Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 4:41 pmMy overall point is that the "mathematical ideation and language" is, in essence, the activity of spiritual beings. We could even just call them "math-beings" and have a better resolution than the CMTU sort of approach. These are really dangerous trends because they appropriate true essences and abstract away their underlying meaning. Can we get any sense for the underlying qualia of experience when speaking of "reality self-configures by maximizing a parameter Langan calls 'generalized utility'." and similar phrases? Maybe if that language is used very sparsely to make comparisons and relate to people who have more familiarity with such things, to fill out a much broader framework which is spoken in concrete language of experience, but that does not seem to be the approach. Rather the approach is to make that language the sole framework in which to discuss and understand these essences. I take that to be even more dangerous than basic materialism and dualism, because with the latter we can at least easily point to the claims which are completely out of tune with our experience and the empirical data. With CMTU (I am just using it to stand in for all similar approaches), the critique is basically what I just wrote above and most people will say that is not a valid critique of its truth value, which is in a sense accurate, but in another sense completely missing the point. And it's not a point that is easy to make - in some ways my essays are one long continuing attempt to make this point (among others).

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 4:41 pm

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:56 pmMy overall point is that the "mathematical ideation and language" is, in essence, the activity of spiritual beings. We could even just call them "math-beings" and have a better resolution than the CMTU sort of approach.

Specifically addressing this point, Langan does not deny that this is the activity of 'spiritual beings', albeit he doesn't use that terminology, but has come up with the neologism 'telors' to refer to the same entities, admittedly not as relatable to more traditional spiritual sensibilities ...

"Telors can be high up or low down in the universal hierarchy of agents (where reality as a whole is the ultimate Agent, God, and human beings are higher up than rocks but less than God)."

“For all those scientists still willing to speculate broadly not in the certainty that they are correct but in the hope that they will make us think.”

I began this blog with a reference to a rather obscure document from the RAND Corporation called “Winding the Universal Clock”. That document begins with an examination of the evolution of intelligence and the likely successor to humans – the machine – and the possibility of merging the human mind with machines. It then moves into a discussion of whether machines could be developed with the ability to reproduce themselves. The vision of the future is one of declining biological diversity as humans exploit our own resources and create machines which can exploit eventually the vast resources of outer spaces, the stars, and the galaxies. The ultimate purpose of these machines is to reverse the progression towards entropy and prevent the heat death of the universe.

While I love the broad speculations of “Winding”, I disagree with it in parts. In the first place, as I already explained, I do not believe machines can become conscious nor will we ever be able to download our minds to them. Consciousness is a property of life. A quite different question is whether humans might in the future create life based on different chemistry than that of organic life on Earth. The key properties of life are replication and metabolism. Even our most advanced machines of today exhibit neither of these characteristics but it might be possible in future for such devices to be created. Once created they would be able to evolve on their own with their own sense of purpose and direction. Such entities might be based more on metals than carbon perhaps with neural systems consisting of a hybrid of silicon and carbon. These entities, however, will not be machines but will be in a real sense “living”. Perhaps a new term will need to be invented for them.

A more major point of disagreement with “Winding” is the absence of an understanding of the key role of consciousness.

In the famous Isaac Asimov short story “The Last Question” various generations of super computers over time are asked by various generations of humans the same question: How can the heat death of the universe be averted? The answer comes back: “INSUFFCIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER”. At the end humans have evolved to God-like status as the stars begin to flicker out. Asked one last time the final generation of the computer still has no answer. The universe dies. Space-time ceases to exist. Humanity and the computer merge. Thought, however, continues until finally the there is the answer.: “LET THERE BE LIGHT”.

