I'd like to share my thoughts on this for whatever they're worth.

I totally agree with Massagetrade that a lot of this depends on the personal semantics that an individual give to terms such as information, knowledge, and usefulness, etc.

With this in mind I would like to share my personal use of these terms with respect to the kind of philosophical discussion we are having here. I reserve the right to use these terms differently in other, more pragmatic contexts, etc.

Let me begin by giving a practical example.

Let's say that I believe that I "know" I left my keys in my car. Does this represent information, or knowledge?

Well, my conclusion is as follows. If that's where the keys turn out to be then the information was correct and I my belief that I had that knowledge was also true.

However, if it turns out that I was wrong and the keys aren't in my car and turned out to be on my bedroom dresser, then I neither had information, nor knowledge. What I had was missinformation and false knowledge. Knowledge that wasn't true knowledge at all.

In other words, I'm saying that I few information and knowledge as actual properties of the universe. We can come to know information and knowledge about the universe. However, if what we think was information and knowledge turns out to be false, then we were just kidding ourselves to think that we actually possessed any actual knowledge in the first place. What we actually had was missinformation.

In this sense we can speak of information and knowledge as though it actually exists, even when we, as humans don't have it in our minds.

But where does this information and knowledge it exist?

Well, it exists in the 'physical universe'.

But what is that?

Well, based on what we, (humanity), believe we know from having observed the physical universe, the physical universe is entirely made of standing waves of some kind of energy fields, (or matter-antimatter fields), that arise from a totally inaccessible and undetectable quantum field.

We say that this 'quantum field' exists simply because things keep popping into existence from it. It also appears to have some sort of consistent properties albeit extremely illogical ones.

So the physical universe is a configuration of standing waves that arise of some 'unknowable' and totally 'undetectable' source that we know must be there.

I see that source as being the 'mind of god', or if you like, the 'brain of god'.

It clearly exists even though we cannot detect it directly. We can certainly detect that things that come into existence from it.

Therefore, it makes sense to me that this mysterious quantum field is indeed the 'mind of God'.

We have actually discovered the mind of god via science.

Moreover, we can see that the entire universe is being imagined (or dreamed) by this mind. The standing quantum waves that create this universe are the 'thoughts' of this quantum mind.

We are the thoughts of this quantum mind.

However because the entire totality of our existence arises from this quantum mind then we most simultaneously be both of this mind, as well as being the mind itself. There is simply nothing else to be. What else could we be if we are not the very essence of what we are made of?

What else is there to be?

If we arose from this quantum field and we are entirely made up of nothing more than standing waves of quantum energy, then the totality of our essence must be this quantum field.

If the quantum field is the mind of god, then so are we.

In fact, if a person has a distaste for the word 'god' then just remove it.

If everything that exists arises from the quantum field, then we are the quantum field.

Call it whatever you want. Clearly we are it.

There is no such thing as a "human being" outside of the standing waves of a quantum field that forms it.

To be a human being is to be the quantum field. There's no way around. There's simply nothing else to be.

All information and knowledge belongs to the quantum field.

If we have any information or knowledge that doesn't belong to the quantum field, then we're just kidding ourselves to believe that we have either. All we have in that case is silly missinformation that doesn't truly represent knowledge at all.

This necessarily follows given my semantic premise above.

Of course no one needs to accept my semantics. If they chose to accept missinformation as information, and false knowledge as knowledge, then they would certainly be free to use that semantic convention. It just seems to me that such a convention would be utterly useless for any philosophical ponderings. However, such a definition might be of some use for an organization like the CIA or whatever.

Just my thoughts for whatever they're worth.

i believe in "planned somnolescence"

So we have Abra setting up a distinction from true information, and not true information or missinformation whoever she is!!

The real distinction he has uncovered is in the idea that false information does not lead to knowledge, that only true information leads to knowledge.

This informs us and leads nicely to Justified true belief, a very important facet in epistemology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification

James asked the question "But where does this information and knowledge exist?"

You may not like the answer. He is right it exists within the "quantum field." But what is in the quantum field? (I call it an energy field.) Other fields. Energy and 'information' is stored in matter and in living creatures. It is ultimately stored in their energy field and gathered by their senses and their body.

We are the storage devices. Not just we as humans but we as energy beings with our own energy fields. There is certain information and knowledge that can only be gotten from one particular unique individual. Each individual has unique experience and unique information and knowledge which I believe is held forever within their energy field to be 'accessed' by other individuals.

This is why I believe we never "die" in spirit. Because we hold valuable information for the universal mind. What would be the purpose of learning things and collecting information if it is just lost when the physical body dies? There would be no point, and there would be no evolution.

Evolution is based on acquired information which exists and can be accessed within the energy fields of the universal collective mind.

