Cookie Cutter Cosmologies
(With apologies to those who are more philosophically literate.)
Something In The Water: Logos and Tao
A superficial read of Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy introduces a dualism of Being and Becoming beginning with the water-based cosmology of Thales of Miletus in the 6th century BCE. Thales conceived of the universe as made of a single material substance: water**. Thales said:
“It is water that, in taking different forms, constitutes the earth, atmosphere, sky, mountains, gods and men, beasts and birds, grass and trees, and animals down to worms, flies and ants. All these are different forms of water. Meditate on water.”
On the other side of the known world, the development of Taoism at roughly the same time spoke of the primacy of water, or the metaphor of water as effortless constant change.
“Water never resists. It accepts all.
It never judges.
Therefore, to be one with Tao, be like water.”– Tao Te Ching
Heraclitus of Ephesus picks up on the theme of nature emerging from a single Logos, but expressed as fire rather than water. Many comparisons can be drawn between Heraclitus and Lao Tzu, as they both speak to a cosmos which is changeless only in its perpetual changing, and grounded in a united harmony of contrasts.*
“The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.”
“It is an attunement of opposite tension (palintropos harmonie),like that of the bow and the lyre.”
(A Comparison between Heraclitus’ Logos and Lao-Tzu’s Tao pdf)
Being and Becoming
Parmenides of Elea can be seen to comprise something of a philosophical dipole, with Heraclitus seeing (centuries before Process Philosophy [1]) a universe based on change and becoming rather than on fixed forms, and Parmenides asserting that the true nature of the universe is divided between the eternal divine truths and ephemeral local appearances [2]. Parmenides speaks in terms of what-is being what cannot not-be.
“what-is is ungenerable and imperishable,
a whole of a single kind, and unshaking and complete;
nor was it nor will it be, since it is now all together
one, cohesive.”
His emphasis on the significance of what-is (really, really real) as eternal and unchanging coincides with the views of Pythagoreans, such as Philolaus of Croton who venerated the role of number in the cosmos and saw mathematics specifically as that which which joins the unlimiteds and limiters which make up everything.
Plato sharpened the Pythagorean appreciation for ideal forms (including goodness, beauty, equality, bigness, likeness, unity, being, sameness, difference, change, and changelessness) which he saw as eternal. Platonic idealism lends a Parmenidean fixation to the insubstantial Heraclitean flux, but all remain analog and abstract. Democritus, who was in a sense the antithesis of Plato (Aristoxenus said that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus that he could collect), managed to reconcile the flux and fixed in a different way which incorporated the concrete and empirical.
Philosophies of Science
Democritus’ notion of unchanging, irreducible atoms in a void which constantly change configurations is an idea which reconciles both Heraclitus and Parmenides [3]. This model has cast physics in a mold which, even today, remains almost inescapable. The combination of determinism and uncertainty has gone beyond atoms into the subatomic level. Quantum mechanical events are determined to be indeterminable, but governed by formulaic probabilities which are precise and unchanging.
Aristotle had a different perspective on what is essential which seems more grounded in language and relates to the proprietary versus the generic. A horse is an essential substance, whereas the category ‘horse’ is a secondary kind of substance. His hylomorphic compounds conceive of substance as the form of things, or their matter plus essence. It is a top-down kind of holism which contradicts the bottom-up reductionism of Democritus, however Aristotle extends the binary logic of Parmenides rather than the divine flowing harmonies of Heraclitus and Plato.
Galileo applied the Classical dualism of unlimiteds and limiters in a scientific way, defining them in physical terms so that Primary qualities are conceived as being independent of any observer (shape, position, motion, contact, and number) and Secondary qualities are thought to be properties which produce sensations in observers. Galileo had a functionalist view of qualia, so that experiences like colors or feelings had a purpose in guiding our behavior toward God’s design. Locke updated Galileo’s primary and secondary qualities so that primary qualities had a dimension of realism which was not only objective but located in objects themselves; properties of solidity, extension, and figure. His secondary qualities are seen as powers of objects which mechanically produce sensation in us.
Kant’s take on unseen universals and their changing expressions was defined in terms of Noumena and Phenomena. His contrasts of ‘a priori’, ‘a posteriori’, ‘analytic’, and ‘synthetic’ clarify some of the themes of causality common to Locke, Aristotle, and Descartes. Even into the modern era, ultimate questions in philosophy and science lead back to ideal absolutes such as ‘information’ or ‘existence’ versus properties of a Phenomenal world of sensation (’emergent’ or ‘illusory’). Jung and Bateson used the words Pleuroma and Creatura to talk about the difference between the eternal totality which is beyond all experience and qualities, and the living world that is subject to perceptual difference and information.
There are of course, many other philosophers and scientists that should be mentioned. Hobbes and Newton can be said to have continued the reductionist tradition of Democritus, while dialectic and monadic themes in Hegel, Leibniz, and Spinoza recapture the pre-Socratic sense of the Absolute. Aside from this bifurcation of Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism, there is also also a progression from science as a discussion about ideals to a realization of empire.The chain of mentoring from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to Alexander the Great begins with intellectual questioning and ends with the exercise of global political power, with a mastery of form, substance, causality and virtue in between.
