need not differ ontologically from the molten core of the Earth.  Should that indirectly inferable existence differ from the existence of an ice-cube in my soda?  

Does an archaeal cell at the bottom of an oil well differ ontologically from any one of my neuronal cells.  Even if it did so differ, would it not be impossible to specify the difference?  Can a difference exist which cannot be specified?  Does this not turn this word game around?  Turn-about is fair play......

Must existence not be an either/or proposition?  Not in the quantum world.  But the quantum world has its own special rules.  Those special rules governing electron ontology make possible the existence of atoms and chemistry.  

Well, smitty's rules of ontology make possible the existence of the BPW.  I am just unable to specify what those rules might be.  


I have a fall-back position..... I appeal to Leibniz' Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII).  Man is the measurer.... man is also the distinguisherer.  IOW, objects do not identify themselves.  

I could also state that materialism and immaterialism are simply incommensurable wrt self-existence..... as to whether existence be absolute or relative.  

But I don't believe that anyone has been able to discern the difference.  Well, we are invoking the concept of holistic/relational existence.  


The historical irony is that, in all probabilty, the notion of self-subsistence was first entertained in connection with the notion of an absolute God.



(cont.)

I'm not sure exactly what I was speculating when I stated that both materialism and immaterialism might be incommensurable with self-existence.  

Allow me to attempt to reconstruct this seemingly throwaway comment.......

Newton famously postulated an absolute frame of infinite space and time, or so most folks reckon.  As we delve into Newton's more mystical speculations, I think it's fair to say that this is an incorrect reconstruction of his actual thought process and of his unconscious projections.  

As an alchemist, Newton must have been familiar with the most basic concept in alchemy..... the Aether.

According to Wiki, the aether filled all space above the terrestrial sphere.  The aether was also known as the quintessence.....

In Greek mythology, it was thought to be the pure essence that the gods breathed, filling the space where they lived, analogous to the air breathed by mortals.

Hmmm.......

It was only later, with the enlightenment, that the gods were thrown out, along with their 'bathwater', the aether.  We were left with an empty container, of some sort.  

My fomer colleague, Frank Tipler, has written an article about The Sensorium of God.......  He points out that Newton was entirely explicit in postulating space to be the sensorium of God, and so that space could exist without any matter, being reified by the Absolute God.  

Leibniz did not believe in an absolute God.  He believed in an absolute Monad.  He was a monist, probably being influenced by Plotinus and NeoPlatonism.  

I guess you could say, then, that I'm a personalistic neoplatonist.  I replace the Monad with the cosmic Self, along with the signficant (xtian) caveat that no Self can exist in isolation.  The self is necessarily social.  Do we still need a monadic Substance?  

Ok, I'm saying that the Monadic Substance is potentiality/potency.  

I go just one step futher than the xtians in my socialization of the Monad.  I postulate that we, sapient creatures, are a neccesary part of the personalization of the Monad/cosmic-Self.  

Could not the trinity, the olympiad, exist is splendid isolation.....?

I could answer that question by postulating the BPW, but then am I not just begging the next question.......?  Can the BPW exist in splendid isolation......?

To put this another way..... can quantitatively finite existence subsist, unto itself?  

I say..... not only that it can subsist, in itself, I say that it must so subsist.  I'm saying that coherence is an essential aspect of existence.  To be included in God's sensorium, you must cohere to it.

Outside of God's sensorium....... outside of the Monadic subtance/potentia......  Could there be no Multiverse?  

Can we not have poly-monadism?  Well, that was supposed to be the point of Monotheism.  It's Absolute.  One can grasp this by simply acknowledging the relativity of time.  If there happend to exist a second Monad, 'out there', there is no reason to suppose that it might not bump into the first one.  

If one Monad exists, cannot another?  Who granted exclusivity?  Only on Leibniz' authority?  

I think we must invoke the PII, in some rather brute manner.  Separation is something that must be proactive.  There must be a barrier to keep things apart.  There must be an absolute space or time to keep two things apart, but it seems illogical to postulate such an object.  It would be a very 'unnatural' assumption.  

Even if one could logically postulate such an absolute barrier, would not the PII render it relative?

But, then, is there no logic to the Multiverse?  Many believe that there is such a logic.

The logic is that there might exist unobservable universes.  But must there not be a common backgound?  Somehow, they must commensurate.  We do speak of them, coherently?  How do these multiverses cohere, besides in the minds of the speculators.  

There seems to be implied, certainly with 'Mad' Max, a common background of mathematics and logic.  Mathematics is Max's Aether, IOW.  

Why does Max pick out mathematics for his Aether?  What else might he pick out?  Why the need to pick out any backgound?  

It seems that the only implication is that to discuss existence, cogently, there must be a common field of discourse.  Is existence necessarily social?  

No, not if you are a Platonist about your mathematics, as Max must be.  

Is there something wrong with that posture.....?  Is there something wrong with Plato?  Just the same thing that was 'wrong' with Newton.

Both Newton and Plato made it too easy to throw out the Baby, Bambino, El Nino, and keep all that Absolute Bathwater.  

NB: I'm not making that same mistake, now, am I?  

It's all about Personalism.  In order to be coherent, you must be a Personalist.  Disavow the Person, and you reap the Whirlwind, the Chaos, the Abyss, the Apeiron...... the cosmic Bathwater, if you will.   Have I made my point?  

That last paragraph sums up the BPWH rather succinctly..... It's Us or Rust.  


11:30--------

Let us then reiterate........

There is no independent, absoute, existence without a Self.  

