A strange spiritual consequence of the multiverse theory

[-1-]

No it's not confusing, because all known knowledge comes from not knowing.

This makes sense. "This thing I don't know... and this other thing I don't know... and this yet here thing is another thing I don't know... is there anything left? Yes? Those are the things I know."

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Or maybe you meant to say that a newborn baby does not know anything... and yet when he dies, several decades later, he knows stuff.

Well, as long as knowledge exists, and you say it exists, albeit originates in non-knowledge you say, that long things exists; because you can only know those things that are. Things that don't exist at all, you would have a pretty hard time knowing.

[Serendipper]

Again, I don't think that sense of self is an absolute but a continuum; we experience those gradations as we grow just as other species have a stronger or weaker sense of self (while species like dogs routinely pass an olfactory version of the mirror test - they failed the visual test because they are smell-oriented).

If it's a continuum, then there was never a point when sense of self didn't exist, right? Alan Watts said he was the evil gleam in his father's eyes. He would say "When were you born? Let's go back. When was it? Parturition? Conception?" There are no separate events. He said "You are the big bang still coming on at me."

I don't think the continuum entirely consists of consciousness but reactivity, of which conscious responsiveness is only a small part when one considers the huge range of possible reactions between entities. So, before a conscious self came reflex actions. In a sense, consciousness is constructed of reflexes, that are turned on and off like switches. Hence all the computer / brain analogies.

How do you know it's not the other way around: that conscious action became reflex? Which came first: the chicken or the egg? Eggs come from chickens, but chickens evolved from other animals, so the chicken came first.

Bruce Lee said we train to forget. In other words, we train so much that it becomes reflex, mindless. In a fight, if you have to stop to think, you've already lost. Likewise when learning new words, I have to practice for a bit in meatspace until the word becomes part of me and then I won't have to stop to think which word to use.

I think we may have the problem upside down; it's not that determined stuff came first then engendered consciousness, but the determined stuff was determined by the consciousness that cannot be manufactured by unconscious stuff.

There must logically be a "shoreline" between reflexes and the development of a sense of self, both in the flow of evolution and in our personal growth as infants.

Yes a shoreline, but is a beach is continuous with the ocean? If not, then certainly a shared border because an ocean couldn't exist with a beach and a beach couldn't exist without an ocean.

The human advantage is to not only be able to control our responses, but to be able to control our controls - to deliberately shape and improve our responses rather than relying on genetics, health and luck. That is self awareness - the control of the controls. If AI start learns to control the controls of the controls then that will be literally mind-bending!

That's interesting. I used to define terms as follows:

Perception - the interception of information
Awareness - the perception of perception (interception of the information that information had been intercepted)
Consciousness - the perception of awareness (interception of the information that interception of the information that information had been intercepted)

I'm not sure what to call the perception of consciousness.

It looks like we have similar divisions based on different angles - you focused more on the input and I was thinking about output.
So we have reactions.
Then control.
Then control over that control.

Control demands a will, right? Otherwise control is a deterministic reaction.

Note that the way we control our responses has been successful but far from flawless. Consider the athlete who tells himself sweet lies so he has a chance in a game where he will almost certainly be thrashed. Maybe there's a better a batter way for people to perform above themselves, to better achieve their potential?

Delusions of grandeur lol. I suppose if we didn't think we could win, we wouldn't try, so that behavior was selected for.

That is a meta-control over the way we control our basic animal-style controls - largely science, philosophy, religion and law. That's the next level you asked about. However, these methods, these institutions, are also far from flawless and can be improved in how they do things. What if a methodology is devised by AI that supersedes all of these means of better regulating ourselves?

So the Star Trek Borg would be example of the 4th order perception? Or maybe the internet?

Unfortunately, I suspect AI is backwards. It starts with predetermined code and works towards consciousness, which I doubt can be obtained. I think, in a way, we could consider AI growing out of the universe, but in another way it was manufactured. It's like the US vs China whereas the US evolved into what it is, but China simply copied what the US had discovered. So they built lots of empty cities and have a facade of growth, but not much essence. AI can probably mimic life, but I'm not sure about actually being alive because it will be void of essence.