Breaking the Mold
Thales’ hylozoism (he believed that matter was alive), and Aristotle’s essentialism fell into strong disfavor during the Early Modern period, however there were a few who challenged the primacy of so called primary qualities. For George Berkeley, all qualities were secondary, and matter was only a representation of the mind:
“The deducing therefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, which alone are perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason.”
Even though Berkeleyan idealism can arguably be seen to be supported by the Observer Principle interpretation of Quantum Theory, as well as Simulation Hypothesis, Holographic Universe, and Bohm’s Implicate Order, modern panpsychism has been dogged by the tendency for Idealism to be painted as Solipsism. The cliche “If a tree falls in a forest..” is often used to point out the absurdity of idealism, i.e. that the idea of linking existence to perception is beneath consideration on account of it being childish, superstitious, psychotic, and above all unfalsifiable.
In my view, this is a prejudiced characterization, in which the difference between one’s own individual perception is used to stand in for the principle of perception in general. This mistake is repeated again and again in Functionalism, Computationalism, Structured Realism, Logical Positivism, and Emergentism, among others, which demand a return to reductionist, Democritean models. A similar dismissal of Searle’s treatment of the Symbol Grounding Problem, and Chalmers Hard Problem of Consciousness underscores the commitment to the primacy of fixed, object-like rules rather than rule-making subjects.
Cutting the Cookie
Taking this philosophical evolution into perspective, it is my intent to transcend all of the particulars of the past and see all of the prior philosophical approaches as blind men overlapping in their examination of the proverbial elephant. I side with Berkeley on the primacy of experience, as I see the publicly measurable aspects of the world as a reduced vocabulary which cannot add up to the rich aesthetics which we experience. I would compare qualia as an endless supply of cookie dough, in which cookie cutters could be made from the dough itself. The idea is that the edible can be made hard and inedible, but no amount of cookie-cutting utensils can render an edible cookie.
Going beyond cookies and cutters, however, requires a combination of Berkeley’s best arguments, Einstein’s Relativity, and Quantum Mechanical observations. The notion of perspective itself, of inertial frames and the importance of measurement in determining the nature of nature is repudiation of Berkeley. It is perception after all which serves as the master metaphor for all possible “relation”. It is from perception that all phenomena “emerge” and to perception that all phenomena become “evident”. I see no scientific reason not to extend this principle of perception beyond human experience and even beyond biology, so that physics itself is understood to be identical to “sense”. Sensing and sense-making provide a cookie and cutter autopoiesis, within which experience can both return ephemeral Creatura to the Pleroma, and draw eternal forms and fictions into the empirical realm. The cookie and cutter are themselves aesthetic contrasts within the same cookie batter/cook.
*The Tao translates as ‘the way’, and logos “Originally a word meaning “a ground”, “a plea”, “an opinion”, “an expectation”, “word”, “speech”, “account”, “reason”, it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge”.
In my own etymological forays, I have come across a theme which relates a lot of terms having to do with consciousness with the Proto-IndoEuorpean roots “wag” and “wegh”. The combined sense is that of a way of weaving or wagging. Tending to wander or wave, and attending: to wake, watch, and weigh.
**In the 5th c,, Xenophanes linked all physical phenomena with clouds and the sea.
“The sea is the source of water and of wind…
The stars come into being from burning clouds…
The sun consists of burning clouds…
The moon is compressed cloud…
All things of this sort [comets, shooting stars, meteors] are either groups or movements of clouds.”
- “Modern philosophers who appeal to process rather than substance include Nietzsche, Heidegger, Charles Peirce, Alfred North Whitehead, Robert M. Pirsig, Charles Hartshorne, Arran Gare and Nicholas Rescher. In physics Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the “physics of being” and the “physics of becoming”. Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.” – Wiki
- Parmenides prefigures Plato, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Spinoza and many others who invoke a Heaven-and-Earth type dualism.
- “Democritus managed to reconcile the Heraclitean theory of flux with the theory of perfect immutability of Parmenides and demonstrate that both theories are truly complimentary for each one explains a different level of reality and do not contradict each other. It is true that, essentially, things do not change (as Parmenides claims), for they are composed of eternal and indivisible particles (atoms), but it is also true that the arrangement of this atoms could be altered resulting in apparent changes (as Heraclitus argued).” – Substantia Primordium: Parmenides and Heraclitus reconciled
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Multisense Realism 
Autopoiesis is a fun word. If sense is autopoietic, where does it get the energy to be so?
‘It is from perception that all phenomena “emerge” ‘
Even if all phenomena were pre-existing(contradicting autopoiesis), the perception of that phenomenal emergence involves change. I don’t know about you, but my perceptions are constantly changing. Even if they only seem to be constantly changing, they are still seeming to be. How does perception change, or seem to change, without the energy to do so?
Clearly and Concisely: Consciousness (or sense) is aware-ized energy, formed by the dilemma created between action and identity.