With a Self...... a self is necessarily The Self, but The Self is necessarily a communal self.  But what then is the one Substance?  

Ok, it is the Aether, the air/breath/spirit of the gods.  Is it not the holy spirit?  Is it not the SoT, the Comforter?  I think it is.  It is the ambrosia, the quintessence of the gods.  Is it something impersonal?  No.  It is something interpesonal.  It is the communion wine, if you will.  

Can this Wine of the gods be personified?  Watch me try!  


This ambrosia is also known as Karma.  It is known as Lethe, perhaps.  

Yes, perhaps Karma is the most potent word for this Wine.

How may karma be personified?  Only with Redemption/Lethe.  

Lethe is personified in Christ/Redeemer

What is Lethe wrt the BPW?  

Do we still need a Redeemer, if the BPW has been redeemed in eternity?  

Well, the Logos is eternal, is it not?  God's love is eternal, is it not?  

Eternity = Love = ....... I think you get the idea, now.  I think you can fill in the blanks.  


2pm----------

I think we've shored up the foundation, there.

What about the ramparts........?  What about all those phenomena.....?  Especially the scientific phenomena.  

Basically, I invoke teleology....  and/as a logical extension of the Anthropic Principle.  

After personalism, I invoke instrumentalism...... to be more specific about Teleology.  

Instrumentalism.........?  


3:40---------

Well, the standard definition is not what I had in mind.  Philosophers of science speak of instrumentalism in the context of induction and deduction.  It was mainly a debate between Dewey and Popper.  Today, I would be more on the side of Popper, as being skeptical of any scientific claims on ultimate truth, and so be opposed to Dewey's version of 'instrumentalism'.

That was the traditional context.  But I have in mind the teleological potential of scientific instruments, per-se.......  

Scientific instruments, I suggest, are designed and 'programmed' to serve the interest of scientifc coherence.  They are 'programmed' telekinetically/teleologically to be the centerpiece of the materialistic Katechon, and thus do they end up by serving the larger Telos, and, more spefically, by delaying the MoAPS.  They help to fine-tune the countdown to the MoAPS.  

A case in point would be the LHC.......

Remember the 'God' Particle?  It came and it went.  Then what.....?  Then nothing.  Cern went silent.  Halelujah, I say.  The experimantalists have gone silent.......

http://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2015/04/the-desert-and-the-large-hadron-collider.html ......

THEY call it "the desert" – a vast, empty landscape separating us from a promised land that shimmers like a mirage on the horizon. A land full of answers, where we finally achieve a complete understanding of material reality.

Stop dreaming: we can't get to this nirvana. The way across the desert is too long and hot, and we have no vehicle to take us there. But if physicists' hopes are realised, a machine just waking from a two-year slumber could bring us a decisive step closer – and might even reveal answers closer to home…

Maybe yes. Maybe no...... It all depends on the timing of MoAPS. The LHC is the lynch-pin of the Katechon, in all probability.

I'm biased. I'd like the MoAPS to come on my watch. I'd like to be a participant. No kidding........

But, as they say..... only the Father knows for sure.



(cont.)

To be honest, my suggestion, proposing a novel version of 'instrumentalism', invoking teleology through our scientific instruments, is weak..... is only semi-coherent.  

For one thing, the teleology must transcend our instruments, per-se.  Paleotologists rely on only the most rudimentary form of tools, for instance.  And, yet, I refer to fossils and stars in the same teleological breath.  

Is this just about 'saving the appearances'?  It's rather more proactive than, I think, even Owen Barfield was suggesting.  

It is invoking a liberal use of our teleological/cosmic intelligence to fill in our blank spaces, all the way from Pluto to the Archaeopteryx.  Had there been no planets or fossils, our virtual reality, that we call the world, might as well have been a terrerium..... and we be denizens of a zoological park.

No, this is a teleological park.  It is the BPWH/SWH/CTC.... something rather more sophisticated. 
---------- 

No, we should not confuse cosmologists and cosmetologists, although, you might check out the etymology.  

The driving force behind science is coherence.  It is the same as the driving force behind the BPWH.  What, then, is the big differencce?  

One is bottom-up, and the other is top-down.  Take your choice.  

Ne'er the twain shall meet........?  They can meet only in the BPW. 

There has to be a gap in the CTC, but there is no gap in the veil of Nature.  Well, there is a phenomenolgical gap.  The Telos can penetrate the veil of nature, in specific instances.  Those specific instances are usually incoherent.  


11:10---------

It is the UEM, unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, that gives substance to the bottom-up appearance of science.  And, yes, there is, of course, a great deal of the bottom-up in ordinary experience.  

Am I giving too much substance to logic and mathematics?  Perhaps I should appeal more to symmetry breaking.  It is a subset of logic.  Evolution comprises a great deal of this SymBrk.  That is what ecology is about.  This is also what monadology is about.  It's how the cookie crumbles.  Witness the Mandelbrot and the fracturing of fractals. 

What am I missing.......?  

Where does the logic stop and the aesthetics/agape begin?  How can their interface be so seamless?  It's that seamlessness that I haven't accounted for.  

Well, SymBrk seems to work from both the top and the bottom.  

Agape and symbrk seem to be in opposition.  Well, that is our sublunary view of the matter.  SymBrk is something more robust than mere logic would have it.  

But what then is the Logos?  That is both top and bottom potent.  It serves both analysis and synthesis.  It is the eternal dialectic.  

The Tao is both yin and yang.  It is the warp and woof.  It is Indra's necklace.  

The CTC has an Omega >> Alpha gap.... the spark/air gap.  We do mind the Gap.  