I'd go back to the video I posted to IC - Martin Hanczyc's TED Talk about the line between life and non life. Basically the difference is that the carcass will no longer sustain itself and be absorbed back into the environment like a still-living microbe continues to heroically fight off the forces of entropy

Ok I'll listen to it now. But what I mean is if we build a cell one atom at a time, will it then be animate? Will it spring to life or will it require some intangible element? When I think about that problem, I always return to wondering what changes when a cell dies. Is a dead cell and live cell identical on the atomic level? If so, then what changes? If not, then how does the position of a few atoms determine life from death?

Emergence. If you build a car, one piece at a time, at what point does it drive? This comes down to systems integration but I don't know anything about it, just that if certain critical parts of systems, even very small ones, are not present or functional then an entire system can break down (obviously enough).

If cars are atomically identical, then the only reason one runs and the other doesn't is the one is out of fuel. If both have fuel, then the reason one doesn't run is because they are not atomically identical. But a cell seems to be different because the fuel is present and they seem atomically similar, so what changed? If we could make a cell, atom by atom, would it be alive?

The more consciously aware and adaptable we are, the more likely we can place our bodies in places where danger isn't, and in this roundabout way our consciousness helps our heart to keep beating.

That's another good question: what divides the conscious from the unconscious?

Language As per one our earlier chats, we are still minimally conscious when we are asleep; we just call it "unconscious" because when we are unconscious from an outside perspective, which translates to "all intents and purposes". This brings us back to the opacity of other minds observed by Nagle. That may yet change with technology too as brain states and thoughts are increasingly correlated.

Lots of folks talk in their sleep Some go walking around without being conscious of it (like folks taking Ambien).

Anything that is not part of our conscious then becomes part of our unconscious, which not only includes our dna, but the sun and stars.

The Zen school says our unconscious is infinitely more wise than our conscious, so it almost seems the conscious is a mulling-around, processing and then filtering into the unconscious repository for encoding into the universe when key puzzles are solved. I may have just stumbled upon how Alan Watts said he is the sun; it's an extension of his subconscious mind. "Below consciousness" is fundamental knowledge that has been learned previously in other iterations/generations. So the conscious is the organism and the unconscious is the environment. Every organism then is an inkjet writing on the universe, but also an eye for reading it. The organism is made by, but also contributes to, the universe in a loop of feedback and it is that which produces the feeling of self because the loop is an infinite regression which negates determination and institutes randomness.

Obviously, randomness is the only thing that can guarantee discovery of the absolute best solution otherwise any presupposition affecting/determining outcome will taint/bias the data; therefore, in that case, nothing could be known for certain and no absolute could be found, but unlimited random samples will guarantee if there exists any superior intrinsic property, it will be discovered. I think we can say that this universe is indeed the best one because it survived the ultimate test. There can be no more ultimate test because random is random and there is no more-randomer. Maybe absolutes can exist.

Yet chaos and randomness can be hard to distinguish.

But chaos is a deterministic process that is extremely sensitive to initial conditions whereas randomness is the cause of the initial conditions (or fundamental conditions). I think randomness is not caused by nothing, but instead it's caused by an infinite regression, which could also be chaotic I suppose, but the important bit is the infinite which excludes the possibility of finding an ultimate cause which is the necessary underpinning of randomness (causeless).

This suggests that the possibilities afforded by chaos are not deterministic or uncreative, unless you feel straitjacketed by possibilities for the universe that would probably dwarf a googol

I feel straightjacketed by the determinism of it

Small differences in initial conditions such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction of their behavior impossible in general.[2][3] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

It reminds me of people talking about a "lonely universe" as dark energy separates the galaxies. I keep wanting to ask them why hundreds of billions of stars and planetary systems are not enough to keep them company.

We could be in a "lonely universe" now from the perspective of millions of years ago.