If only you could be so clear and concise. It may be that your sense is the primary unchanging source of all things. Hence, all things are primary and unchanging, such as this exchange. It always existed, we are only now experiencing it. This exchange has no purpose or meaning because the next experience we have has already existed? Ultimate epiphenomena? Therefore, we (whoever you take “we” to be) have no free will, everything already is. We are epiphenomenal observers. We don’t change, so there is not even any purpose for us in that perception.
If you think the Sense can be told, then tell it. Please be clear and concise.
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao”. (Lao-tzu)
“If sense is autopoietic, where does it get the energy to be so? ”
Where does energy get the sense to know how to interact in an orderly way? Energy and autopoiesis both require sense. Even ‘requires’ is an expectation within sense.
” the perception of that phenomenal emergence involves change”
It involves a perception that we call ‘change’.
“How does perception change, or seem to change, without the energy to do so? ”
Through the comparison of perception. Memory and inference on multiple levels. Energy is a concept, like money. It isn’t primitively real. How do you get up in the morning without spending money on it?
“Consciousness (or sense) is aware-ized energy, formed by the dilemma created between action and identity”
You are saying “consciousness is conscious X, formed by the dilemma created between itself and the consciousness of itself”. It’s circular and doesn’t work. It is concise, but it concisely defines itself in artificial terms.
Sense is telling. Clarity, energy, change…these are all expectations of sense.
Please,
1) Define “sense”
2) Illustrate what sense relates to.
3) List further features that follow from your definition of “sense”.
4) How sense is done, by example.
https://multisenserealism.com/about/introduction/the-universe-must-make-sense-before-we-can-make-sense-of-it/
Please
1) Define “energy” without assuming sense.
2) Illustrate what energy “relates” to.
3) Define “relation” without assuming sense.
4) List further features that follow from your definition of “energy”.
5) How energy is done, by example (in the absence of sense).
is there a right way to think about sense?
I think the right way is to understand that it is the primordial identity, and that it is sensory-motive experience which nests and modulates its qualities through insensitivity.
1) Define “energy” without assuming sense.
As Lao-tzu speaks of the Tao, Energy cannot be defined and thus limited. Expressed, energy is action, where action is the inside vitality of the inner universe
2) Illustrate what energy “relates” to.
Initially, energy was all there was, there was nothing else to relate.
3) Define “relation” without assuming sense.
The unwarranted assumption may be that action, identity, and sense are not co-occuring. For the purpose of discussion, the terms “action”, “identity”, and “sense” must be separated, but basically no such separation exists. An identity is a dimension of conscious existence, action within action.
Identity may be termed action which is conscious of itself. The energy of action, the workings of action within and upon itself, forms identity and sense. Identity and sense, then, are action’s effect upon itself.
Yet though identity and sense are formed from action, action, identity, and sense, cannot be separated.
4) List further features that follow from your definition of “energy”.
I note that I did not define “energy”. Given that, I would say that Energy does have the capacity for infinite creativity, has basic unpredictability.
5) How energy is done, by example (in the absence of sense).
Energy acts, within and upon itself, creating identities and sense.
What defines the difference between expressed and unexpressed energy? What is expression?
“Initially, energy was all there was, there was nothing else to relate. ”
To say that energy was all there ‘was’ implies some kind of narrative context – some sensed experience in which only ‘energy’ is present. Since energy cannot be defined, and there is nothing to discern the difference between energy and nothingness, there is really no meaningful difference between energy and anything else or nothing else. By comparison, sense is specifically the capacity for aesthetic participation. Saying that sense is primordial is actually meaningful because it allows experiences to develop and deepen the capacity to experience as well as the content, as well as asserting that there can be no absence of sense. Nothing meaningful, by definition, can precede sense (which is the sole provider of meaning, context, content, continuity, etc). Energy provides nothing, defines nothing, explains nothing, and appears only as an inference of sense experience.
“I would say that Energy does have the capacity for infinite creativity, has basic unpredictability.”
What would you say is the difference between “Energy” and “Magic”? Wouldn’t Magic be a more fitting term, and one which would not be confused with the very definable and empirically useful concept within physics?
“Energy acts, within and upon itself, creating identities and sense.”
How does energy find “within” or “self” without sense and identity? You are talking about blind, senseless force suddenly articulating teleological sense. To me, it is very clear that sense can include an experience of motive and motion, but that motion on its own is devoid of any possibility, except perhaps unintentional modulation of acceleration. The whole notion of energy as separate from experiences or objects is a non-starter to me. It is to say that slice-ness* is the creator of pizzas and white bread.
*slice-ized energy
“Through MSR, “energy” is interpreted as simply motives which are not our own.”
I distinguish the conditioned energy, the photons and subatomic particles you speak about, from unconditioned energy, basically unpredictable and infinitely creative.
What “conditions” energy? Why does that which is unpredictable and creative have to be energy? Why can’t it just be a quality of experiences within experiences?
the entire universe is a staggeringly elaborate nesting of participatory sense experiences. This is not an anthropomorphic concept, as it does not elevate human experience, biological experience, or even the sense of a self as being fundamental. Instead, sense itself is seen as the producer of its own augmentation, via spacetime diffraction, which yields private significance and public entropy.
