I'm coo-coo for coco puffs.

However, redonculous,

The reason I appreciate Abra's approach is his tolerance of uncertainty (which "some people" seem to lack). Only perfect people may demand Perfection! But, since all/most of people aren't perfect (and have to face uncertainty more and more), the conclusion is to develop a tolerance of uncertainty -- a great "people" skill (and a trait of a wise manager)!!!

. . . coo-coo...

I'm not trying to support anything. I'm just stating the facts as they are currently known.

Clearly you're the one who has an agenda. You're agenda is to support the illusion that logic can still somehow be meaningful in the quest for these deepest philosophical questions and that somehow science supports that idealology.

But the truth is that scientific discoveries do not support that ideal. On the contrary QM (which IS science) forbid it.

It's the very foundational premise of QM that the world is indeed quantized (and not a continuum as had been believed for so many millennia). It's Planck's Constants that is the quantitatively observed limit of physical reality. It's the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Relationship within the mathematical formalsmism of QM that demands that science must stop at the Planck scale.

That's the whole premise of QM which IS the stance of modern science.

We've already established that logic is meaningless without observation to confirm or deny any conclusions. And clearly science is totally useless without observation scince observation is a critical component of the Scientific Method. Therefore science has confirmed it's own demise with respect to going any further beyond the limitation of QM.

The only way to go beyond QM is for QM to turn out to be false. In other words, the only way for science to go beyond QM is if science is WRONG.

Besides, I'm not "going anywhere" with anything. I'm just relating the facts as they are known by science. The fact that QM totally supports what Eastern Mystics have been concluding for eons, is a well-known fact, not a mere opinion.

That doesn't "prove" that they are correct, but rather it simply shows that even via logic and observation we are led to the very same conclusions.

Yet, people are still attempting to argue things like "Logic does not support mysticism, etc. But it DOES! In fact, that is precisely where logic and modern science have brought us.

Like it or not. Agree with it or not. It doesn't matter. This is where modern science has ultimately arrived.

To sit back and claim that "logic" can go further is a totally unwarranted and ungrounded claim. It's nothing more than a pipe dream that cannot be backed up via scientific evidence. The scientific evidence reveals precisely the opposite conclusion. Logic confirmed by observation (i.e. via the scientific method) can never be established concerning question of the ultimate nature of reality, because QM forbids it and QM IS science.

QM would need to be WRONG in order for your hopes and dreams that logic can retain validity in our quest for answers to the true nature of reality.

So yes, you may as well become a mystic, because modern science has shown us through QM that this is indeed what we are stuck with.

The only way for that not to be the case is for QM to turn out to be WRONG.

So all you're truly doing is placing bets that modern science is wrong. You're just hoping without grounds that maybe modern science has somehow made a mistake and the scientific method can somehow be re-established to reach beyond the quantum realm. (i.e. QM as it currently stands must FALL) That's were you need to place your chips if you want to bet on logic as a means of investigation into the true nature of reality.

Ironically, you're just betting that modern science and QM are simply wrong.

Edited to add:

By the way, they very well may be wrong! I'm not attempting to claim that they can't be wrong. But that's beside the point.

Even if they are wrong, you have no "evidence" for why that should be the case. Therefore you're guessing that logic and the scientific method can go beyond QM is nothing more than a faith-based bet (that is NOT supported by science as it stands today)

_____________I KNEW IT!!!_____________

Thank you very much, James, for re-affirming my belief:
*** Our matterial logical world is not devoid of MAGIC ***
.
[too bad we cannot incorporate that into logic (i.e. computer programs)! ]

There're only two possibilities:

1. disregarding the whole matter (and carry on as usual).

2, trying to perceive the gist of it at the purely intuitive level.

Evidently.... it's the data!

This...



and this...



...completely contradict one another.

There's no contradiction there at all.

The only way that there would be a contradiction is if the mystical philosophies of Eastern Mystyicism actually claimed to know and understand the basis of reality. But they don't claim that at all. On the contrary their view is that these mysteries can never be known, and this is precisely why it's called mysticism.

So there's no contradiction here at all. The mathematical formalism of QM demands that fundamental nature of reality ultimately cannot be known, that is in perfect alignment with what the Eastern Mystics have been saying.