This CTC gap is where sapience absents itself from the phenomenal Earth. 

I'm having equal difficulty with the Present/Presence...... as through a glass, darkly.....

There should also be a gap between the Cs, the CCs, the uCs and the CuCs.  It is found in the sleep cycle.  There is a gap.  There is also a life gap.  

There is the gap between the past and future.  

There is the gap between our various senses.  Synaesthesia is a stop-gap.  


2:15----------

The present moment may be a puzzle for the immaterialist.  It is an unfathomable mystery for the materialist.  It is a piece of eternity, somehow fallen into our laps.  Yet, it eludes our grasp.  

There is a here and now.  They may be entirely gratuitous, in accord with the materialist.  Our mortality is the price we pay for being present.  

The direction of time may be the ultimate symmetry breaking.  It is more pervasive, more irreversible than all the others.  

The increase in entropy appears so transparent, but it does not yield to analysis.  

The transition from order to disorder seems obvious enough. The changes of entropy in thermal systems may be quantified, as long as you are able to define a temperature, and the temperature is the only variable.  This works for heat engines, but for little else.  

As you analyze thermodynamic systems, sooner than later, you run into questions of information and statistics.  Informational questions are notoriously normative.  Statistics is also, though less obviously.  

The basic problem has to do with probability.  Statistics, along with probability, necessarily deals in the informational state of a given system.  The definition of that state is normative.  

Does all this mean, finally, that time itself is subjective?  More than a few philosophers have given cogent arguments to this effect.  

The mere possibility that time is not something entirely objective is often taken to be supportive of the immateialist position. 

Can space exist without objects?  Can time exist without events?  Space and time have relational aspects.  Do they have any other apects?  They allow the world to be cognizable and coherent.  If we weren't present, what would we be?  Absent?  


6:20--------- 

I ask...... when was it that time was considered most objective, most physical? 

I suggest that this came within the duration of the special theory of relativity, from 1905 to 1915.  This is when the the notion of a space-time frame was developed.  The independently abstract notions of space and time were tied together with Einstein's forumation, and in this combined form they were given a distincly physcial flavor.  

It would seem then that this physicality would have been advanced when the notion of the big-bang arrived on the scene, shortly thereafter.  What happend?  It turned out that Einstein's equations of general relativity were necessarily dynamic.  They did not have a static solution.  

There was the notion that the very origin of space and time could be tied to singular cosmic event.  How could you get more physical than that?  

In efffect, though, time had gone from being too abstract to being too physical.  The singular cosmic event smacked of a special Creation.  The ceationist aspect loomed larger when is turned out that Einstein's fudge factor, became Hubble's cosmological constant, an arbitrary but incredibly small number when compared to other physical quantities, and even to gravity itself.  

This was the beginning of the anthropic problem, the appearance of a finely-tuned design.  

But there was a way out.  One could posit an early 'inflation' to iron out the thermal chaos that one would expect to accompany a 'natural' big-bang.  At first, the inflationary idea was successful.  But it turned out to be difficult to turn the inflation on or off.  We now have infinite, eternal inflation.  There is little by way of a scientific consensus on the matter.  Time has fled back into an infinite background, taking on, once again, an abstract, absolute quality.  



(cont.)

Early this morning, it occurred to me what had happened in SF.......

It was the reverse of the Truman Show.  Yes, everybody else knows what is going on, on some level, but Truman is the only one sufficiently naive to be willing to do something about it...... to talk about it, to test it......  That's what I was doing in SF.  Everything seemed to be on track.  The convergence was on the final sailboat scene.  

I also suspect that the September surprise may still be on the table.  There is a ring-pass-not, which even the global IC has not been able to penetrate.  It is the shield surrounding the (mental/spiritual) abduction of us sapiens.  It is the MoAPS.  It is also the dome that was the venue of the Truman Show

The giveaway is simply that there is a present.  The present does seem to have something to do with time, but quite indirectly.  The present has much more to with consciousness (Cs).  It is the point of convergence or intersection of the individual and collective consciousness, Cs & CCs, and likewise on the unconscious side, uCs & CuCs.  

Physical time emerges in connection with the convergence.  It is a derivative aspect of the Present.  Historical time is the tapestry of the four elements.  Physical time, entropy and statistical mechanics emerge therefrom.  

This Truman dome, this ring-pass-not, is what others think of as the Conspiracy, cosmic and/or terrestrial.  They are on the right track.  They, along with ISIS, the Trumpies, etc., want to break the cosmic spell.  They have not long to wait, evidently.  


What is inredible about the present is its simultaneity, despite the physicists constantly trying to disuade us or any 'real' simultaneity. 

The simultaneity of the present is, yes, the cosmic communion.  If individual Cs were an illusion, why is it so shareable?  This communion of the Present/Presence is the true Aether.  This is the Monad.  It's been staring at us, all along.  Yes, the Present is up close, and it is personal/interpersonal.  

Do you have to be sapient to be present?  No, of course not.  But do you have to be sapient to see the the Present for what it is?  Of course, you do.   You have to be able to see the Absent, the Abyss, before you can truly appreciate the Present.  


We thought we were lost...... in space and time.  Not any more.  

Space-time was supposed to be an absolute, empty container.  Well, is it empty or full?  Time is pregnant with the Presence.  And the Monad was pregant with the Potency of the present.  Now we see space-time as God's Pleroma.... overflowing.  

All that empty space out there?  That is the true Illusion.  The UT's just demonstrate that illusion, on a daily basis.  There is no there, there.  There is no Presence/present there..... only vicariously.  