Since you are the augmentation of sense, do you have free will, or is it just that sense has free will? I do note that it may be that you have free will if in the sense that you and sense are one. That is, the self is and is not fundamental, depending on your perspective.
Yes, exactly. We are all sense nested deeply within itself, so that we have both an almost infinitely small opportunity for free will, but the will which can take that opportunity is almost infinitely free. If you change the perspective, it could be said instead that you have infinitely large opportunities to exercise free will but almost infinitely little sense to identify what they are.
>What “conditions” energy?
Sense/consciousness
>Why does that which is unpredictable and creative have to be energy?
Energy is one quality of the inner universe which allows for the capacity for creativity. Given its basic unpredictability and infinite possibilities, there are likely other ways of Being. Sense/consciousness is one way of Being.
>Why can’t it just be a quality of experiences within experiences?
Experience requires the energy to do so. Is sense some idle clump, or is it vitalized, aware, charged, with all the qualifications of Being?
“Sense/consciousness”
So you have nothing but unconditioned/unsensed energy, and then suddenly you have sense appear to condition energy. How does energy know that it is being conditioned if it has no sense? How does sense have the power to condition energy if it has no energy of its own?
“Energy is one quality of the inner universe which allows for the capacity for creativity.”
That’s what you say, but its tautological. I agree that there is a capacity for creativity which is not only both predictable and unpredictable but provides the possibility of discernment between predictable and unpredictable. Sense is what predicts and dictates and dictates unpredictability. Energy is nothing but “Go”. I am saying that Go can only exist in a sensible context, where there are places to go to, or times not to go.
“there are likely other ways of Being. Sense/consciousness is one way of Being.”
Ways that don’t make sense and cannot be experienced in any way? What would the difference be between that and nothing at all.
“Experience requires the energy to do so. Is sense some idle clump, or is it vitalized, aware, charged, with all the qualifications of Being?”
I asked you why energy can’t just be a quality of experience, and your answer is that experience requires energy, and you don’t see how that begs the question. I am asserting directly that energy is derived from sense and explaining why sense can easily account for energy (a sense of ‘going’) but energy can in no way account for any appreciation or awareness of its own effects. Sense is both idle and vitalized because it is the capacity for there to be ANY discernment between the two. Sense is not only charged, it defines “charge” in contrast to neutrality.
>What defines the difference between expressed and unexpressed energy?
Sense/consciousness
>What is expression?
ACT-ualization. it is what Sense/consciousness does, vitalized, aware, charged, with all the qualifications of Being
It sounds like you are now conflating energy with sense and expression. I don’t see any role that energy is playing here which is not redundant to a sense primitive. I explain what you call energy as motivated motive – a tertiary possibility within sense. As human animals, we tend to place a premium on intentional movement and action, but that is not necessarily a universal value. Creation can also be a cause of motion, not just an effect.
>To say that energy was all there ‘was’ implies some kind of narrative context
Linearly structured language makes it difficult to express simultaneity. Does it make sense to you to say, “It is all happening NOW!”?
>– some sensed experience in which only ‘energy’ is present.
Only energy IS present. Everything else is an illusion, but what a lovely illusion. All energy is expressed and released, aware-ized. Now, in the eternal present. But, that does not place a limit on what energy can Be.
>Since energy cannot be defined, and there is nothing to discern the difference between energy and nothingness, there is really no meaningful difference between energy and anything else or nothing else.
Energy cannot be defined, and thus limited. it can, however, be expressed and released. And so, All That Is (energy expressed and released) is all there was, and there was nothing else. And so, a dichotomy appeared between All That Is and nothing.
http://tao-in-you.com/nonbeing.html
>By comparison, sense is specifically the capacity for aesthetic participation.
Is it impossible for sense to discern nothing? Do we have the free will to not sense? Emerson, in a commemorative address at Harvard complained about the horrible presence of the world.
>Saying that sense is primordial is actually meaningful because it allows experiences to develop and deepen the capacity to experience as well as the content, as well as asserting that there can be no absence of sense.
Sense is critical to experience, but that does not mean it is fundamental.
>Nothing meaningful, by definition, can precede sense (which is the sole provider of meaning, context, content, continuity, etc).
Hence, the desire and impetus for the inner universe to materialize itself. All That Is had the desire to experience itself, but since all that is was all there was, there was nothing else to experience. And so, in a moment of creativity, all that is divided itself creating that which is this and that which is that.
> Energy provides nothing,
Nothing, by its very nature, is unprovided.
>Energy defines nothing,
Yes, nothing is what energy is not.
>Energy explains nothing,
What can explain nothing, for there is nothing to explain.
>Energy appears only as an inference of sense experience.
Exactly.
” Does it make sense to you to say, “It is all happening NOW!”?”
It is all happening now in some sense, and in another sense it is all happening at different times.
“Only energy IS present. Everything else is an illusion, but what a lovely illusion.”
Why would there be any illusions? I am present. My experiences are present. Energy is an idea about how experiences relate to each other, it is not something which literally exists independently of sense.
“But, that does not place a limit on what energy can Be. ”
Might that be because your use of the word energy is indiscernible from the word magic?
