Most people believe what the do because they want to for one reason or another. It rarely has to do with what is true. Usually because the right belief will invalidate another cherished belief, like eternal life.

Nobody in their right mind would consider a machine to be more than then the sum of it's parts. Just like nobody in their right mind would consider the brain anything more then a biological computer. The problem is that when you start seeing things for what they are, you have to cast away ideas of what you thought they were.

The dead brain is a lot like a seized engine. No matter how much you want it to work after it dies, your pretty much fucked. A lot of people just can't handle that idea so they throw away ideas that support it regardless of how true they may be.

 

Once again, we see the confusion caused by people failing to understand that: Information is REAL!

Yes, we are 'more' than the sum of our parts. Our parts are matter. We are a particular arrangement and interaction of that matter. We are information.

Reductionism, like materialism, is pathologically misunderstood.

When the average pseudo-intellectual hears 'reductionism', they believe it means "all perception is an illusion, it's not really real". A 'tree' is not a real tree, it's "just" a bunch of atoms moving around. A person, likewise, is "just" a bunch of atoms. Everything is "just" some smaller thing.

This is not modern reductionism. It's naive, simplistic, childish reductionism that nobody -- who's spent a few minutes of thinking about it -- really believes.

What reductionism *really* means is that "You can get there from here." From a bunch of smaller parts, you can build up the bigger system. From gears you can build a clock. From atoms, yes, you can build a tree. From atoms, you can also build a person. But it does *not* say that you can "just" toss a few atoms together to get a person. There is a particular kind of arrangment and interaction of atoms that will produce a person. It is that arrangment and interaction that *is* what a person is.

People are not matter, people are information. However, unlike dualists and anti-reductionists, a physicalist (a modern reductionist materialist) understands that information is real and is part of the physical world. It is in fact fundamental to it, just as matter, energy, forces, space, and time are.

An anti-reductionist will say, "Well, I'm more than 'just' my atoms, so there must be some magical way that my consciousness is *irreducible* to mere atoms." This is fallacious reasoning. It is an argument from personal incredulity. "I don't understand how it is possible, therefore it is not possible."

Worse, a dualist will say, "Well, I'm more than the sum of my atoms, so therefore I must be something completely non-physical!" Talk about a non-sequitur!

Ironically, as JillSwift brought up, the anti-reductionist and the dualist are seeking life after death, and the only *real* way of achieving life after death is to acknowledge that consciousness is an informational process. You see, if I'm information, that means I can be copied and 'reincarnated' into another brain, possibly a mechanical brain such as a computer. I *can* potentially live beyond my original biological body. But not through some sort of 'metaphysical' belief in a soul. Only through understanding that we are information, and information is real.

If you really want life after death, study neurology, study cognitive science, build a thinking machine. Stop wasting your time complaining about reductionists, when they are the only ones who present a *real* possibility of achieving your dreams.

I fully agree with your excellent points. We can represent every neuron in the human brain as either a 1 (the neuron fires an action potential) or 0 (the neuron is quiet). And the state of a particular neuron (1 or 0) will affect its efferent neighbor it interacts with. If we map out every single neuron and measure its activity we will have billions of oscillating 1s and 0s and collectively this is "information" which could be abstracted and put on a digital computer. Yet that "information" ceases to exist in the absence of matter. It only has meaning with firing neurons or circuits in a computer. Therefore, isn't information organized matter? I got the impression in your quote that information is somehow separate from matter ie. dualism. Maybe I misunderstood.

When an orchestra is playing, there is the sense that there is something more than the interaction of violins, trumpets, flutes, etc.. When a group of say 10, 000 folks are cheering at a Led Zeppelin concert, there is a sense that there is something more than interacting people. What exactly is that something more? Is it a material property? What is that extra ingredient that is added to make the whole greater than the interaction of its parts? Just because a system has a behavior that is unique and interesting and looks distinct from its cogs and wheels doesn't mean that it is not the product of its interacting parts. I would apply this same logic to the brain, society, ecosystem, planet or even the galaxy. Holism implies a supernatural extra that is above and beyond the interacting parts. If you can strip away the spook from holism show how emergent phenomenon are the result of its interacting parts, then you're left with reductionism.