So there's no contradiction here at all. None whatsoever.

Of course, if you mistake "Eastern Mysticism" in general for specific concrete mythologies or specific dogma of particular eastern religions, then such it would be a contradiction to suggest that QM supports those.

In fact, any Eastern Religion that claims to know what's going on precisely is a completely contradiction to the very concept of mysticism to begin with.

So there's no contradiction in my position.

In other words, if you philosophy states that you can't know. Then QM supports that. If your philosophy states that you can know, then QM does not support that.

Eastern Mysticism, in its purest form, states that the mysteries of life cannot be known. However, they also recognize there there can be no seperation between anything, and that all is one. That much can be known, and again, this is also inline with the observations and discoveries associated with QM.

So rather than to say that "QM supports" Eastern Mysticism, perhaps I should just say that it is in compeltely agreement with the ultimate conlcusions of the Eastern Mystics.

I care for this idea of things "supporting" other things anyway. They are either in agreement or not. If they are in agreement they they are mutually supportive. One cannot be said to support the other. QM and Eastern Mysticism are in agreement. Therefore they support each other mutually. Neither one has a leg-up on the other.

QM is science. Science is logical. If logic cannot be meaningful in a quest for the deepest philosophical questions, then QM cannot support one variety of such a philosophy.

Period.

* * * What's good is science, if it still CANNOT explain such a logical phenomenon as QM ? ? ?

Same 'good' as it was before we were able to explain why the planets stay in orbit, why the world is round, the sun is hot, etc...



Besides,

I was pointing out the logical inconsistency inherent in the claims, so as to add a little more logical perspective on what was being falsely claimed about logic itself.

You seem to be totally missing the point.

Yes, science is based on logic as well as observation. In fact, for science, observation always trumps logic. As I've already stated, it's just as logic (or perhaps even more logical) to assume that the unviverse is eternal, but observation shows that it's not. So observational trumps logic. That's a given.

However, logic has become it's own demise (which should come as no surprise). Every logical syllogism taken far enough will end in a contradiction. It's like the little the little child that keeps asking, "Why?" to every answer.

Why does an apple fall to the ground? Because of gravity.

(that's logical)

What is there gravity? Because spacetime is bent.

(that's logical)

Why is spacetime bent? Etc., etc., etc.

The questions never end, and if asked long enough they always either lead to the ultimate conclusion that "no one knows", or they lead to an actual contradiction. So, in the end logic has never provided any final meaningul answers to anything. Only when you stop asking questions does is appear that logic might have a little success.

However, in the case of QM, the buck stops here. It's not just your normal situation. The very premise of QM (the premise that the world is indeed quantized and NOT based on a quantitative continuum like everyone previously thought, demands that the buck stops here. It demands that questions asked about anything smaller than this quantum size are indeed necessarily unanswerably questions. It demands that this is the case.

In fact, the only way to by-pass this demand is for QM to turn out to be false.

So any hope that logic can go beyond QM is nothing more than a hope that QM (and thus current modern science is indeed wrong)

So to demand that all questions of reality adhere to "logic" (and must be backed up by observable evidence), simply no longer holds any water.

Modern science simply doesn't not support that view. At least not in terms of anything beyond QM (unless QM turns out to be wrong)

So any such demand that logic and experiencial observations always need to back up any philosophy is to either totally ignore the findings of science, or it is to demand that no one philosophize about anything beyond what can be known. But to demand that is just to demand that people ignore philosophy in general and just become physicists only concerned with what can be observed and measured.

All you're really demanding is that everyone limit themselves to the scientific method of inquiry. But that's been shown to be limited to only describing the nature of spacetime. Yet even science has shown us that the underlying foundation that gives rise to spacetime does not adhere to these rules.

The idea that there can even be any such thing as "pure logic" is an unworkable idea. That's old hat. We know now that such "pure logic" is meaningless, because we can imagine "logical" scenarios that don't match up with reality.

In other words, we can imagine a universe that's eternal (and that would be logical), but observation shows us that this isn't the way things are.

We could imagine a universe that expanding at a constant rate. Or not even expanding at all, or even collapsing in on itself. All of those "pure ideas" are indeed logical, but once we've made observations then we say that it's only "logical" to accept what has been presented to us by the "Observational Evidence".