Bottom line is there is incredible freedom in chaos - the hard part is limiting it to a point where we survive.

Chaos is only unpredictable because we cannot measure conditions accurately enough, otherwise it's a more flamboyant and extravagant line of dominoes falling.

Idk, you think the masses of today are dumber than the peasants of the victorian? I know people are stupid today, but victorians threw buckets of poo out of their windows onto the street everyday. How could those people be smarter than we are?

Then again, I can feel technology making me stupid: I can't speel, can't do math, can't remember phone numbers all because machines do that for me, so I forgot how. Now with gps navigation, we're going to loose our spacial ability. Soon we'll be skin-bag blobs with a smudgy device hanging out the side

Excellent response! I made the same mistake as I criticise others for - thinking in too short a time frame. In a broader historical sense, the early 20th century is "now".

On the other hand, societal and environmental change are accelerating, in which case the time frame references will shrink until we spin down whatever "plug hole" that's awaiting us. We are becoming like cells - pretty useless at almost everything aside from communicating with the "larger body", and in that cells and humans are virtuosos.

So we're evolving into an ant colony? It sure feels like we're losing a sense of self: everything about us is known and there is no longer anywhere to hide. Nothing is private and we're reduced to cogs in a machine, or like Pink Floyd said, "just another brick in the wall".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U

Do we exist for the government or does the government exist for us? Are we individuals or parts of a collective?

[Dontaskme]

No it's not confusing, because all known knowledge comes from not knowing.

This makes sense. "This thing I don't know... and this other thing I don't know... and this yet here thing is another thing I don't know... is there anything left? Yes? Those are the things I know."

------------

Or maybe you meant to say that a newborn baby does not know anything... and yet when he dies, several decades later, he knows stuff.

Well, as long as knowledge exists, and you say it exists, albeit originates in non-knowledge you say, that long things exists; because you can only know those things that are. Things that don't exist at all, you would have a pretty hard time knowing.

Knowledge is about the birth of opposites. Knowledge is to know opposites have to exist in the same moment. So right now, reality is both something and nothing existing in the same moment. Reality is nothing being everything without beginning nor end. Beginnings and endings are conceptual thoughts, which are just points of reference within what is already this timeless now...so all points of references are illusory appearing as real.

One cannot know it knows without also knowing it doesn't know...which points to the illusory nature of knowledge. This is depicted in the garden of innocence prior to eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge...the knowledge of opposites, where innocence became identity...where nondual reality was artificially split by the illusion of knowing via language which is just an auditory illusion of sound heard as words ..words being dual by there very nature, but are in fact an artificial construction creating the illusion of the separate 'I' thought ...aka paradise lost...where the illusion of separation from wholeness began.

Man is knowledge. Knowledge is conceptual, things are concepts known by the only knowing there is which is consciousness.

It's not a separate 'I' that knows. The ''I'' is single, its unitary, it being the ultimate absolute knowing that cannot be known.
Here in the timeless NOW ..there is just everything one without a second appearing as the knowing that cannot be known.

In other words what is knowing, what is knowledge, who is the knower, thinker etc...the answer is...no one knows, and yet everything is known.

.

Knowledge makes man believe that he or she is the doer, thinker and speaker. Understanding reveals that not even God could be the doer, thinker or speaker, let alone man. Knowledge sees the illusion as real. Understanding sees the illusion as an illusion. Knowledge makes man lost within the mind, and makes man search for answers within the mind. Understanding reveals to man that answers are beliefs and a belief is not truth, and this makes man aware of life, a life with no questions or answers. Knowledge strengthens and maintains an illusory individual, for both are in illusory time within the timeless now.



Real understanding realises that knowledge is sound and light. And light and sound is GOD

It's all part of the same illusion of no one living life.

.

[-1-]

Dontaskme, you are fully aware you are talking nonsense and gibberish.

You are just trying to make a point, but your argument is not only weak, it is fully incredible. Your argument is senseless, and it appeals to no logic.