 

If I say that an omelette is just an egg plus some meat and/or vegetables, am I being a naughty reductionist?

i.e. Am I denying that there is REALLY any such thing as an actual "omelette" since there is really only eggs, meats, and vegetables---not omelettes?

 

Of course not. I'm just saying when you put an egg together with some meat and vegetables in such-and-such a way, the result is a sort of "omelette-iness", which we have decided to call an omelette.

 

In order to think like a woo-woo artist, I'd have to believe that mixing an egg with some meat and vegetables is some kind of magic potion that magically creates a magic sort of "omelette-iness" that would not be possible without magic. Or, if the emergence of omelette-iness is later explained without appealing to magic, I can shift the goalpost to its secondary qualities, suggesting that such a degree of deliciousness as is found in the omelette cannot be explained or broken down. Hence, magic. Or I can appeal to "science": there are many scientists who have found that there is a signficant correlation between omelette-eating and dreams about dead relatives. Surely you can't deny the magicalness of magical omelettes, now can you?!?!

 

Or maybe I just haven't seen the full range of the complaint.

 

I would agree that there are certain thing about the mind or consciousness that haven't been explained or conclusively proven (e.g. no one, to my knowledge, has conclusively proven that consciousness does not survive brain death, though it seems obvious that it doesn't). But that's just a way of being fascinated by your own ignorance, treating it as a magical something that is "out there" in the atmosphere, rather than being an unanswered question living in your own skull. It's why some people are genuinely pissed when you explain the magic trick to them. In other words, woo-woo is a presupposition. (Or maybe a predisposition?)

 

You already answered yourself, I mean the interaction, as a relationship or an information maybe. When we have a small system, let's say a cell, things in there behaves according to a certain order. This cell is obviously a part of a greater order, which is the body. The body may be a member of another system - the family. The family is together with many others a part of a local ecology, let's say. This is a part of a global ecology. I had recently seen an opinion, that this "supernatural extra" means some even higher order, in which our global order is included. It's an interesting idea. One might think that the lifeless vacuum around Earth severs all possible relationships, but the same thing people thought earlier about a jungle or savannah around their tribe.
Next, there is an interesting problem of a spontaneously forming crowd psychology. It seems like people reduced on their most basic (barbaric) functions, which they all have the same, so they are able to operate collectively on that level. What lives in their synapses, in that time?

In this case, either we already had a systemic vision of what the computer should be capable of, or we couldn't predict it. Nobody could predict what various programs will be written, just from a study of computer parts, the transistors, in particular. They weren't systemized, until someone programmed that system into them.

Theoretically, a mechanistic thinker would have to try to derive a properties (relationships, behavior) of a system from studying a single particle of that system. However, this isn't a good method, it seems that when we have enough of  particles together in a certain relationship, then there emerges a consciousness. And this is...what? A relationship? An information? I'd rather say, that the consciousness is a field of potential choices, rather than anything strictly defined.
 

The problem is, that we don't really understand the ecology. Maybe some scientists who studied it more closely, but that's not an understanding as we need. If we would really understand the ecology, we would apply it to themselves, to our society, culture, industries, and mainly market. If we jump out of a window, we can die. But in a complex systems, the fall is very long, it takes a long time before something seems wrong. Our understanding of the ecosystem should tell us, that we literally commit a collective global suicide, and it should explain it to us as a global, immediate priority for survival. This is the real understanding. What you mean is just a dictionary definition. Mechanistic worldview allows us to see ourselves separated from the ecosystem, which is foolish. This is what the systemics and holistic approach is about - saving our butts.
 