Almost everthing, everybody is now, here.  This is where the action is.  Praise the Lord, if you are so inclined.  


10am---------- 

Yes, the true potency of the Earth is about to be realized.  It has been, virtually.  Everything is in place.  We're all wired up, and nowhere to go, in space.  Am I jumping the gun by a tad.....?  Well, in the End, I'd much rather be too early than too late!  

And how can we be so sure that there is not another Presence, out there?  

We are asking if there cannot be multiple Logoi.  In the End, we can and must have faith in the universality of the Logos, and all that goes with it.  Would the Logos pull the cosmic wool over our eyes?  

It already has, with Nature and Space.  Why would it not do that again, wrt possible Logoi?  Good fences make good neighbors?  

I don't think you can fence in the Aether.  The Fence is the illusion, not the aether.  You cannot fence in love.  Love is the only thing that can be unbounded.  It is the Apeiron.  It is eternity.  Go for it!  

It only requires a mustard seed of faith.  

What more can I say about the supposed Logoi...... been there, done that?  We have seen the Other, and it is Us?  
--------------


Instrumentalism......?  Fossilism......?  What say we now......?  

Beware of the Monad of the Gaps.  'Look, Ma, no holes!', as said of Wonderbread (R).    

There are no holes in the Aether, in the Pleroma, in the Logos, in Nature, etc......... No fences, either.... just our own Myopia, our own Katechon, yes, our own Fear.  
---------- 

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon........

There is a Gap that I do tout........

It is the Omega >> Alpha 'spark' gap of the CTC/SWH.  

Why is it necessary?  It is nessary, because it explicitly serves the greater unity of the CTC/SWH.  

It's about the 'closed' time-like curve (CTC)........

It cannot be a closed system, of couse.  It cannot be a Carnot cycle.  There is no Eternal Return.  

Did I forget to tell you......?  This is the BPW, a singular, personal, cosmic circuit!  

Yes, our BPW/SW/CTC is embedded in Eternity.  But that is not quite good enough.  That is looking at it too mechanically.  

Really, that is looking at it too extrinsically.  It's a god's-eye view, but, in the form of the Telos, we are God.  (This, btw, is probably our biggest fear!)  

So, we get to take a break from our co-Creation labor.  I think we may actually get two breaks...... a spititual break, the Millennium, and a 'physical' break, the 'spark' gap of the CTC.  

This 'physical' R&R is not optional.  Well, no, actually, it is, partly..... but... later......

The continuity of the CTC is maintained by the singular cosmic Soul, that we are all time-sharing.  

OTOH, there does have to be an entropy gap.  That is the 'physical' gap.  The directionality of historic time is real, wrt the Earth.  Let's not forget our foot-print on poor old Mother Earth.  

We could have history just be linear, as is generally supposed, but that would seem to leave history suspended in some absolute time-frame.  I am emphasizing that time, such as it is, is purely an artifact of history, of our co-Creation.  Is the 'circuitous' shape of the CTC an illusion or an option?  

Well, it is to emphasize that the Earth was not created arbitrarily, out of nothing, as in a big-bang.  

No.  We and the Earth are the 'actual' center of the cosmos.  This is where it all happens.  But this is internal combustion, if you will.  We need an intake and outtake, and, combined, they are the spark or air gap.  Yes, this is a work in progress....... 

You might think of this CTC as a rotory engine.  


noon--------- 

There is one big gap in our world..... O >> A.  

There are lots of little gaps..... anomalous/uncorrelated phenomena.  These are one-off, irrepreducible phenomena.  Our world can be porous.  It is permeable.  But, yes, those phenomena are optimally bashful.  They are not just random.  

However, when you focus on Nature, all that porosity seems to disappear.  What kind of 'game' is this?  It's hide-and-seek..... it's peek-a-boo, if you really want to know.  

We each have two sets of eyes...... the eyes of the skeptic and the eyes of the mystic, if you will.  It's only in the End that this double vision can coalesce into a larger coherence.    


Nature has its own coherence.  You are permitted to immerse yourself in that natural coherence.  That's what scientists do.  Artists and mystics imerse themselves into the sphere of the psyche.  We do obtain two cultures.  Eventually they coalesce onto the Telos.  There is but One, in the End.  


2pm--------- 

I'm slowly working my way back, reworking the blog.  I'm now back to Jan. 30th, toward the bottom of that day's post....... 

I made a bald assertion...... no life out there, not even pond scum.  

That bet seems a little too safe, practically speaking, so for the sake of a practical test, I'll go one better...... Not even any free oxygen.  

I believe that the discovery of atmospheric oxygen, in more than trace amounts, would be tantamount to discovering life itself.  At least, this would make my claim testable in the foreseeable future.  

But not quite so fast there, smitty.......

I have argued that there are not any extra-solar planets as robust phenomenologically as, say, Pluto.  Yet, we have discovered hundreds of such planets.  

Well, I chalked these discoveries up to the timing of the MoAPS.  Had we discovered none such, the MoAPS might have occurred a decade ago.  Timing is everything, when it comes to the end game.  We also have the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar, spinning down, as predicted by GR.  These are critical phenomena, in keeping the scientific spirit alive.  

There is a fine-tuning of the end-game.  I would not necessarity take a stray oxygen line observed in some spectrograph to mean that we had discovered pond scum, after all.  

But I would take it to mean that another 'hold' had been designed into the countdown to the MoAPS.  

Is this fair enough?  I'll bet 10:1 odds that there is no such discovery in the next five years, and that the countdown will run apace.  