Bacteria learn how to become immune to drugs and mutate. Butterflies paint eyes on their wings to look like giant eyes to frighted predators away. Insects mimic other animals to hide from their prey or to discourage predators. They learn this from generation to generation. This is NOT an accident.

Even in this world, your best source of information and knowledge is another person.

We are conscious storage devices for the universal mind.

You're exactly right. I can absolutely climb on board with that.

What I think a lot of people fail to understand is that Empiricism is precisely what lead us to the knowledge that we have about the quantum field.

A lot of people are still dating "Miss Staken Information"

In other words, they believe that quantum mechanics is somehow incomplete. This was Albert Einstein's view. Therefore they are expecting to be able to discover some new way of looking at QM that will get us past this barrier of "Incomplete Knowledge".

Neils Bohr took a different view entirely. Neils Bohr recognized that our knowledge of Quantum Mechanics is indeed complete. It's as complete as it can be.

In other words, it's the very nature of the quantum field to absolutely prohibit any further "knowledge" of what's going on behind the scenes.

This is the very principle of Quantum Complementarity, and the very nature of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which is not about our uncertainty in measurements, but rather it's a direct statement about the actual nature of reality due to Quantum Complementarity.

Therefore, if we accept Bohr's view, which is the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM by the way, then we must accept the knowledge that we can never know what's going on behind the Quantum Field. It's forbidden by nature herself. It's not that we aren't clever enough. It's simply inaccessible - forever.

That's Neils Bohr's conclusion.

Therefore everything that I stated in my previous post can indeed be justified as being on solid emperical ground.

1. The quantum field exists.
2. We can never know the true nature of this field.
(that knowledge is forbidden by the very nature of the field itself)
3. All things arise from the quantum field as standing waves of energy.
4. We are standing waves of energy that arise from the quantum field.
5. Therefore we are the quantum field.

That's as emperical as it gets.



Everything I've said is based on solid empericism.

1. Criteria - Quantum Theory and billions upon billions of experiments that prove it every day in particle accelerators around the world. It hasn't been wrong yet.

2. Authority - Neils Bohr and the Copenhagen Intepretation of QM.

3. Logical deduction - Everything is standing waves that arise from the quantum field. Therefore we must be standing waves that arise from the quantum field. Thus we are nothing more than vibrating waves of the quantum field. Deduction = We are the quantum field vibrating.

4. Justification - As of yet we have absolutely no emperical reason to suspect or believe anything else. All emperical evidence points to this conclusion.

How empirical can it get?

I ask you?

Huh?

Why?

How come?

Says who?









Just be.

Be here NOW.

Bravo!

I'd be right there but I have a date
with a random quantum conjugate
a fleeting photon so irate
she hasn't any atomic weight

Flying at the speed of light
as time stands still within her sight
to be with her is such delight
for her vibrations make things bright

I date her in a rainbow
and in the sparkles on the snow
and when she's on a flower
she sets it all aglow

She bounces off the water
and recoils from a mirror
yet passes though a crystal
if the crystal's crystal clear

Soaring though the universe
without a need for wings
illuminating kingdoms
for the peasants and the Kings

A quantum fluctuation
that hasn't any mass
yet she's as real as real can be
you can bet your lazy áss

***Applause!!!***

Thank you Jeannie.

I like that post too. And I thank Jeremy for the nice thoughts to bounce off.

I think owl keep a copy of that post for future pasting then next time someone suggests that my pantheistic views are merely some kind of weird ungrounded faith-based balogna. They're not. I've been a scientist my entire life, and I have not 'abandoned' science one iota. All I've done is finally realize precisely what it is that science has genuinely recognized.

All empirical evidence points to pantheism. That's a fact.

I can genuinely say that science lead me to pantheism. Although, I've always been a pantheist intuitively anyway really. But now I understand it scientifically. At least as well as it can be understood scientifically.



Thank you Lee.

You always bring out my creative inner child.

I will keep a copy too and I may use it. Don't worry, I'll give you credit for it.

Bravo indeed great insight, I only hold a slight umbrage to a single point.



I can see where Bohr had revolutionary ideas, and it was hard to accept from the older crowd such as Einstein.

At that time men like Bohr and Pauli where working out the equations that would push forward our usable knowledge, while men like Einstein knew in there guts that there was some greater knowledge that could knit it all together yet at the same time didn't want to admit there was some hidden element.

I think its easy to brush our hands off, and say job well done and admit that no more knowledge can be gained here thank you move along, faith helps . . .

But each generation has to stand up and say to the passing generation no thank you ill check anyways.

Good thing the Wolfgang Pauli's and Niels Bohrs out there didn't listen to the Einsteins and forged on anyways to make those equations available.

I think its good the M theory, Quantum gravity, and even the universal mind, and holographic reality physicists are out there wondering what else we may place squarely in the knowledge category.