- There are certain necessary premises, which must be accepted, if these experiences should be considered seriously. These are for example, that I don't lie, I don't make the shit up to look interesting, I am mentally healthy, I don't have hallucinations, and that I have confirmed that this is an objective phenomenon. I have been already accused of these premises being false. The distance, anonymity of the internet and virtually no training on the accusers' side doesn't allow me to prove them otherwise, thus we are stuck in a dead end. Most of my experiences sounds too fantastically for the local rational people even to consider, that my description is accurate. They probably can't imagine someone's subjective life experience so different from theirs. So basically, it's diffcult to estabilish a scrutiny, when it's done by a bunch of cynical folks from the internet, who mainly wants to have some fun. I hate to admit it, but I have a feelings too, and I don't feel like wanting to be laughed at or pitied by whole forum for writing of something which they can't imagine to be real. These things can be better discussed in privacy, personally. When people gets to know each other, they can see that one side is not a lunatic or an attention craver, and that the other side is not a cynic or someone who could misuse the highly personal information. Furthermore, it's not only about me, but about a several more similar people, who's permission I don't have.
(well, the picture is a good idea)

 

You probably misunderstood me, this is not an information gathered by someone from a scientific community. It can be described in a parallel biology, psychology and cosmology with esoteric basis, which yet must be unified with the science in a hopefully near future. There is an evidence, but it's deeper within the esoteric community, it is within it's members, in their memories, experiences, knowledge and abilities. Don't worry for a testable predictions, we have some of our own, the problem is to introduce them to the scientific institution. For that is necessary a close cooperation of both societies. For example, there is no authority to convince you about something, you must try it all on yourself and then decide. We don't have the technology yet, so we have to do everything by ourselves.

 

All right, if a total beginner would ask what the hell it is about, there's a book which provides a very brief overview. But I doubt you can find any evidence, for that we need either a technology which is not yet invented, or a well trained person. At this time, the only tool capable of verifying at least some parts of that theory, is a highly gifted or trained person, thanks to some inherent special human properties. It is now up to each student to verify the claims on his own life, there is no other authority than you. This is what we need to change, to awaken the interest and to find a way how to study scientifically the overwhelming amount of psychic phenomena which appears in our times.

Very helpful and interesting is also this book: Far journeys by R.A. Monroe. It becomes obvious that Mrs Besant's theory and mr. Monroe's practice correlates.
This book might also help a bit, though I haven't read this one and the name is extremely cheesy.

Yes, it's necessary to read at least one or two books to have a beginner's idea what it is about. This area of study is whatever, but not simple, if you are an expert on something or have a degree, then you surely know what it takes to study something. You want it said in a few of words? Well, then it's about a sense, happiness and quality of life, health to some degree, sense of the universe and everything, our place and function in there, our inner nature and structure of personality, afterlife, pre-life, evolution of body and consciousness, a way how to form a just society, and so on. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it's mainly about a practice and patience, without which nothing happens.
 

Now you're talking!

I think the way that chaos emerges from order, and order from chaos, is the driving force behind pretty much everything we see. It starts with order, but if you move your perspective up in scale, you'll see chaos; and up again, suddenly you see order once more, just order of a different type. Up once more, and chaos reigns.

Staggeringly beautiful. And unpredictable. And all from a few simple rules (if you, like me, believe the universe is parsimonious).

Am I wrong to consider information to be part of the overall system? I reduce it all to the many varied functions of the brain and the internal (memory/experience) and external (environment/senses) information.

And I think it's right to say that, too, can be reduced all the way down to the quantum level. We are all those particles/waves in one unimaginably complex system of subsystems of subsystems of subsystems...

That's an interesting question: what is "information?"

Lately, I've been working with the concept of "information" as the relationships between matter and energy (that is, matter to matter, energy to energy, and energy to matter). That can be distance, effective force vectors (all four forces), and so on. "Information processing" is the way in which the information changes over time.