I place this no-O2 wager alongside my long-standing no-ET's wager.  I take this earlier wager to be the more significant one, in the larger scheme.  


3pm---------- 

Skipping ahead one day, in my Jan 31 post I quoted Protaoras..... man is the measure of all things.  And with that quote, I'm referring back to Jan 28, when I introduced the general mesurement problem.......

Measurements, by definition, cannot be purely objective.  They are irreducibly normative.  There are good measurements and bad measurements, etc.  

However, it was only with the advent of quantum physics, that the so-called measurement/observer problem became a full-blown problem.  The quantum measurement problem is still treated as primarily a technical problem, meant for physicists to solve.  Only a handful of physicists have taken this to have larger ontological ramifications.  Most notable was Wheeler, with his Participatory universe.  

But there's more........ 

There was Bohr v Einstein, and the resulting Copenhagen interpretation.  This led to Schrodinger's Cat paradox.  And there was entanglement and action-at-a-distance.  This was rather broader than the measurement problem, per-se.  These considerations, and many others wrt to the quantum, have led many thoreticians to, at least, give tacit approval to immaterialist thoughts.  

I do mention, from time-to-time, the quantum-mind folks, who often espouse mind-matter dualism.  

The later Bohm espoused an implicate/explicate order duality.  This was similar to Kant's noumenal/phenomenal distinction.  

But none of these later thinkers were willing to considered the cosmological implications, along the lines of Wheeler's partipatory universe. Well, all the more for the rest of us.......


4pm------- 

As an immaterialist, I get to turn the quantum problems around, and suggest that they are just a symptom of the immaterialism.  

Ok, let me go back to the later Bohm, with his explicate and implicate order.  Nay, let's go back to Kant, with his noumenal realm.  We moderns tend to ignore the etymology of 'nous', but Kant most certainly did not forget that 'nous' was mind, simpliciter.  

Were Bohm and Kant idealists?  I think there should be no question.  It's only us, moderns, who like to equivocate.  

Am I another neo-Kantian?  If such include radical immaterialists, I might be.  

A prime argument against Kant was taken to be the non-Euclidean geometry of GR.  Kant stated that euclidean geometry was mandated by the nous/mind.  It would, then, be the defacto geometry of the phenomenal realm.  Einstein proved otherwise.  Is this a fair judgement?  I would suggest that both the premise and conclusion do not stand up.  

Kant was at fault making such a claim in the first place.  The rest were at fault for taking this one claim too seriously.  

What was the original proof of GR.  It was the precession of the prehelion of Mercury, 38"/century more than predicted by Newtonian mechanics, which was taken as proof of GR.  

Does this prove that idealism/immaterialism is false?  Many say that is does, along with all the stars and fossils, etc.  



(cont.)

I hear dead people........?  Not quite.  I feel (for) dead philosopers.  That's more like it.  

I can empathize with people who struggle for truth.  

Kant struggled for the truth...... I'm guessing.  I have that faith.  

Descartes was not struggling for the truth.  He struggled to be the king of the Paris Salon.  That might not be totally accurate.  It was the Salon's fault, more than his.  In the End, though, we realized there is no fault.  It is the best possible world, and we all have a place.... or two.  

Newton........?  He saved the appearances.  When he wasn't doing that, he was a devoted mystic.  He put Descartes' dualism on the road to centuries of success.  

Descartes carried out the judgement of Solomon.  He split the truth in half, thereby demonstrating that neither would-be parent, neither Science nor the Church, was the real parent.  

Alexander cleaved the Gordian knot.  Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall........

What is my secret.......?  I know that telephony was a necessary prelude to telepathy.  How so.......? 

Back in the 'golden' age, every tribe had its own telepathy.  The tribesmen knew how to commune with their ancestors.  They talked to dead people.  

Then there was the traumatic breakdown of that Bicameral Mind.  The oracles all went silent.  Hamlet's Mill had much grain to grind..... at the bottom of the sea.  

We had to experience de-tribalism before we could experience global-brainism.  We had to experience the world-wide-web before we could experience the Noosphere.  

Kant struggled with the Noumenon.  Folks thought he was struggling with the thing-in-itself.  No.  He was struggling with the CuCs.  It is a stuggle.  

Kant was practically a self-made icon.  All the better for us modern iconoclasts.  The analytical philosophers had no trouble demolishing/nit-picking Kant.  They used the precession of the perihelion of Mercury to do it.  I use the precession of the equinoxes to help regain the larger/holistic view.  The amazing coherence of Science is the katechon we struggle against.  Science is a high bar for the final Truth.  

We have to keep our eyes on the prize........

The problem is not the prcession of the perihelion.  No.  It is the perihelion, itself.  Newton understood this, that's why he could keep doing his alchemy.  He knew it was just a game..... working it out with a pencil.  The rest of us........ we fell for it..... head over heels..... 

We had to get ourselves thoroughly lost, in space, before we could ever find ourselves.  We would know ourselves, as for the first time.

The caterpillar can't just wake up one morning and be a butterfly.  No.  We had to experience all the existential angst of being a pupa..... of going-global, of being held together with sealing-wax and bailing-wire.  Ouch.  

What do we make of the perihelion of the Wanderers?  What did Newton and Copernicus make of it?  

They took it with a grain of salt.  Can we?  Let's see.......

The heavens exploded, right before our eyes and telescopes.  Our Cosmetic Shell became 3/4D.  Pieces of that shattered Shell fell at our feet, in the form of fossils.  

What a shock.  We struggle with being lost.  We try desperately to get used to it.  