In the Asimov story, consciousness has broken its material bonds or perhaps the universe itself has become conscious. Matter is gone and then in some marvelous jujitsu mind creates matter so that once again matter can create mind. Mind and matter become entwined with matter creating mind and mind in turn creating matter. Life is the bridge between matter and consciousness.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 5:16 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 4:41 pmMy overall point is that the "mathematical ideation and language" is, in essence, the activity of spiritual beings. We could even just call them "math-beings" and have a better resolution than the CMTU sort of approach. These are really dangerous trends because they appropriate true essences and abstract away their underlying meaning. Can we get any sense for the underlying qualia of experience when speaking of "reality self-configures by maximizing a parameter Langan calls 'generalized utility'." and similar phrases? Maybe if that language is used very sparsely to make comparisons and relate to people who have more familiarity with such things, to fill out a much broader framework which is spoken in concrete language of experience, but that does not seem to be the approach. Rather the approach is to make that language the sole framework in which to discuss and understand these essences. I take that to be even more dangerous than basic materialism and dualism, because with the latter we can at least easily point to the claims which are completely out of tune with our experience and the empirical data. With CMTU (I am just using it to stand in for all similar approaches), the critique is basically what I just wrote above and most people will say that is not a valid critique of its truth value, which is in a sense accurate, but in another sense completely missing the point. And it's not a point that is easy to make - in some ways my essays are one long continuing attempt to make this point (among others).

I must concede that as a prospective TOE paradigm upon which to base a collective ethos it seems doubtful that it's going to have much appeal among most folks who are resonating with the primacy of consciousness and seeking a paradigmatic framework in which it can be expressed in a relatable way, and as such will mostly appeal to those with a very specialized grasp of the concepts. Nonetheless, insofar as it is still premised upon the primacy of consciousness and the cosmos as idea construction, however limited its overall appeal may be, it's still playing a role in the demise of materialism as the prevailing paradigm, and so that can't be an all together bad contribution, IMO. Having said that, whatever the next prevailing paradigm may be, it still can't ignore the implications of mathematical ideation and its language being fundamental to that paradigm's cosmology, as even to this math-challenged mind it feels somehow crucial.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:03 amThose are my conclusions, and I have a lot of different reasons for reaching them, many of which are scattered throughout my essays. But, for now, I just want us to be on the same page of what my critique is. The abstract framework is not harmful because it's hard for me or most other people to understand, but rather it's harmful because it is moving in the opposite direction of where I conclude it should be heading. The metamorphic task at hand for humans as spiritual beings moving towards spiritual freedom can only be accomplished if abstract knowledge of the modern age is transfigured into concrete experience-knowledge. Otherwise, we are simply trying to do the exact same thing materialism failed at doing by engaging in the same idolatry as it did - confusing abstract representations of Reality for Reality itself.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 1:47 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:03 amThose are my conclusions, and I have a lot of different reasons for reaching them, many of which are scattered throughout my essays. But, for now, I just want us to be on the same page of what my critique is. The abstract framework is not harmful because it's hard for me or most other people to understand, but rather it's harmful because it is moving in the opposite direction of where I conclude it should be heading. The metamorphic task at hand for humans as spiritual beings moving towards spiritual freedom can only be accomplished if abstract knowledge of the modern age is transfigured into concrete experience-knowledge. Otherwise, we are simply trying to do the exact same thing materialism failed at doing by engaging in the same idolatry as it did - confusing abstract representations of Reality for Reality itself.

I understand what you're getting at, and what you are attempting to do with your essays, but I just don't think there's a one-way-fits-all approach to how each person can best come to terms with the profound implications of idealism. It may just be that some have to begin with whatever works for them at any given stage, before they are ready to move on to a more nuanced understanding. Indeed, there was a time when had I come across something like one of your essays, it would have made little sense, or had much appeal. As an analogy, if someone is just learning to play piano, they don't just leap into playing a Beethoven sonata, but have to begin with a very low resolution rendition of chopsticks, until eventually ready to move on. So I don't share the notion that just because they're not meeting someone's expectations of where they should begin, or when they should feel inspired to move on, that means they're not benefiting from where they're at.

Scott wrote:This is not to say that exercising our mathematical capability is of no use in terms of the spiritual development... It is just that we should not be deluded into thinking that anything we can come up with is ontologically relevant.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 2:22 am

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 1:47 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:03 amThose are my conclusions, and I have a lot of different reasons for reaching them, many of which are scattered throughout my essays. But, for now, I just want us to be on the same page of what my critique is. The abstract framework is not harmful because it's hard for me or most other people to understand, but rather it's harmful because it is moving in the opposite direction of where I conclude it should be heading. The metamorphic task at hand for humans as spiritual beings moving towards spiritual freedom can only be accomplished if abstract knowledge of the modern age is transfigured into concrete experience-knowledge. Otherwise, we are simply trying to do the exact same thing materialism failed at doing by engaging in the same idolatry as it did - confusing abstract representations of Reality for Reality itself.