As you might surmise, the concept as I grok it is still in its infancy. But I'm working on it.

Anyway, I find the topic extremely interesting these days.

Beats me.

Whether or not quantum mechanics is fundamentally indeterminate, or so complex as to appear indeterminate, doesn't matter. The stochastic nature of the outcome basically means you'd need a universe to compute any given state of the universe from the preceding state. This means that whatever state the universe is in, the next state is essentially unpredictable unless you are using the universe itself to compute the next state. So there is no "fate." Rewinding the universe to the beginning makes about as much sense as you rewinding to last week when your significant other said something that set you up to say something truly and monumentally funny that you didn't think of until it was way to late to say.

If that makes sense. (Sorry: I'm into beer #4 of some Conway's Irish Ale. Tasty!)

I guess my question is, does it matter?

This has nothing to do with the point that a computer, made of smaller, simpler parts, nevertheless exhibits complex behaviour that none of the parts alone can do.

Complex things are complex, but they are reducible to smaller parts. Every piece of a computer, when understood, feeds into the overall behaviour of the computer, such that the whole behaviour of the computer is determined entirely by the interacting behaviour of its components. There is *no* aspect of the computer which *cannot* be explained as an interaction between components.

You have both things: Reducibility, and emergent behaviour.

Why do you think ecology will be any different? It is just another complex system, and there's no reason to believe that it is not reducible to its parts.

False. Straw man. A mechanistic thinker, to explain the behaviour of the system, will need to use all the relevant sub-components of that system which are involved in that behaviour. You cannot explain how a car moves by talking about only the wheels. You must also include the engine, the transimission, the drive shaft, and the axles. But this does not mean that the car is irreducible to its parts! All of the parts play a role, and by working together, they produce motion. And likewise, the motion can be understood by the interaction of simpler parts. And furthermore, each of those parts can be explained in terms of their simpler parts (pistons in an engine, for example).

From simpler neurons and synapses, consciousness emerges, as an interaction of these simpler parts. Just like from the interaction of the simple parts of a car, locomotion emerges.

Consciousness is an infomational process.

I read this as, "I'd rather throw my hands up in the air and cry 'MYSTERY!' than spend any time trying to understand how consciousness really works."

We understand it quite well. We will understand it better and better, the more we analyze it reductionistically, as science has proven over and over.

We will never gain perfect understanding, of course, but nothing can. How does 'systemics' fare in understanding ecology? What predictions does it make? What evidence does it have to support it?

The *only* understanding we have of ecology is reductionistic understanding.

And we will, when we achieve sufficient understanding. But anti-reductionism will not bring us this understanding, only reductionistic science will.

And this understanding was established by reductionistic science. How do you think they discovered extinction? By understanding that when all the *individuals* of a species die, the *species* dies. There is no 'species' apart from the living individuals and their shared DNA. A species is a 'whole' that is completely determined by its parts.

Likewise, an ecosystem, like a body, is a 'whole' that is completely determined by its parts. There is no magical 'ecosystem essence', it is all a matter of the interactions of the individuals. Of course, this gives rise to complex behaviour (emergence). But this complex behaviour can (and *is*) understood by looking at the interacting parts.

Now *you* sound like the naive reductionist. It is 'just' the dictionary definition. My definition makes testable predictions supported by evidence. Show me the testable predictions of systemics, supported by evidence.

What is foolish is rejecting this ability for no good reason. Do you think you have a monopoly on viewing the interconnections of things? Sorry, you don't. What you don't realize is that reductionistic thinking actually allows for *greater* appreciation of integrated wholes.

When you see a system as a black box, as the holistics propose, "Oh no! You can't look inside the black box! That would spoil the mystery!" then you forfeit the ability to gain deep understanding of a system.