To pass the time, we knit our world-wide-web, our Indra's necklace.  The explosion becomes an implosion.  


It's all about those pesky perihelions....... pass the salt.....

With all those perihelions, we're just beginning to see the back of our own heads.  I'll bet you that Newton, with all his alchemy, had a glimmer of the larger Truth.  I have that faith in human nature.  Human nature will trump Nature every time, and, especially, in the End.  

Perihelions.......?  How about the heliotropism of the Riviera?  Which came first..... the photons or photosynthesis?  Easy for the materialist, not so easy for the immaterialist.  

And so we pass, rather quickly, from the precession of the perihelion, to the perihelion, to heliotropism, to solar photons.  What does teleology have to say about that progession?  The Telos would like to know.  

Einstein took his stand on the photon.  I take my stand on the Telos.  Which is the more solid?

This is the venue that I must ultimately defend.  You give me the perihelion....... I give you photosynthesis.  No.  I give you the pokatok ball.  That's all you need.  That is how my feeble mind works, anymore, and I am lazy, to boot.  

You just have to find the loose end.  The tapestry of Science is a piece of work.  You have to love it, then loose it...... 


10:40---------

After all, that pokatok ball has an aphelion, does it not?  

Yes, but that's not quite good enough.  I mean, we all know that the Sun comes up like a red-rubber ball, but we don't believe it, not for a NY minute.  

We believe in the tapestry of science.  It works.  It brings us smart phones.  

Those smart phones are the ultimate heliotropes, if you stop to think about the holistic/social nature of belief.  All those rare-earth components, they came to us, gratis the neutrino shock-waves in distant super-novas.  Didn't they?  

It's all about the anthropic/telephone principle.  Just a slight extension of the good ol' AP..... AtP?  

Watch me hem and haw about the ontological difference between the pokatok ball and the 'red-rubber' ball.  The difference is that the latter stay up in the sky and the former can bop us on the head.  But they're both made of atoms, aren't they.  What's the difference between sky atoms and Earth atoms?  

Meteorites come right down and bop us on the head.  And I've seen those moon rocks with my own eyes, right there at the Air&Space museum.  No question.  (Oh, I forgot, the moon rocks are just stage props, and it's all a conspiracy!)    

Yes, it is a conspiracy, but it's a cosmic one.  It's our future selves conspiring against our fomer selves.  Fine..... but how do we do it?  

You can fool some of the people......... 

I'd better get out my specs, and start speculating, right before your eyes....... 

I'm guessing that there's another dimension to time.  There the historical/phenomenal dimension of time, the one we all know and love.  And then there's the logical dimension of time.  What's that.....? 

It has to do with the actual tapestry of the world.  It has to do with collective consciousness (CCs).  This tapestry is woven out that silver thread, our cosmic umbilical-cord, the 10^10 spirals that are the path of the singular, cosmic, time-shared soul that makes up our CTC.  It is the Feynman sum over all our histories.  It is the constructive interference pattern that we call the BPW/SW/CCs.... you name it.  


Noon--------- 

It's also like building a suspension bridge.........

To start, you need to shoot just one gossamer thread across the Abyss.  Gradually, you add 'heft'.  You add resolution.  You add depth of logic.  This is the logical dimension of time.  This is the CuCs.  

Finally, you add Apollo 11.  That's kind of a rough picture.  Much of that logical dimension of time was worked out right before our eyes.  We call it scientifc discovery.  It is more like the filling in of the details.  The Alpha and Omega of this cosmic suspension bridge...... I wonder what they could be.  Yes, I wonder Who.  I guess it's just persons, all the way down..... and up.  

Hey, don't let me spoil your big-bang.  


2pm---------

What then is the difference between atoms on the Earth and atoms in the Sun.  

I think you have to be more specific than that........  

Do atoms shape-shift?  Frankly, yes.  The carbon atom of DNA context is not the same as the carbon atom of the triple-alpha process.  

Do UT's shape-shift, also?  So I've heard.  Many anomalous phenomena are contextual, depending particularly on the state of mind of the observer.  Atomic behavior depends very much on the intent of the observer.  What are atoms, over and above their behavior?  

Everything is context dependent, even though we can usually pick a an individual out of a crowd.  

Our personalities may readily shape-shift.  

Was Pluto the same, before and after the New Horizons fly-by?  Epistemically?  Ontically?  What is the Pluto-in-itself..... the noumenal Pluto.  Answer me that, and I'll tell you if it changed.  Kant would like to know, too.  
-------------- 


Back on the 24th, I raised the question of the speed of light.......

It is very fast, by Earthly standards, but it is definitely not instantaneous.  Also, it plays a very important part in its physical context of the fine-structure constant..... alpha ~= e^2/hc ~= 1/137. In that combination, it pretty much determines the shape of the world, the preeminent chemical constant.  

The speed of our electrochemical signals relative to the size of the brain are of a similar ratio as the speed of the photoelectric signals relative to the size of the Earth.  

Our intersubjective handle on the speed of light must come indirectly through the role it plays in atomic/molecular physics.  There are no ordinary phenomena that would render that speed directly accessible to the intersubjective realm.  In that sense, the speed C is just an abstraction to us.  

The non-instantaneous propagation of light, fundamental that it is, provides a basis for every other time scale.  Nay, it is the determinate of time itself.  In this sense, time is no illusion.  It is fundamental.  C provides the foundation of all illusions.  

If our intersubjective orchestration needs a metronome, needs a perfect pitch pipe, C provides it.  It must come straight from heaven.  