Your argument is only valid in the sense of the blindly, devoutly and devotedly religious. It only speaks to those who share your strong and blind religious views to begin with.

[uwot]

https://willijbouwman.blogspot.co.uk
That's a great link! Especially the part about the atom.
Is that your work?

Yes.

I just happen to think that it is easier to conceptualise matter and energy as patterns in some physical stuff, rather than as mathematical point sources of abstract forces.

That makes sense.

In the link, Professor Merrifield talks about the lattice of a medium and how the introduction of a photon effectively causes a wave through the lattice; the combination of that wave and the energy of the photon being a single system, a quasiparticle, called a polariton. You can think of the lattice as simply the forces that hold a combination of point particles together, and visualise it as a grid perhaps, which works mathematically. But it gives the impression that there is nothing between the bars joining the points, which as far as we can tell isn't true. Either the gaps between the bars is some stuff, or it's some nonlocal force which according to our current understanding is indistinguishable from magic, but is perfectly consistent with quantum mechanics. How everything actually works is still a mystery, but it comes down to whether the universe is actually made of some stuff with mechanical properties, or it's just mathematical forces which simply act as they do by some means that we might never understand.

Physics is a complete mess that is chocked full of misconceptions and vague terms.

Well, you can only describe what you see.

[Serendipper]

https://willijbouwman.blogspot.co.uk
That's a great link! Especially the part about the atom.
Is that your work?

Yes.

Very impressive!

I just happen to think that it is easier to conceptualise matter and energy as patterns in some physical stuff, rather than as mathematical point sources of abstract forces.

That makes sense.

In the link, Professor Merrifield talks about the lattice of a medium and how the introduction of a photon effectively causes a wave through the lattice;

Yes the EM wave can cause things to happen, but the important takeaway is realizing that nothing affects the original wave (nothing that I know of anyway). The EM wave goes right through opaque materials along with the cancelling 180 degree wave that the original wave generated. This distinction is not important in most considerations, but when contemplating the fundamentals of the universe, it's good to keep that in mind otherwise we might think that material density is what slows or blocks light (ie big bang stuff). For instance dark matter is void of charge so it has no effect upon light (other than bending of the spacetime fabric within which the light travels).

This effect underpins the co2 global warming theory wherein visible light goes right through co2 like it wasn't there, but after being converted to IR light and re-radiated from the surface of the earth, suddenly the co2 molecule is opaque, like a oneway valve that is frequency dependent. I struggled with that for a while: how could something block low frequencies but pass highs? It made no sense to me. The answer is it blocks neither, but resonates with IR which creates more EM waves that interact with the original.

the combination of that wave and the energy of the photon being a single system, a quasiparticle, called a polariton. You can think of the lattice as simply the forces that hold a combination of point particles together, and visualise it as a grid perhaps, which works mathematically. But it gives the impression that there is nothing between the bars joining the points, which as far as we can tell isn't true. Either the gaps between the bars is some stuff, or it's some nonlocal force which according to our current understanding is indistinguishable from magic, but is perfectly consistent with quantum mechanics. How everything actually works is still a mystery, but it comes down to whether the universe is actually made of some stuff with mechanical properties, or it's just mathematical forces which simply act as they do by some means that we might never understand.

A couple videos you may find interesting:

Gold atoms being pulled apart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGWSX6pStd0

Do Atoms Ever Touch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0TNJrTlbBQ

[uwot]

https://willijbouwman.blogspot.co.uk
That's a great link! Especially the part about the atom.
Is that your work?

Yes.

Very impressive!

Thanks again.

Yes the EM wave can cause things to happen, but the important takeaway is realizing that nothing affects the original wave (nothing that I know of anyway).

Well yes, in some ways the behaviour of light looks very similar to classical mechanical waves, in that if you send a wave through water, for instance, it travels through turbulence almost unaffected; much as radio waves travel through walls.