I think ultimately the scale of reality is not yet set in stone, even if we do not find any TOE's in the sand, we may still yet get better measurements for the pieces that make up the pieces of sand.



__________________

PS JB, I know I have told you in the past, but seriously you need to read the Cosmic Jackpot. Its an honest to goodness physicist who agrees that mind fits into the picture at some level currently unexplainable and has to really good ideas about backward causation that in my mind is compelling even if I do not readily accept it. I find less complex explanations more viable, but tip my hat to Mr. Davies for giving legitimacy to the idea.

http://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Jackpot-Universe-Just-Right/dp/0618592261

You are very welcome to use it all you want.

And to add, I also want to say that reductionism doesn't always tell the whole tale, and I really do not think QM does either.

QM after all is only a extremely small scale phenomena under broken symmetry.

If we can answer no other questions but why that is . . .

I don't mean to imply that science is dead. I think there are things we have yet to discover for sure.

However, the whole debate between Einstein and Bohr was indeed about whether or not Quantum Theory was 'complete'. Einstein said no, Bohr said yes.

This was Bohr's very position, that QM is indeed as complete as it can be. Einstein keep proposing ideas of why it might not be complete. Bohr showed the logical flaws in every single last one of Einstein's concerns.

Another thing to consider when talking about a TOE.

M-Theory (in fact all String Theories) begin with Quantum Theory as a foundational premise. They aren't even promising to reveal anymore information there. They accept the totally random probabilities as foundational premise.

The only thing String Theory (or M-Theory) claims to offer is to be able to mathematically marry General Relativity with Quantum Theory. And it hasn't even dont that yet.

In fact, M-Theory hasn't done anything. Talk about 'empiricism versus whimical abstractions', String Theory could definitely be listed as a whimsical abstraction.

In fact, Lee Smolin (a former String Theroist) wrote a whole book about how "groundless" String Theory truly is. And he made a lot of great points in that book. It's called "The Trouble with Phsyics". He's also not putting down science. He's actually arguing that science is leaving the realm of empiricism to explore such ungrounded things as 'String Theory'.

He also, doesn't denounce that altogether. His main point is that science is putting way too many eggheads in that basket.

Also Loop Quantum Gravity is also based on Quantum Theory as a premise. So it's stuck with Complementarity too.

We don't have any theory that actually promises to go beyond Quantum Theory.

When they talk about a TOE (Theory of Everything), what they are actually talking about is a mathematical theory that can mathematically explain everything mathematically. But they would even accept the probability equations of QM as part of that. What they're really talking about is melding GR and QM right now.

They aren't talking about explaining QM any better than it is already explained. They accept the probability equations of QM as being sufficient in that department.

From my understanding of QM, Complementarity will stand forever.

It's the nature of the beast. It's not that we aren't clever enough to explain it, it's simply the nature of the beast.

In fact, I believe that I can actually explain Quantum Complementarity via flaws in our current mathematical formalism.

By 'explain', I simply mean to explain why it has to be the way it is. I don't mean to explain it away, but rather to explain why it can be made to go away. I believe I can see why it can't be made to go away.

I really need to write a math book. I'm such a procrastinator.

The answer is mathematical formalism, not in physics.

Our current modern mathematical formalism is logically flawed. And I even know what the flaws are.

I don't remember the suggestion to read cosmic Jackpot, thanks. I will certainly look into it. It sounds real interesting.

I think we will always continue to learn new things about the nature of reality and I think the nature of reality is also changing. The thing we will never do is to enclose infinity or draw boundaries around it.

Infinity will always escape us. But it is not infinity that is important.

It is us. We are important.

I have heard people belittle the existence of this reality and mankind's importance in it. This is just not true. A living warm blooded humanoid sentient creature has evolved forth from the primal elements which popped into existence from no-thing. This is an astonishing accomplishment for the force of life.

I believe that I know why QM has to be the way it is.

But the only reason I know this is because I understand the flaws in our current mathematical formalism.

I suppose I really need to write this damn math book whether I want to or nor.

Well, our current formal mathematical definitions of infinity are incorrect anyway. So as long as we cling to them we'll never understand the concept.

Abra, this is not a discussion about physics I was hoping that sidetrack would be complete with your completed thought. (which was a good thought BTW yet still a sidetrack)

Lets get back to epistemology or another philosophical school and not continue to reduce everything down to QM (which is easy to do, you sir have QM on the brains)
Lets agree that math as we know it is incomplete to explain what we need explained and agree that people are out there working on that very problem.
That free's us here in this conversation to continue with a mind perspective of knowledge, or maybe its time to talk about another school of philosophy such as Metaphysics.
So should we move on to metaphysics, philosophy of mind, or does someone have another school they would like to talk about?

Maybe Anti-realism?

I would like to know what you define as "anti-realism."