C seems so abstract and impersonal.  One thing has to be that.  It may be the ultimate complement to the cosmic person.  It is the impersonal foundation of Creation.  On this rock...... 

Light is most intimately bound up with our concepts of space and time, both phenomenally and mathematically.

Light does permit us indirect perception.  Direct perception comes only in the shadows.  It comes, by some analogy, through something like quantum entanglement, which does happen to be instantaneous.  Light then is part of the Katechon.  It can easily blind us to the direct truth. 

I see that this struggle with light and vision goes all the way back to Jan 21, at the top of page 28.  Familiarity breeds some degree of comfort with an oustanding problem for all us immaterialists.  Its rough edges do become smoothed down with prolonged use.  The more angles that a can view the problem from, simultaneously, the broader is the perspective, the better integrated it becomes wrt the rest of the immaterialist lanscape, and with the idea of the monad, itself.  


(cont.)

I'm reading back to Jan 14, in this thread, but first allow me to recap......

Yes, there may have been a turning point, in this perpetual blog......

It seems to have happened just two days ago, Feb 3, with my understanding that the situation is a reversal of Truman Show.  Yes, the R&D show had similarities to the Truman Show.  

But now the show is over.  I was able to break free.  Yes, that may have been the plan, all along.  The timing was somewhat forced.  Yes, I did pass my ring-pass-not (RPN), but that still leaves the issue of the alleged, more general, Sept RPN.  It will either be a nuclear device or a MoAPS.  

I'm rather more confident that it will be a MoAPS, than I am of its timing.  We may have run out of built-in holds.  9/11 may have been the last major one.  

As things progress, right here, we may get more insight into the RPN/MoAPS..... into the general context of it.  
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10:15----------- 

Yes, I think I was right to pick out C, speed of light, as, perhaps, being the most metaphysical of the 'physical' constants.  

Everyone else would point to Plank's constant, h, and that is partially correct.  But it is really too obvious.  It's been too well integrated into our psyches.  C is much more the dark-horse, IMHO.  

For my purposes, C is more in our face...... 'h' is rather too subtle.  I'll leave 'h' to the philosophers.  

Real/direct perception is simultaneous/instantaneous.  The Present/Presence is both.  It is a piece of Eternity.  We need 'C' to help us fragment eternity.  It's really history.  History is eternity, stretched out.  C is the stretcher.... the frame.  I could go on, but I hope you're getting the idea.  

Well, ok, one more thing that I've already alluded to....... 

'C' is instrumental in determining the circumference of the world..... actually both worlds.... both the Earth and the CTC.  C will give us the ~12K 'light' years of our CTC.  The other was the speed/distance ratio of the Earth/brain system.  Got it.......?  Moving right along.......


Anyway, I had picked geometric optics as the ptimary bugaboo of the immaterialist.  In my own mind, anyway, I think I have succeeded in smoothing out that mental speed-bump.  It's rough edges have been smoothed down, as it is a little better integrated into the larger picture.  

'C' plays a very important role in astronomy, obviously.  My peace-treaty with the astonomers is, basically, what happens in the Sky, stays in the Sky.  Meteorites are the exception that prove the rule.  Apollo11.... Voyager..... kept most of us very distracted.  The LHC......?  It's stuck in the 'desert' of its own making.  'Atlas' shrugged..... a sign of the times.  

There's another exception..... E=MC^2.  We stole some lightning from the gods......?  Well, only in the limit..... 'C' ensures that we can't really blow ouselves up, try though we might.  You might want to ask Ron about this, especially in connection with the September Surprise..... Nuke v MoAPS...... 
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11:15------------ 

Back to Jan 14 and the common cold.......... and let's add Zika and Ebola, for good measure....... 

Who ordered the common cold (CC)?  

Hey, if it didn't already exist, we'd have had to invent it.  

Who invented the mosquito?  It can be a darn pest, when it's not actually dangerous.  

Well, I'm wanting to lump the mosquito in with the other insects..... kinda creepy, they are.  I would take birds, any day.  

Mosquitos come along with the common cold.  Yes, it is about evolution...... hush my mouth.....  I mean, we're gonna have mortal bodies, i.e. metabolism..... and everthing else just comes along for the ride...... ride, baby, ride......!! 

Hey, look, with monism/monadism, there's gonna be more than enough coherence to go around.  And, hey, again, a little competition is good for the soul..... cosmic Soul, that is.   

Moving right along.........


Later on, on the 14th, I say something interesting about the concept of the microcosm.  Micro-cosmolgy is crucial, I believe, to the whole scheme of things........

The microcosm of the atoms and cells are just the supporting cast for the sapient microcosm.  And, of course, we are the supporting cast for the Cosmos/Telos..... you name it.  

Atoms and cells are nothing...... if they're not context dependent.  And guess what......?  By the same token, so are we nothing...... and everything.  Get it.......?  


12:15---------

The 13th...... I think I've covered most of that......

But somehow, I'm reminded of angels...... Well, all this talk of metabolism puts me in mind of the non-metabo-lites. 

If metabolism is so great for us, microcosmics, what about those angels, dancing on the head of their pin......?  

Well, ok, maybe this was too easy......  They're just messengers, bringing us news from Nowhere...... 

Once in awhile, they give us a minor adjustment.  Carry on........


The 12th...... hmmm..... check that off......

11th........ same....... How far back do I have to go, to find something that is outstanding/outriding, as in an outrider?  


The Truman Show recollection does seem to have triggered something, especially wrt the sailboat.  We have met the Katechon, and it is us.  (It was also the 'Sky' dome.)  The Katechon is the only thing shielding us from the Eschaton..... well, that and the Millennium.  