I understand what you're getting at, and what you are attempting to do with your essays, but I just don't think there's a one-way-fits-all approach to how each person can best come to terms with the profound implications of idealism. It may just be that some have to begin with whatever works for them at any given stage, before they are ready to move on to a more nuanced understanding. Indeed, there was a time when had I come across something like one of your essays, it would have made little sense, or had much appeal. As an analogy, if someone is just learning to play piano, they don't just leap into playing a Beethoven sonata, but have to begin with a very low resolution rendition of chopsticks, until eventually ready to move on. So I don't share the notion that just because they're not meeting someone's expectations of where they should begin, or when they should feel inspired to move on, that means they're not benefiting from where they're at.

I appreciate that and I completely agree with you. I started at A and now maybe I am at B, so I have absolutely no expectations for where anyone should start or how they should start. There are plenty of other ways, apart from those discussed in my essays, to approach the noumenal relations which constellate our experience. But let me try one more time to clarify my critique by quoting Scott from the other thread:

Scott wrote:This is not to say that exercising our mathematical capability is of no use in terms of the spiritual development... It is just that we should not be deluded into thinking that anything we can come up with is ontologically relevant.

What he calls "anything we can come up with" is what I am calling "abstractions". It's not that they are too simple, unclear, etc. My tweet said "low resolution" and that is probably causing confusion too. I would say BK's MAL framework is "low resolution", but clearly I also think his approach can be usefully adapted for people attempting to transfigure their thinking. BK always makes clear that his framework is just a useful heuristic device for approaching ideal Reality. Langan seems to be a different kind of animal (and I am not even positive about that, just based on what I have read so far), because his approach cannot be adapted. It is fundamentally trying to achieve something that I think we should not be trying to achieve - what spiritual types call "idolatry". Idolatry is what leads to being "deluded into thinking [the abstractions] are ontologically relevant". It is like trying to learn the piano by picking up a hammer and banging on trash cans - there is just no continuity there. I hope that clears up my critique. I know for sure that this was one of those times my own poor phrasing caused the confusion to begin with.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 2:22 amWhat he calls "anything we can come up with" is what I am calling "abstractions". It's not that they are too simple, unclear, etc. My tweet said "low resolution" and that is probably causing confusion too. I would say BK's MAL framework is "low resolution", but clearly I also think his approach can be usefully adapted for people attempting to transfigure their thinking. BK always makes clear that his framework is just a useful heuristic device for approaching ideal Reality. Langan seems to be a different kind of animal (and I am not even positive about that, just based on what I have read so far), because his approach cannot be adapted. It is fundamentally trying to achieve something that I think we should not be trying to achieve - what spiritual types call "idolatry". Idolatry is what leads to being "deluded into thinking [the abstractions] are ontologically relevant". It is like trying to learn the piano by picking up a hammer and banging on trash cans - there is just no continuity there. I hope that clears up my critique. I know for sure that this was one of those times my own poor phrasing caused the confusion to begin with.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 4:41 pm My overall point is that the "mathematical ideation and language" is, in essence, the activity of spiritual beings. We could even just call them "math-beings" and have a better resolution than the CMTU sort of approach. These are really dangerous trends because they appropriate true essences and abstract away their underlying meaning. Can we get any sense for the underlying qualia of experience when speaking of "reality self-configures by maximizing a parameter Langan calls 'generalized utility'." and similar phrases? Maybe if that language is used very sparsely to make comparisons and relate to people who have more familiarity with such things, to fill out a much broader framework which is spoken in concrete language of experience, but that does not seem to be the approach. Rather the approach is to make that language the sole framework in which to discuss and understand these essences. I take that to be even more dangerous than basic materialism and dualism, because with the latter we can at least easily point to the claims which are completely out of tune with our experience and the empirical data. With CMTU (I am just using it to stand in for all similar approaches), the critique is basically what I just wrote above and most people will say that is not a valid critique of its truth value, which is in a sense accurate, but in another sense completely missing the point. And it's not a point that is easy to make - in some ways my essays are one long continuing attempt to make this point (among others).