“Energy cannot be defined, and thus limited. it can, however, be expressed and released.”
Expression is definition. It doesn’t work to say that something cannot be defined but is expressed, unless it is definition itself, which is sense – not energy.
Since you are misinterpreting what I mean by ‘nothing’, let me restate:
Energy cannot provide. Energy cannot define. Energy cannot explain, express, embody, or otherwise manifest any being. Energy is only the sense of transition between sensory experience – a sense of force and dynamism. Without sense, there can be no energy.
>So you have nothing but unconditioned/unsensed energy, and then suddenly you have sense appear to condition energy. How does energy know that it is being conditioned if it has no sense?
All energy is conditioned, aware-ized. hence, there is no energy that is unconditioned. There is no energy that does not have sense.
>How does sense have the power to condition energy if it has no energy of its own?
Sense is composed of energy. It is energy. Sense did not create energy, energy + desire created sense by forming identities.
“Energy is one quality of the inner universe which allows for the capacity for creativity.”
>That’s what you say, but its tautological.
>I agree that there is a capacity for creativity which is not only both predictable and unpredictable but provides the possibility of discernment between predictable and unpredictable. Sense is what predicts and dictates and dictates unpredictability. Energy is nothing but “Go”. I am saying that Go can only exist in a sensible context, where there are places to go to, or times not to go.
I agree. And so the context was created by energy acting within and upon itself (as I have said), forming identities. “No entities without identities.” (W.V.O. Quine) And further, as I have said previously, without identity, action is meaningless, for there would be nothing upon which action could act. Action must, by its very nature, of itself and its own workings, create identities.
“there are likely other ways of Being. Sense/consciousness is one way of Being.”
>Ways that don’t make sense and cannot be experienced in any way?
Right.
>What would the difference be between that and nothing at all.
How could I know that, when “that” is the result of experience?
“Experience requires the energy to do so. Is sense some idle clump, or is it vitalized, aware, charged, with all the qualifications of Being?”
>I asked you why energy can’t just be a quality of experience, and your answer is that experience requires energy, and you don’t see how that begs the question.
It appears to you that way because your question, on closer examination, presents a false dichotomy. You have presented me with a limited option with which to respond. Then you turned around and used that against me, when I , in good faith that you would not do something like that, did not look for or see the trap.
> I am asserting directly that energy is derived from sense and explaining why sense can easily account for energy (a sense of ‘going’)
Yes. I understand.
>…but energy can in no way account for any appreciation or awareness of its own effects.
But that is what energy does, it creates experiences. There is not some energy that is not aware. It may be that you are focused on ideas like, “cause and effect”, or, ” linear time”.
>Sense is both idle and vitalized because it is the capacity for there to be ANY discernment between the two. Sense is not only charged, it defines “charge” in contrast to neutrality.
I disagree. Sense cannot be idle. No sense or identity can exist without action.
“There is no energy that does not have sense. ”
Then it is redundant to say it is aware-ized, and it would be incorrect to claim that energy is more fundamental than sense.
“Sense is composed of energy. It is energy. Sense did not create energy, energy + desire created sense by forming identities.”
Where did the desire come from? What meaning does “desire” have without sense? What does “+” mean without sense?
“Action must, by its very nature, of itself and its own workings, create identities. ”
Identities are the sense of regularity within sense. There can be no senseless identity – identities of unthinkable, undetectable, unknowable, intangibles.
“How could I know that, when “that” is the result of experience? ”
We don’t need to know it, but through sense we can understand that the absence of sense is ontologically impossible. We don’t need to play with sophism and build mansions for imaginary visitors.
“I , in good faith that you would not do something like that, did not look for or see the trap.”
Haha, I’m not trapping anyone. You are trapping yourself because your position doesn’t work when it is considered carefully. Once you get beneath the patriotism and propaganda, the idea of energy that you have is really the idea of magic. I start with experience, because that is real, then we don’t need magic.
“But that is what energy does, it creates experiences. ”
Ugh. What do you suggest is doing the experiencing without any sense? Why do you think that energy creates something out of nothing?
“There is not some energy that is not aware.”
A complete impossibility given that awareness is sense, and that your term aware-ized energy is already assuming a base energy which is not aware.
“I disagree. Sense cannot be idle. No sense or identity can exist without action.”
What is the action that is required to make a circle seem different from a square? What action makes several sticks become a pile?
>What would you say is the difference between “Energy” and “Magic”? Wouldn’t Magic be a more fitting term, and one which would not be confused with the very definable and empirically useful concept within physics?
“Magic” is a good word. Definability and empirical usefulness have their own place. Physics is hardly well settled. How many different interpretations of QM are there? Why do they disagree if Physics is so wonderful. Has physics brought us any closer together with each other and/or with nature? I don’t see it. I see conflict and revolution everywhere.
“Energy acts, within and upon itself, creating identities and sense.”
>How does energy find “within” or “self” without sense and identity?
As I have said, they find each other. For the purpose of discussion, “action” and “identity” must be separated, but basically, no such separation exists.
>You are talking about blind, senseless force suddenly articulating teleological sense.