When you look at a computer and see a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen with pretty colours, you cannot hope to fix the bug that causes it to crash every 15 minutes. It is only by understanding each component in detail, and then looking at how they interact, that you can begin to gain true understanding. You can isolate the problem to a specific component and work to fix that component, and by fixing it, improve the functioning of the system as a whole.

This is an insult to the reductionistic science that *truly* saves butts. How has holistic thinking solved *any* of our ecological problems?

When we face the challenge of global warming, how is holistic thinking going to do anything? Was it holistic thinking that discovered the link between the ozone hole and CFCs? Or was it the reductionistic thinking that examined the chemical nature of CFCs, the meteorological and chemical nature of the atmosphere, and the physical nature of electromagnetic radiation? Only by understanding these lower-level mechanisms was it possible to discover the link between CFCs and ozone. We eliminated CFC production, and the ozone hole has healed.

Global warming is a crisis of much greater complexity. No holistic thinking, looking at the Earth as a black box, or worse as a Gaian deity, is going to come close to addressing the real issues.

Holistic thinking is not about saving our butts. It's about hiding our heads in the sand.

Okay so far.

Wait. If you did have hallucinations, and were convinced they were real, how could you possibly know that you *didn't* hallucinate? You would need some real evidence to support your personal experience. If you have this evidence, why don't you just present it?

Wait. That is exactly the question under consideration! You can't say, "Hey. I will show you that there is objective evidence of some really strange experience I had. All you have to do is believe me when I say that I've already determined that it's objective!"

That's a faith claim!

If you have objective evidence of your experiences, it would be trivial for you to produce this evidence. If you don't, then just admit up front that you don't.

I'm not surprised. You need a little more practice in critical thinking. As James Randi says, "It is easy to fool people, and the easiest person to fool is yourself!"

Show me the evidence, or admit you don't have any.

Translation: You don't have any evidence to show.

I have no doubt that you had a very strange experience that you cannot explain in rational terms. I repeat: I do not doubt you had such an experience.

What I doubt is your interpretation of that experience.

I once saw a 'ghost'. It was an experience that was very real. I have experienced deja vu. I have seen a strange maggot crawl out of my hand and then back into it, leaving no mark of any kind, no blood, no scar, nothing. But I saw it. I have experienced the feeling that I was able to 'read' other people's minds. I can sometimes finish people's sentences for them. I have had visions of 'the future'.

All of these experiences were real. I do not doubt that you've had similar experiences. And maybe they were even more impressive than mine.

What I doubt is your interpretation of these experiences. For example, I do not interpret my 'ghost' as a disembodied spirit; it was a hypnagogic hallucination. Deja vu is easily explained as a misfiring of the circuits related to temporal recognition in the brain. The maggot I saw was when I was a kid, at the same age that I would see 'monsters' in my room at night. The 'mind reading' was my own projection of my feelings about the other person, imagined as their thoughts. I'm quite intuitive and can anticipate/predict what some people will say, such that sometimes I can accurately guess their sentences before they finish them. And 'the future' is my long-developed vision of what might happen, visualized in detail in my imagination, like a life-long daydream.

There are many ways to interpret strange experiences. You choose the mystical, supernatural interpretation. I choose the wonderous, natural interpretation. One of my best conceptual friends is William of Ockham, and his famous razor.

I have never met a supernatural explanation of some phenomenon that has survived a clean shave with Occam's Razor. The 'super' is an unnecessary assumption, and so supernatural = super + natural = 0 + natural = natural. Hence my username.

Skeptical, not cynical.

Who mainly wants to get at the truth.

I respect your right to protect your feelings. However, please notice that you have resorted to a defense of your feelings as a reason that you cannot provide an adequate evidential account of your supernatural beliefs.

This is very telling to me. I hope one day you will understand why, and at that time it will become very telling to you also.

What you are describing is not objective evidence. Objective evidence can be examined by anyone; you do not have to belong to a particular community, culture, or whatever to examine it.