That's what this thread is all about is it not? Evidence?

What is evidence, but experience and observation?

Take away the ability to make those observations and you've taken away the possiblity of producing evidence.

Yet this is precisely what QM demands. It demands, via the Heisenberg uncertain relationship and the very quantum nature of the underlying substrate of reality that observations cannot be made beyond that limit.

Thus if you contine to demand "evidence", all you're doing is demanding that no one speak about anything beyond the quantum realm.

You're just demanding that eveyone become a physicists who studies the nature of spacetime and the physicality of spacetime.

Then you're going to assert the conclusion that everything must follow the rules of spacetime within your limited scenario.

But why should everyone else be interested in limiting their philosophical ideas to the scientific method of physics and spacetime?

In the end all you're really doing is demanding that all philosophers become physicists and work within the restrictions of physics of spacetime.

That's all you're really doing.

I personally see no reason why philosophy in general should be limited in such a way. What are the "grounds" for making such a demand? Certainly not science itself. This can only be a personal perference of an individual and nothing more.

There's just no basis for demanding that eveyone else approach the questions of the true nature of reality based on the restrictions of the scientific method of observation. Science itself does not support that notion.

You say:



You haven't shown anything of the sort.

Your claim that logic and "evidence" should be able to answer all possible question is the claim that is groundless.

There is no "logical inconsistency" in my claims. QM demands that the scientific method of observation must end at the quantum level. That's a fact of the formalism. The only way that can be surpassed is if QM itself turns out to be false.

That's a fact. That's where modern science stands today. There's no logical inconsistency in that.

But there is a logical inconsistency in your claim that "logic and evidence" must always be supplied for a meaningful philosophy. That just can't be supported as anything other than your own personal desire.

I mean, if you desire that, more power to you. But to pretend that science somehow backs up that ideal is just plain wrong.

That's exactly right.

Science is surpreb at describing the behavior of spacetime and its constiutents on the macro scale.

That's where its domain of applicability resides.

But there is no reason at all, to suggest that this scientific method of inquiry should go beyond this. There's no "evidence" that it should be able to do so. On the contrary, there is "evidence" of why it can never possibly go beyond this domain. And it is precisely that "evidence" that gave rise to the scientific and mathematical description that we now call QM.

So science has simply shown us where its boundaries must lie.

. . . as usually, Abra:

>>>>>>>insert shrugging shoulders emoticon<<<<<<<

_____ CONSCIOUSNESS AND QUANTUM REALITY ____( NICK HERBERT, Ph.D. )
Well, quantum physics started out in the twenties to explain the interaction of light with atoms. It focused on that, but now it's extended to explain the interaction of anything with anything. It's basically the physicists' theory of the world these days, and it's been very successful. So there are two reasons, I think, why quantum physics and consciousness have some connection. One is that quantum theory, as most people know by now, is very strange. It has very weird properties -- dealing with the very smallest particles of matter that exist.
: Particles aren't even particles anymore. That's one of the connections with consciousness -- that the solidity of matter is dissolving away in light of these theories, and becoming more and more like the fuzziness that's inside our heads. And physics is in fact the basic science of all the sciences. So the most fundamental theory of all of science is that the basis of reality is fuzzy -- is crumbling, and it is ambiguous.
* * *a peculiar feature in quantum theory called Quantum interconnectedness, implies the notion that separability doesn't exist -- somehow all is one, the way the mystics used to say it. Due to Bell's theorem, new interest has been rekindled in this interconnectedness. Bell's theorem proves that this connection is not a theoretical artifact, but actually exists in the real world. The theorem seems like the crack in the cosmic egg, in a way; it's the one part of quantum physics that's almost turned everything upside down.
It was put by Paul Davies -- the notion that somehow big things are made of little things. Quantum theory doesn't describe the world that way. Big things aren't made of little things; they're made of entities whose attributes aren't there when you don't look, but become there when you do look. Now, that sounds very, very strange -- like an illusion (or the Hindu concept of Maya, something like that).
Einstein said the world cannot be like this, because this interconnectedness goes faster than light. With this quantum interconnectedness, two objects could come together, meet, and then each go into the universe, and they would still be connected. Instantaneously one would know what the fate of the other one was. Einstein said, now that can never be; that's like voodoo -- in fact, he used the word -- it's like telepathy, he said; he said it's spooky, it's ghostlike. Almost his last words in his biography were, "On this I absolutely stand firm. The world is not like this." He died in 1955, and ten years later Bell showed that the world must be like this. It's kind of ironic. Bell himself said, "My theorem answers some of Einstein's questions in a way that Einstein would have liked the least." (even Einstein's mind wouldn't go this far, to accept these instant connections, which now we believe really must exist in the universe. )
The notion of instant connections almost implies that space itself is an illusion -- distance is an illusion. And the notion the mystics sometimes say, that you and I, we're not really separate individuals, but at a deeper level we're like fingers; we're all connected. Or we're like islands connected. There's that sense of connectedness as well.
* We're learning that the world is put together in such a strange way that it's almost like reading science fiction. You don't know what's going to happen next. And this is certainly a strange way to make a universe. All the patterns are perfectly ordinary; they preserve space and time, and they're separated at light speed. Yet the bricks that make up these patterns are not that way at all. They don't know anything about space and time, and they're connected instantaneously. Now, why make a universe that way? I would never make a universe that way. To make a local universe, I would use local parts. But whoever made this universe, or if it made itself, s/he did it with parts that were better than the whole, in some sense. (***A local connection is an ordinary connection that obeys the speed of light, and a non-local connection is like voodoo -- that when you do something here, instantly it affects someone over here. What Bell proved was that no model of the world that used only local connections would work. ***)
Not only that there have to be occasional non-local connectionsl -- everything is non-local. (and that concerns the information transferring also!)
Tthere are two kinds of knowledge that people have about themselves. One is the kind of computer-like knowledge where you have facts, and the other is this very experience ourselves, that we have right now. It isn't computer-like, it isn't facts -- the events themselves, the irreducible events, and that's like awareness. So my feeling is that people might be able to share awarenesses, whatever that is, but not data. So there might be mood links.
Since physicists don't know much about consciousness, we start with very crude models. So one model was that things have insides and outsides. Your outside is the physicalness of you, and the inside is your consciousness. So we assume everything has an inside and an outside, all the way from atoms to people.
the brain is receiving a lot of information, but consciousness is filtering it out somehow. The brain is about 1012 bits per second. It's immensely more powerful than TV.
consciousness as a data rate would be obviously almost undetectable in the masses of everything else that's going on there, unless it were located in some central point, which may be so. We had a little group in San Francisco called the Consciousness Theory Group. We were going to solve the problems of consciousness. There were people from physics and from psychology and computer sciences, and one of our hobbies was looking at slides of the brain and trying to locate where the consciousness would be. One popular place is the reticular activating system. Consciousness is very, very small -- it's like the President and the three hundred million people, or however many there are, and one man in some sense controls the actions of the whole thing -- not the detailed actions, but the collective actions. In other words, the control system is a very small part of the whole system.


P.S. Real Science is much more mystical than seems...

_____________ SCIENCE AND MYSTICISM ______(BEVERLY RUBIK, Ph.D. )
This is a view which seems quite acceptable to people who are on the leading edge of theoretical physics, and is just beginning to filter in to the rest of the scientific community -- that our fundamental notion of objectivity, that there's something flawed in the notion that there is such a thing as an objective universe, separate from ourselves, separate from our minds. In fact this so-called paradigm shift in science may be the biggest ever, because it might mean the end of experimental science. this seems to be what the skeptics fear so much -- the whole world view will be thrown into smithereens.
* Albert Einstein wrote extensively about this, that the real essence of science was keeping alive that mystical feeling. That was his whole purpose in science -- science and art, he said *

. Ever since my dissertation disease disorder, I've paid a lot more attention to what bubbles up from within, and I've learned to trust it; you know, it's been an ongoing process. It's one of the things I've also noticed as a teacher, particularly of liberal arts students -- how much people distrust this inner knowing, this intuition which we all have. Because it seems to me they'd rather accept on some sort of faith the dictums of modern science, without really a full understanding of it, more than they would trust what comes from within, for themselves. There's something very dangerous about a culture that somehow allows its knowledge to come so much from outside, from other sources that aren't necessarily something they can test within.