No. Energy + desire to completely materialize itself —> sense
“Teleology: the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.”
“Desire is the womb from which all things have their birth or beginning” (Hermeticism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism & 18th century German Idealism)
>To me, it is very clear that sense can include an experience of motive and motion, but that motion on its own is devoid of any possibility,
You are conflating Pure Energy with conditioned energy. Maybe that has been the problem all along?
> The whole notion of energy as separate from experiences or objects is a non-starter to me. It is to say that slice-ness* is the creator of pizzas and white bread.
You are doing it again.
“Magic” is a good word”
You agree then that you are not really talking about energy, but magic. I suggest that we stop talking about ‘energy’, and redefine the conversation as being between a magic-centered paradigm and a sense-centric paradigm. Physics has its strengths and weaknesses, I agree, but you don’t need to borrow its strengths if you stay with magic. Then you can avoid its weaknesses.
“As I have said, they find each other. For the purpose of discussion, “action” and “identity” must be separated, but basically, no such separation exists.”
I find myself in the position of being made a hypocrite – my comeuppance for driving so many to frustration at having to argue with someone who seems to be arguing an indefensible position. It is difficult to continue without descending into the usual cycle of ad hominem and semantic nitpicking.. Only the desire to keep arguing for the sake of arguing can prevent me from acknowledging the fact that, especially given our history, your position is a set of wishful, ad hoc contradictions. Nothing wrong with that, I just don’t think that it is fair of you to proceed as if it were an honest and potentially falsifiable hypothesis.
“You are conflating Pure Energy with conditioned energy”
Now there is conditioned magic and pure magic to add to the aware-ized magic (which is already aware) and the identity magic and action magic which are separate but not really. If you can please make a diagram I would happy to continue, but without knowing how many flavors of magic there are going to be, it seems foolish.
>What “conditions” energy?
Sense, as I have said
>Why does that which is unpredictable and creative have to be energy?
It doesn’t.
>Why can’t it just be a quality of experiences within experiences?
Now, your questions are starting to repeat themselves. that’s what police interrogators do. Are you some kind of law enforcement-type person?
“Now, your questions are starting to repeat themselves.”
If I repeat myself it is because your answers are evasive. I don’t enforce laws, I invite sense.
Unless you have some new incriminating evidence, am I free to go now : )
A funny question to be asked while being pilloried with questions on your own website. 🙂
Craig:
I saw this and thought of you.
“…As Garber explains in Chapters 3 and 4, Leibniz comes to realize that bodies must contain forces, both active and passive. But if bodies are purely material beings, he reasons, then they cannot contain force, since they would have only size, shape, and motion, qualities that are altogether different from force. Bodies must therefore be more than just matter: they must contain something immaterial in which active and passive force can be found. And this something more, Leibniz concludes, can be nothing other than the substantial forms that considerations of unity and persistence also led him to posit.
But why must bodies contain force? According to Garber there are several reasons. First, if bodies did not contain a passive force in virtue of which they resist the motions of other bodies in collisions, then Leibniz’s axiom that the whole cause must be able to perform exactly as much work as the entire effect would be false (102-6). Second, (active) force holds the key to explaining how we can discover the true motions of bodies despite the equivalence of all hypotheses about motion (106-15). Third, bodies have extension only in virtue of containing some essence that is extended as whiteness is extended in milk, and force is the most reasonable candidate for this essence (164). Finally, if matter were pure extension and did not contain force, it would be perfectly homogeneous and thus, given the absence of vacua, would provide no way of discerning any motion or even of distinguishing one body from another (164-66).
Ah, cool. Interesting stuff. In my view Leibniz goes off the track when he assumes that motion is a quality like shape and size, which are different from force, rather than motion and force being qualities of time and motive effect respectively. Leibniz did not have the advantage of post Einsteinian hindsight that we have, so I would not expect even an ultra-genius would have guessed the mass-energy equivalence.
Once we see shape and size as spatial qualities, and force as a sensory-motive quality, then motion triangulates the two as a temporal quality in which scale and shape are related by a multiplicity of position. Since Force is Mass Accelerated, and in my understanding, Energy is Mass accelerated ‘all the way’, then there is no reason to make Energy or Force separate from the sensory affect of motive effect.
What neither Leibniz, Einstein, or Garber factored in was the possibility of intention as a dual of extension. Even though Aristotle’s physics was abandoned in the classical mechanics age, I think that Relativity + Quantum Theory opens the door to a rehabilitated pre-classical notion of physical intentionality. There’s a lot still to go to get there, but had Einstein extended Relativity to include a multisensory continuum of privacy instead of a one dimensional ‘inertial frame’ or ‘observer’, then we would have a framework for a complete physics based on sensory-motive participation and nested aesthetic acquaintance rather than mechanical forces.
>>Garber: if bodies are purely material beings, he reasons, then they cannot contain force, since they would have only size, shape, and motion, qualities that are altogether different from force.
>Craig: Leibniz goes off the track when he assumes that motion is a quality like shape and size, which are different from force, rather than motion and force being qualities of time and motive effect respectively.