This effect underpins the co2 global warming theory wherein visible light goes right through co2 like it wasn't there, but after being converted to IR light and re-radiated from the surface of the earth, suddenly the co2 molecule is opaque, like a oneway valve that is frequency dependent. I struggled with that for a while: how could something block low frequencies but pass highs? It made no sense to me. The answer is it blocks neither, but resonates with IR which creates more EM waves that interact with the original.

You could be right. It might also be that materials that are opaque to certain frequencies absorb the energy of the photons, gradually increasing the overall energy in the matrix, which is basically heat. As the heat increases, i.e. the atoms jiggle faster, the energy is enough to cause the electrons in the outer shells to jump. The first jumps are the lower energy ones that equate to infrared radiation. It is these photons to which co2 is opaque, so they get reflected, or as you say, get absorbed and re-emitted; it comes to the same thing. That is a potted version of black body radiation, at least as I understand it. This probably describes it better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
And thank you for the links.

[Serendipper]

Yes the EM wave can cause things to happen, but the important takeaway is realizing that nothing affects the original wave (nothing that I know of anyway).

Well yes, in some ways the behaviour of light looks very similar to classical mechanical waves, in that if you send a wave through water, for instance, it travels through turbulence almost unaffected; much as radio waves travel through walls.

Yes but the difference is pressure waves or water waves exist in a preexisting medium whereas light creates its own medium as it goes, so a brick wall containing water will stop a water wave, but not a light wave.

All EM waves travel through walls, but radio waves cannot move the atoms 180 degrees out of phase in order to produce a cancellation because the frequency is too slow (and the bonds are too tight). Gamma rays have a frequency much too high to move the atoms in resonance to produce a cancellation, so they pass unaffected as well.

You can illustrate the effect by hanging a padlock from a rubber band: if you jiggle your hand very fast, the lock does not move, but as you slow down, you'll find resonance where the lock moves in opposite direction of your hand (180 degree phase shift) with great exaggeration. As you slow even more, the lock will move in phase with your hand. Visible light just happens to be the right frequency to cause resonance that produces the cancellation wave that causes opacity.

Chlorophyll resonates in the blue and red because blue and UV have about twice the energy of red, but red penetrates to the bottom of the forest which leaves the middle, green, as having no particular attribute for selection and so it's reflected as a consequence of the fine-tuning for resonance in blue and red and that's why plants are green. That resonance is how chlorophyll extracts energy from light.

This effect underpins the co2 global warming theory wherein visible light goes right through co2 like it wasn't there, but after being converted to IR light and re-radiated from the surface of the earth, suddenly the co2 molecule is opaque, like a oneway valve that is frequency dependent. I struggled with that for a while: how could something block low frequencies but pass highs? It made no sense to me. The answer is it blocks neither, but resonates with IR which creates more EM waves that interact with the original.

You could be right. It might also be that materials that are opaque to certain frequencies absorb the energy of the photons, gradually increasing the overall energy in the matrix, which is basically heat. As the heat increases, i.e. the atoms jiggle faster,

I think that is "temperature" rather than "heat". Heat is always energy in transfer while temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of vibrating atoms. So, light is heat which causes objects to have temperature. Work is all energy transfer that is not heat.

the energy is enough to cause the electrons in the outer shells to jump.

Yup, the resonance is so strong that electrons jump.

The first jumps are the lower energy ones that equate to infrared radiation. It is these photons to which co2 is opaque, so they get reflected, or as you say, get absorbed and re-emitted; it comes to the same thing. That is a potted version of black body radiation, at least as I understand it. This probably describes it better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation

As long as light is causing the resonance, the incoming wave will be cancelled, but because the electron was kicked up to the next level, the cooling process will cause the re-emission of light after the incoming light has stopped. That's how the atmosphere keeps us warm at night.

This page has a graphic too big to post here, but shows the transitions from rotational, vibrational, and electronic states. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/prima ... th-GG.html

Microwave ovens work by grabbing the water molecule and rotating it since the whole water molecule is polar. IR works by causing the H to move in relation to the O or in the case of co2, the C in relation to the O. IR has no mechanism to affect O-O because it's not polar (microwaves and IR only affect polar molecules). Visible and higher are much too fast to move a whole molecule or atom, so they cause electrons to move in relation to the nucleus. Gamma rays can actually shake the nucleus apart.