If you had testable predictions, you could simply test them and record your results in an objective manner. It is not a matter of 'introducing' them, it is a matter of making the prediction and recording the result.

False. There is no other authority than reliable prediction. People can be deceived. Predictions cannot be faked. You can either predict the future, or you cannot. All true knowledge can make accurate and testable predictions. If it cannot, it is not true, or not knowledge.

Spike, have you read my description of post-determinism? Pre-determinism is a pointless diversion. If the universe is pre-determined, we can never know the future anyway, because if we did, we could easily change it, disproving pre-determinism. So, either the universe is post-deterministic, or it is indistinguishable from a post-deterministic universe, and so we might as well live that way. The future is determined by what we do now, in the present. We are not tied to the past, as fate would imply.

Not true. In a truly predetermined universe our realization of the future has already been determined and quite possible is the reason for the future being the way it is. Just because you know the future does not mean you can change it. Your failure to change it could be predetermined as well, and even result in said future playing out just as it was known to you.

As far as being tied to the past... I think we are in a limited sense. Every action in the past limits our available actions in the present.

 

All right, but if you take away a part of the computer, it stops working, this is why it's irreducible with preservation of it's function. We don't say that 'I've got a heap of transistors and plastic on the table', we say that a computer is there. This entity is reducible, but then it doesn't work.
What I mean is, I guess, that the organized interactions can not be automatically derived from the basic parts, they're independent to some degree. We have two components - the actual basic components, and the information of how will be they arranged, as much as their limits allows. (for example, a jigsaw puzzle can be arranged only in 2D pattern) This information is stored in many (maybe all) components, so it's diffcult to analyze them mechanistically. Even if yes, then such an analysis is just one state of the system, which continually changes it's states. (example: a picture from electron microscope, the sample is basically dead)

Damn, this is getting philosophic. I don't want it to get it into a God defense.

I can't agree here. Consciousness is not an active proces, nor informational. It's very passive, observing condition. We are aware of our consciousness only when we shut down the thinking process, either in a state of deep meditation, or a critical danger. Otherwise, we are submerged in thoughts, identifying with thoughts, but not realizing our own existence. The consciousness can not be identified with anything what has a form, when it happens, then the ego emerges, and ego is what caused all the human suffering for all the history. Ego is surprisingly objective, as a mechanism, or as a mental disease, which it essentially is. Don't mistake the ego for consciousness.

 

Systemics is here to understand more systems, than just ecology. It predicts, that everything will go wrong and we will be in all kinds of crises, if we don't change an irrational behavior in all areas of our activity. These areas are health, culture, politics, and ecology. It predicts, that such a behavior will lead to a destruction of these areas. As for the evidence, in history people caused a devastation of their own environment, with a very bad consequences. If the environment is global, the consequences will be global and very bad.

Systemic thinking is meant to be applied to a whole system, not just scientists. It's goal is to make all people know that all we do is wrong or insufficient and how. Our lack of thinking as a system undermines our ability to act as a system and to save our butts. There are attempts to unite the people beyond a borders of nationalism and to act for the good of all, which is the only good.
I see you don't consider such a thinking of everyone and everything as a system, to be a scientific understanding. Systemic thinking doesn't need everyone to know all these systems to a detail, that's a blinding specialization. It is meant to mobilize the humanity, to make them be a part of the system. Without that, the scientific knowledge will only passively lie in a shelves. All activism (ecologic, for example) stems from awareness that parts of our society are acting pathologically against the other parts. This is the systemic understanding, which doesn't ignore it's own results and doesn't wait till they're perfect.

 

Yes, this is what I mean, a scholastic knowledge. But this also means that nobody really puts HUMANS among the species endangered by extinction. Our most important parts of society somehow doesn't have an emergent behavior, the life-saving reflex. If just a few individuals has this understanding in an otherwise ignorant population, then statistically speaking, this system is ignorant, these species are endangered. Why? Because we make a short-sighted, selfish choices in ecology, politics, economy, and so on. One doesn't have to be an ecologist, politician, or economist, it needs just the systemic thinking.