In Leibniz’s system, motion is the perception of apparent motion, a result of pre-established harmony. So motion IS a quality like shape and size. There is no Newtonian-type actual mechanical motion. So, yes, motion is different from “force” [energy], but not different in relation to time. Where, time is also the perception of change due to pre-establishe harmony. All the moves and all the “time” are already “happening”. That is what Leibniz and David Lewis mean by “All Possible Worlds”, what Kant meant by “Noumena”.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-worlds/
In Leibniz, “force” [energy] is about unity and persistence.
>Craig: I would not expect even an ultra-genius would have guessed the mass-energy equivalence.
That is what he did do. It took Einstein to objectively formulate the existential unity of matter and energy. All there is is energy, whether you believe it or not. : )
I give you credit for your intuitions about the fundamental nature of sense. Unlike you, I had to be told. However, “Sense” just isn’t fundamental enough.
So, this is me testing an algorithm; do we use conscious energy [consciousness] to consciously create our own worlds through our thoughts, beliefs, and desires, or, does the world create us? I’ll only be able to let you know how it plays out, if I happen to meet up with you on the other side. If I still care about these issues. If there actually is another side. Everything else is just speculation.
“In Leibniz’s system, motion is the perception of apparent motion”
In my system, motion is the perception (sense) of the effect of motive. Motive is the difference that makes a difference (significance) and indifference (entropy).
“So motion IS a quality like shape and size”
I understand, but I am saying that is not correct. Size and shape are static. Motion requires an aesthetic of dynamic continuous memory.
“So, yes, motion is different from “force” [energy], but not different in relation to time.”
I see energy/force as the effect of motive (really motivated motive) in projecting itself outward, while motion is the sensory affect of that projection coming back inward (to all audiences).
“It took Einstein to objectively formulate the existential unity of matter and energy. All there is is energy, whether you believe it or not. : )”
E=mc² is about mass, not matter. Matter occupies volume. It is three dimensional and geometrically structured. Mass is the quality of matter which equivalent to the resistance of force (energy). In the mass-energy equivalence, I think it could be said that energy is mass which spreads out toward all inertial frames (space * time, aka c*c). This does not mean that everything is energy any more than it means everything is massive spacetime, or spatiotemporalized mass. I am saying that none of these are meaningful without the other, and that the totality of the relation as well as each individual part requires sense, and nothing else. All there is is sense, whether you believe it or not. : )
” All the moves and all the “time” are already “happening””
Pre-established harmony I think is a failed concept in some ways. I do think that our experience of the now is nested within many larger nows, but that does not mean that all of the movement within any particular frame of reference is literally happening. Again, Leibniz did not have Einstein and Huxley in his rear view window to point the way toward the connection between physics, relativity, and perception. Pre-established harmony is more of a flat, deist influenced model which can be comfortably transcended IMO.
I give you credit for your research and investigation about the fundamental nature of everything, but in my view, you underestimate sense, and refuse to scientifically consider the proposition that energy itself can only be a sense of energy. By sense of energy I mean specifically: An aesthetic experience of dynamic change, warmth, color, sound, enthusiasm, etc. There is no underlying currency which is real and fundamental, rather every kind of sensation which vibrates with motivation is its own aesthetic context. The fact of the common mathematical extraction of wave mechanics is important for our understanding and control across those contexts, but it is abstract and sterile. There is no pusher-ness which gives birth to the universe, only a sense of inter-related sensations, of which pushing/forcing/energizing is only one of many, many qualities which contributes to the multisense realism.
“Do we use conscious energy [consciousness] to consciously create our own worlds through our thoughts, beliefs, and desires, or, does the world create us?”
Did native Americans create smallpox and conquistadors, or did Europeans create a continent full of disposable savages? I think that the notion that thoughts create reality is indeed a breakthrough idea, and one which I supported enthusiastically (influenced by LA radio shows hosted by Michael Benner http://theagelesswisdom.com/home.html), but which by itself is incomplete. Certainly our thoughts create reality, but the reality it creates is in the form of syncrhonicity, so that there is a chicken-egg aspect as well. Maybe it is the ‘reality’ which is influencing our thoughts instead? Ultimately though, we cannot count only on wisdom to carry us through -at least not all of us. It’s a good thing that some of us do not use wishcraft to create reality and instead invent things like indoor plumbing and air-conditioning. If thoughts were truly all that were necessary to create reality, I think that we would be living in a much different world.
> Motion requires an aesthetic of dynamic continuous memory.
Well now, that depends on the nature of your awareness of your memories. Sounds like you assume linear sequential awareness, one right after the other instead of simultaneous awareness. That’s the kind some say you experience at the point of physical death. The state of consciousness in which you are aware of your memories sequentially is normal conscious awareness. Hence, you experience motion, with the emphasis on “experience”.
What I am saying seems to be similar to your comment, “motion is the sensory affect of that projection coming back inward (to all audiences).”
>I see energy/force as the effect of motive (really motivated motive) in projecting itself outward
That does not sound entirely different from what I say (really a paraphrase of what Jane Roberts/Seth says, the really Old world master baker) that action depends on desire. Energy without the desire to act is meaningless. Action is the attempt on the part of the inside vitality of the Inner Universe to project itself outwardly, materially. Desire motivates action.
