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Adding on to the previous post Sketch for a New Physics…
At the bottom, lines converge as SpaceTime. In this case, SpaceTime refers to the sense of eternity which is empty of all significance except for the sense of measureability. This would be the Western conception of a universe from “nothing” – mathematics of a pure void. Having no depth of observation, no memory or context, it is a single frame of reference in isolation which is at once instantaneous and perpetual. Time is reversible and space itself is generated through signal attenuation.
Moving up the center line (ladder) of Significance, The Entropy-Repetition range begins to expand as QM gives way to matter, then biology, then “mind”, gaining degrees of freedom and intensity of will. The higher up on the ladder we go, the wider and more bowed its rungs become. This reflects the increasing value that is placed on defying repetition of function and entropic degradation of form. The spectrum near the top (Aeon) end of the ladder represents the fullness of aesthetic potential through higher consciousness. Really the curved arrows of entropy and repetition could be a spiral, as the cycle of creativity builds on the ruins of the past.
Aion is the opposite of SpaceTime in that it represents the sense of eternity that is full and whole – an absolute of aesthetic prestige and generosity rather than the austerity of quantitative measure. On the high end, space (space in red) represents a vast difference between the microphysical and astrophysical scopes. Since this difference can only be sustained by a consensus of orientable experiences of size, it should not be expected at the lower (SpaceTime) levels. Without an experience in which both galaxy and atom can be conceptualized as wholes, they would both be as data in a database – merely more or less contiguous fields of information.
Likewise, the green Time label on the top represents the equivalent stretching of time to reflect the broad gap between a single moment and eternity. The top rungs on the ladder are broad, so broad, that they bend back and circle around like a corkscrew/caduceus.
Sketch for a New Physics
Using a topographical metaphor, this diagram shows the relation of significance in direct proportion to the dimorphism of space and time. I call this eigenmorphism. For example, as human beings, our native frame is the Autobiographical level (top). Our experience has a high significance, which means
1) rich qualia – larger nows and more nesting of personal, sub-personal, and super-personal frames allow for deeper sensory vocabularies.
2) a highly divergent space-time presentation (space and time are opposite for us, but identical for quantum phenomena or astrophysical phenomena).
3) a highly divergent spectrum of realism. The Matroyshka dolls with reflection underneath represent this range of clear/real, vs blurred/intuitive, and reflective/fiction. By contrast, the entangled reflections of the microphysical level of physics are neither real nor fictional. With space and time fused, matter and energy become interchangeable foregrounds for information processing.
Beyond Probability
What is the probability that “pattern” can exist at all?
Can’t be calculated.
Because we cannot empirically calculate it, or because it is ontologically incalculable? Are there other comparably incalculable examples, or do all incalculables share a common ‘absolute’ quality (relating to primordial origins, consciousness, etc)
Ontologically incalculable. There is no way to measure the total possible outcomes.
In another way, it is super-calculable. Only one outcome results in the possibility of measurement. The probability of pattern existing in a universe in which the question of probability can be asked would be 100%…or even “infinitely greater” than 100%, as there is no possibility at all of measurement in a context that is devoid of pattern.
In another sense, the possibility of pattern is the most improbable condition in the sense that no ‘probability’ can precede pattern. Probability is an expectation of a particular type of pattern so by definition, pattern is not just incalculable, but pre-calculation (calculations are also pattern recognition).
Fair enough…
How do evolutionary psychology and neuroscience compare as popular theories to “explain everything” about human nature?
“These two theories are the biggest explanatory frameworks at the current time, with neuroscience rising and evolutionary psychology looking a bit threadbare. And they are quite different.
I don’t mean, are these valid theories scientifically, but how good are they as a way for people to tell meaningful stories to each other about human nature? What do we become through that telling? What gets left out?”
Answer by Craig Weinberg:
In Raymond Tallis’ book Aping Mankind, he describes the over-reaching of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology and names them “Neuromania” and “Darwinitis”. While this assessment is likely seen as inflammatory or offensive to the many dedicated and brilliant professionals who have devoted their lives in pursuit of understanding human nature scientifically, his criticisms are quite defensible. Tallis, a neuroscientist himself, argues that both disciplines contribute to what I call de-presentation, and he calls ‘the disappearance of appearance’.
When neuroscience looks at human nature, it does so from the outside – as the behavior of cellular and molecular bodies, of organs and networks of ‘connections’. Evolutionary biology also looks at human nature from the outside, as the behavior of zoological ecosystems, species, and inherited bodies. Taken together, these super-personal systems and sub-personal systems can be de-ranged to completely subsume the personal, the private, and most significantly human aspects of human nature.
It is a bit like looking at human nature under a blacklight. With most of the frequencies in the dark, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have done a fantastic job of illuminating some hidden aspects of ourselves – how and where we fade into subconscious and unconscious mechanisms. We have glimpsed some of our own biases and seen behind the curtain of many misperceptions. We have not yet, however dared to turn this critical lens on itself. We have not seen how neuroscience and evolutionary biology themselves are excluded from the general distrust and marginalization of awareness. Somehow, the totality of our human experience can be written off as a solipsistic simulation or ’emergent property’ of ‘information’ processing, yet the mechanisms of science are presumed immune from the politics of our species and the unreality of the brain’s twitchings in the dark. Sam Harris actually said something to the effect of “certain kinds of thinking” extend outside of the bubble of human delusion (but without saying how).
What gets left out, according to Tallis, is humanity. Arts, literature, civilization. While he goes on in the second half of his book, to argue the profound difference between human beings and other species, I would argue that does make human beings more special than others on Earth, I would not say that it makes us an exception to zoology, or physics. Instead, I would argue for a radical reinterpretation of physics in which privacy and aesthetic appreciation are seen as more fundamental cosmological influences than public, functional mechanisms.
Multisense Realism 
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