The Katechon is something like Gulliver..... we, of course, are the Liliputians.  The Internet is the restrainer/harness of the Beast.  The Beast is us, we have met it, tamed it...... let's hope.  


On the 8th, I like the idea of the CSE, collective super-ego.  Yes, that's what we used to call 'God'.  It is a bit more real than the atheists would have us believe.  



(cont.)

(Sorry..... I meant to hit cmnd-C, and I hit cmnd-V.  Trying to repeat the recap......) 

I've made it all the back to Jan 3, on page 25.  Let me recap what we've established so far.......

Persons/selves are the microcosms of coherence.  There is necessarily a personal Monad.  Personal coherence is necessarily quantitatively finite, versus the impersonal Apeiron/Chaos/Abyss, which exists only as the logical abstraction from the pesonal, by persons.  Coherence necessarily entails sapience, as opposed to sentience.  

Persons, of course, are necessarily social.  

Societies are necessarily unfair.  They are tribal.  To ameliorate the unfairness, we construct a level/bounded playing field, and a primeval ballgame that we call Pokotok.  That game becomes the prototype of our Earthly existence.

To repeat..... coherence, in its quality, knows no bound.  And by this same token, it is necessarily finite in quantity.  

The cosmos and microcosms are coherently personal, and are quantitatively bounded.  I.e despite all appearances, this is a small world.  Our apparent mortality derives from our microcosmic physical finitude.  

Our transcendence, though, is through our microcosmic replication of the cosmic Self.  We are One with the Monad.  Our mortality is the essential microcosmic illusion.  

The Small World (SW) is our cosmic completion in space and time.  

The illusion of our lostness in space and time is the ultimate Katechon.  It is the Dome of the Truman Show.  The Katechon is effective so long as it is invisible.  I had my personal encounter with the Katechon, in the SF/Halloween/sail-boat escapade, complete with the angels and MIB's.  It was my cruise to nowhere (CtN)..... now, here.  


9:45----------- 

You fill in the background to the primeval pokotok, and you get the stars and fossils.  

From understanding the full meaning of the Present/Presence, along w/ 'C', light-speed, we get a ~12K year circumference for the SW/BPW/CTC.  

Is there any question that this Monadic Earth, Self-creation that it is, will have to be optimized in various ways, often seeming contradictory?  

Atoms.......?  They are the shape-shifting, context dependent, logical, microcosmic complements to the Monad.  Their seeming substantial solidity comes mainly from Plank's constant, 'h', and C.  Along with the big-bang, the atoms are the cosmic seeds, the Alpha, relative to the Omega of the Telos.  They are the alphabetic letters of the Logos, if you will.  They are the seat of Wigner's UEM, in the context of our space/time/pokotok construct.  


Well, I hope I've made myself equally clear and succinct.  Each time I go through this recapping exercise, I, at least, obtain a better grasp of the whole.  

I can only appologize for apparently being so selfish with this Truth.  Where is everybody else......?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Hey, we have all the time in the world, for the others to catch on and catch up.  

I'm supposing that there is a 'method' behind this apparent 'selfishness'.  

It probably has something to do with the non-status of the R&D show and the katechon.  But, mark my words, 4M/K/SoT/X2 will pull out, on time.  The glory train is still on schedule.  


11am-------------

Jan 3, page 25, provides another sort of recap.  It sees the impersonal as the logically necessary background for the personal.  This Impersonal is softened with Mother Nature/Gaia.  She, along with Wigner's UEM, is the tender trap for the scientists and the tree-huggers, bless their hearts.  

But, yes, the Katechon/Devil/Antichrist is in all those scientific details, no matter how much they can be softened with Gaia.  If you don't have a very firm grasp on the whole, on the monadic Telos, you will be overwhelmed by the Lilliputian details.  They will grind you down, everytime.  

You do need that mustard seed of faith.  W/o faith, there can be no love..... get used to it.  



(cont.)

In modern times we have two truths....... there is objective truth and personal truth. 

Objective truth has been raised to cosmic Truth.  Personal truth has been diminished to subjective opinion.  

Science has gained its hegemony through the objectification of truth.... through the tyranny of the quantitative, if you will.  

Persons, OTOH, have been diminished to cosmic accidents, cosmic interlopers.  Whatever smarts we might have, have been reduced to the consequence of sheer survival.  

Science is rational..... persons are irrational.  

Persons are in imminent jeopardy of being replaced by thinking machines.  

Is not evolution necessarily Transhuman?  With thinking machines, evolution will become rationalized.  


Transhumanism...........?  Aye, there's the rub.......

It's about progess.......  Science can't live with it, and can't live without it.  

Science presents us with progress.... for centuries, if not millennia.  All other human endeavors struggle to compete with science, in that regard.  

Scientific/technologial progress is objectively quantifiable, on every measure.  

Is not scientifc and technological progress the logical extension of evolution?  The problem is that there is not supposed to be any logic to evolution.  The closest thing to logic might be the 'survival of the fittest'........ a mere tautology.  

Evolutionists are at pains to dismiss the notion of human progress as having anything to do with biological evolution.  


1pm------------

The problem that evolutionists have with the notion progress is the same as the problem they have with a vital force, or with the directedness of evolution.  It is teleological..... it is panpsychic.  

The psyche and the telos are the bugbears of science.  


2:25----------

What to do with the psyche.........?  

Many people have resorted to panpsychism.  Quantum physics is seen to the cause or manifestation of panpsychism.  


(cont.)