>E=mc² is about mass, not matter. Matter occupies volume. It is three dimensional and geometrically structured. Mass is the quality of matter which equivalent to the resistance of force (energy).
Your just guessing. If you look up the interpretation of E = mc2, there is no uncontroversial interpretation. I DID that. Your just guessing. Maybe if I use 1 ounce of yeast instead of 2, I will get a good outcome. It is no surprise that your interpretation just happens to fit your ontology. As humans, that’s what we do, we look for things that support our positions and discard or ignore everything else. You are guessing, hoping for the best outcome.
The late Leon Maurer, from jcs-online and MindBrain, always claimed that Einstein based all his ideas on Theosophy. In Theosophy, mass, matter, whatever you call it, they are both concentrated forms of energy. Hence, E = mc2. Energy, matter/mass, and light are all intertwined to create the physical world of appearances. Do you believe you can just sit down and use scientific or philosophical rationality to think the solution to the nature of reality?
>Pre-established harmony I think is a failed concept in some ways.
Sure, in some way, because the claim by Leibniz, likely based on his interpretation of transcendent knowledge gained from his association with the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, and your interpretation of that claim about pre-established harmony, is made using notoriously vague and or ambiguous words. You are the artist creating. Good, no problem, its fun, entertaining etc. But it is just you guessing about what Leibniz meant to say in words, you, using trail and error.
>Did native Americans create smallpox and conquistadors, or did Europeans create a continent full of disposable savages?
It is just questions like that that are discussed by Jane Robert’s, and being discussed currently by Jonathan Garb, on Coursera’s
Modern European Mysticism and Psychological Thought
>invent things like indoor plumbing and air-conditioning.
Where do you think inventions are conceived, and how do you think they are hatched out? Our thoughts become physically actualized. Thought energy becomes highly concentrated, energy becomes matter.
Here, look at some of the illustrations in this book:
http://www.anandgholap.net/Thought_Forms-AB_CWL.htm
Some of them look like the ones you have on your blog.
” Sounds like you assume linear sequential awareness, one right after the other instead of simultaneous awareness.”
Sounds like you assume that motion can be non-sequential.
“Desire motivates action. ”
Yes, desire is the sense preceding motive, motive is the sense preceding motivation of motive (action).
“Your just guessing. If you look up the interpretation of E = mc2”
Not at all. You are actually the one who is guessing. The m in E=mc² is not matter, it is mass. Most of the energy from nuclear fusion or fission comes from a loss of MASS which is embodied by the nuclear configuration as it is redistributed among more or less nuclei, not a loss of MATTER. Some massive particles (matter) are lost to energy, but energy is only measured by its effects on matter, and most of those effects are not caused by a conversion of matter to energy. It is the sense of an atomic level experience which holds it together and makes it coherent to other atoms, not energy. With the sensory-motive primitive reflected as mass-energy in the third person view, the idea of an energy primitive is obsolete. Energy is derived from the reflection of sense – the alienated view of the sense of motivated motive (aka absolute acceleration, aka c²).
“As humans, that’s what we do, we look for things that support our positions and discard or ignore everything else.”
But not you…just us humans.
“You are guessing, hoping for the best outcome”
I may not always have as complete an understanding of physics as I would like, but I would never guess about something which can easily be checked. I only know about the differences between mass and matter because I took a particular interest, prompted partially by a very interesting but over-my-head theory: http://tetryonics.com/ In his geometric conception of physics, he distinguishes mass from matter in very literal terms. He considers mass two dimensional and matter three dimensional. I found that claim to be uncontroversially accurate as it seems to bridge a gap between the flat equations of mass and energy and the three dimensional models of particles.
“Do you believe you can just sit down and use scientific or philosophical rationality to think the solution to the nature of reality? ”
“Hence, E = mc2. Energy, matter/mass, and light are all intertwined to create the physical world of appearances”
The m refers to mass, not matter. There is rest mass, inertial mass, gravitational mass, quantum mass, there is the curvature of spacetime…none of these are matter. There is no gravitational matter, no quantum matter, etc. I’m not saying that I’m an expert but it is clear to me and to everyone who might read this who understands physics which of us has an idea of what he is talking about and which one is defending his own guesses by accusing the other of guessing. I am very familiar with the idea of matter being made of energy, and the philosophical interpretations of that are decades old. You aren’t enlightening me, you’re just showing that you would rather me be wrong than you to learn something.
I don’t have to believe Otmar, I think that I have already done it, and your fallacious arguments from authority only encourage me to indulge that thought more freely.
“Thought energy becomes highly concentrated, energy becomes matter. ”
I used to believe that also, but it doesn’t really work. There is no thought energy, only motivated thinking. There is no transformation of motivation into matter, but there is a sharing of motivation which appears as effects on matter in a third person reference frame.
Thanks for the illustrations. They are just ok though. I don’t read much significance in them beyond the standard reverence for sacred geometry, which to me is only the means to the discovery of sense, not the intimation of metaphysical significance that it might seem to be.