 

All right.  Let's say, a knowledge based on analogy. We can understand or even define a system, by searching for an analogy elsewhere, or a self-similarity in there. An example is a fractal, it contains a smaller forms of itself, on different levels. (levels = scale or different systems) The example of systemics is the ancient assertion 'as above, so below'. A knowledge of one system allows us to understand and practically use a similar system, though in details, they're very different. An example is the model of a solar system and the model of atom, which looks similarly. This model is not precise, but is precise enough for chemistry, for example. This is what systemics does also, it works with systems as a wholes, without a need for a deep understanding of each of them. For example, a prime minister has several specialized ministers, and he doesn't have to be expert in all their ministries, he must think globally and make decisions.

Well, if everything around suggests, that the black box is a bomb, then I would really propose something like that.

Systemic understanding would tell us to look at electric devices around, if they have a problems too, because some idiot next doors might have a faulty electric appliance, which throws off the fuses every 15 minutes. If not, systemic thinking would advise to call a specialized expert. This is how it works in real life. Not everyone can be an expert on everything, someone must know how to use the experts, who sometimes doesn't see the world in higher context.

Holistic thinking is what initiated and paid the research, and what convinced the governments to apply ecologic limits together, so it actually has an effect. Without the holistic thinking, there would be more of those who doesn't participate on the limits and saves more money than others on being not ecologic. Holistic thinking linked together the ecology, medicine and economy. Ecology says that CFCs destroys the ozone layer. Medicine says that the solar radiation with a lacking ozone causes a cancer. Economics says that treating a cancer is expensive. Ergo, releasing CFCs is expensive, but stopping it only becomes effective, if we do it all together. (not a precise description, but you hopefully get the idea)

Don't you see? We need both, systemic and mechanistic science, if something should happen. We already have the mechanistic science very well developed, so it's time to focus on systemic thinking. This doesn't mean to abandon the mechanistic science, it means to use it correctly.
 

I'd have to explain it more closely. I say, that I witnessed some paranormal phenomenon and I was convinced that only I can see it (because it's so paranormal) but there was another person with me, who was all like "WTF are you doing, what's that?" This was an evidence for me, that the phenomenon is objective.
However, this doesn't mean that I can reproduce it any time I want! I can, but only in my memory. It was only present in that time, place, and a presence of that particular person. Then and there, it all suggested that the phenomenon is objective, that it's not a hallucination, but then it ended. So my evidence is basically a memory of that event which convinced me, and if I tell somebody else about it, then it's a claim, not evidence.
 

It's a technical diffculty. When there will be a technology of recording or sharing the memories, then I'll show a plenty of evidence. Until then, it's all unreachable, locked in my brain.
My brain is a somewhat usable equipment for that, and the only way how to reproduce the evidence is to get a proper equipment = another person, preferably better trained or gifted than me, and then we can try to reproduce some paranormal tricks to a live audience.

 

Yes, this troubled me as well, until I saw people react together independently on that, (multiple times) which convinced me, that this is an objective phenomenon. But again, that's only my assertion, thus it's relevant only for me and them, there are no external records.

Very nice. Yes, some my experiences are similar, some different. Probably the most impressive event in your terms I had seen was, when I was a child, I played with toys, and I saw a telekinesis - one of my toys jumped from my bed and landed on my stretched arms. On my order. I had put the toy there, ordered it to jump, and it jumped. Being a small child at the time, I was less surprised than I should be. Of course, I couldn't reproduce the effect since then, and nobody was around.
 

Yes, I can agree with that, unless it comes to a paranormal events, when more people together experiences them. The probability, that two various people would have the same hallucination at the same moment is astronomically low, so it's better to presume, that something objective happened here. But if (we) two slightly clairvoyant people get together and practice our extra-sensoric perception succesfully for hours, then there's nothing to doubt or believe in, we can know that something objective is happening.