And thank you for the links.

Glad to help because now you can produce more infographics

[uwot]

Glad to help because now you can produce more infographics

It's all good, thought provoking stuff. I like the padlock and rubber band analogy and might well use it, but I will probably change it to a trampoline. Dunno how many of my target audience will have ever bounced a padlock up and down.

[Serendipper]

Glad to help because now you can produce more infographics

It's all good, thought provoking stuff. I like the padlock and rubber band analogy and might well use it, but I will probably change it to a trampoline. Dunno how many of my target audience will have ever bounced a padlock up and down.

Well a trampoline can only resonate. You need an example that can illustrate above and below resonance. Hanging a weight from a rubber band is quite easy to do. I've played with 2 sets of bands and locks, one hanging from the other and then tried to get the top one resonating without the bottom one and vice versa. It's about the most insightful experiment into resonance that one can do.

A ported speaker box could be another illustration as that's why I was fiddling with locks in the first place. When the speaker is playing a high tone, the air in the port is too heavy to move that fast, so is unaffected. As the tone slows, the air inside the port begins to resonate 180 degrees to the speaker, so as the speaker moves out from the box, so does the column of air and that's why ported boxes are louder. As the speaker plays a tone below resonance, the air in the port moves in phase with the speaker, so as the speaker moves out, the air column moves in and cancels the pressure wave outside the box.

[uwot]

Well a trampoline can only resonate.

I was thinking of someone trying to jump too fast on the trampoline. I could be missing something.
Slightly off topic (which frankly hasn't been anything to do with a strange spiritual consequence of the multiverse theory for some time) but the two padlock experiment (which frankly I am so nerdy I can't wait to try) made me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLIj-4suOk

[Serendipper]

Well a trampoline can only resonate.

I was thinking of someone trying to jump too fast on the trampoline. I could be missing something.
Slightly off topic (which frankly hasn't been anything to do with a strange spiritual consequence of the multiverse theory for some time) but the two padlock experiment (which frankly I am so nerdy I can't wait to try) made me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLIj-4suOk

Oh yeah, chaos. Check out the graphic here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory The pattern resembles your atoms a little.

I don't think it's nerdy I was planning to make a speaker box where one port leads to another box with a port. The box volumes are the springs and the air in the port is the weight (locks). So it's the driver attached to a spring attached to a weight attached to another spring attached to another weight.

Don't worry, in the other universes, the conversation is on topic

[uwot]

Don't worry, in the other universes, the conversation is on topic

Hope I'm still nerdy, though.
Dunno much about speakers; is a 'port' the diaphragm or just the hole? Are the speakers in series or er? Oh bollocks; I have no idea what I'm talking about. What's the basic set up? Is it enclosed? Does the second speaker act as a microphone?

[Serendipper]

Don't worry, in the other universes, the conversation is on topic

Hope I'm still nerdy, though.
Dunno much about speakers; is a 'port' the diaphragm or just the hole? Are the speakers in series or er? Oh bollocks; I have no idea what I'm talking about. What's the basic set up? Is it enclosed? Does the second speaker act as a microphone?

When the speaker cycles outward of the box and the air in the port also cycles outward, the sound pressure level rises sharply. That happens at resonance. Below resonance, they work against each other since the speaker travels outward, but the air in the port travels inward. Above resonance, the air in the port doesn't move and the enclosure performs as if it were sealed.

[uwot]

When the speaker cycles outward of the box and the air in the port also cycles outward, the sound pressure level rises sharply. That happens at resonance. Below resonance, they work against each other since the speaker travels outward, but the air in the port travels inward. Above resonance, the air in the port doesn't move and the enclosure performs as if it were sealed.

Ok, got it. Was the idea to improve the quality of the sound, or just scientific curiosity?