C'mon - whatever I write, I can write it in the way, that it is self-confirming, thus irrefutable. I know in advance, that people here mostly lacks a necessary equipment to confirm or refute what I write. This equipment is an own trained mind and body, and this is very rare.
Discussing on the forum is emotionally demanding - as Cpt Pineapple's example demonstrated to us recently. (she had to take a break) I don't want to be exposed to such an emotional stress for no purpose at all, when most of locals is unable to run a tests on their own to confirm or refute what I write, the response will be negative. Not always it is the case, a wife of a local forum member here had a practice in a similar kind of ESP like I have, so the forum member had his evidence at home,  but that's a rare exception. As I said, it is best to solve these questions personally, when we feel more of a responsibility to each other.

All right, then probably not.  But even an objective evidence needs a certain technical equipment from you - eyes to see and ears to hear. There are blind and deaf people, to who you can't provide any so-called objective evidence, does it make it less objective?
And this kind of objective evidence needs you to see, hear or touch in a bit different way, which is so unusual, that it must be trained, except for a rare cases. If you have that, you can become a spiritual healer for example, and you can thus become a member of informal worldwide community, interested in such a work.

Well, this phase of getting knowledge is actually finished in some areas. The results are a developed methods for a mental and physical health care, for example. Since this research is done and now people does the practical work and courses of it, it looks like there are no tests. But every succesfully healed patient is an evidence.
My mother recently decided to increase her qualification for a method on removing an emotional trauma. It uses a knowledge of nadis or meridians (where the chinese medicine sticks needles) and also the knowledge of astral (emotional) body and a few more things, unknown by science. This method was already very succesfully tried on traumatized children from African genocidal civil wars. (source)
When you ask such a person for a tests or evidence, you won't get any, you have to see them at work. This is why it's mainly a problem of introducing these results to the official science.

Maybe I'm starting to understand what do you mean. We have a lot of books. Let's call them predictions. Then, we try a knowledge from them in practice -succesfully, let's say- and then what? Write it in a scientific paper? The very predictions which the books makes, are not in scientific terms, there are terms like etheric body, astral, mental, causal, then spiritual energies, and such a stuff. It's a different language. It can work, but with a lack of scientific language, institution, tools and authorities there's nobody around to record it correctly and popularize the results. Most often, the human tools are lacking. It needs a closer cooperation. The esoteric community has it's own routine, which is diffcult to adapt to the scientific routine. I believe that with the decades ahead of us the situation will get better, thanks to the effort of people, who are not afraid to say that there are frequent paranormal events in the world, and will demand a scientific understanding of them. 

You said this:

The program I gave you proves this false. Using the program, if you have knowledge of the future (the pre-determined output), you can change this outcome. This is in direct contradiction of your statement.

That is my point. If you have knowledge of the future, you can change that future, refuting pre-determinism by contradiction.

As I said originally, either this universe is post-deterministic, or indistinguishable from post-deterministic, and so we might as well live that way.

Let's put this to end right now.

The present (and future) becomes the past.  The past cannot be changed.  The universe as we know it had a beginning and everything that has happened up to this point must have happened (we can't contradict the past).  If everything that has happened is everything that must have happened, then the universe is predeterministic.  All that is true, so the universe is predeterministic. 

If there's a problem with the terminology, educate the person on its correct use and implications.

You are talking only about determinism. Pre-determinism makes the additional assumption that the future has already been laid out ahead of time. There's your problem in terminology.

The distinction is moot, natural and of your own creation (read above).  The future is defacto laid out ahead of time.  It is obviously inaccessible, but necessarily is laid out ahead of time due to the fact that the universe follows a direct causal chain.  What will happen is what must happen.  I believe you are confusing predeterminism to mean predestination.

Oh, and I've never heard of this distinction before you brought it up.  Necessarily, despite the terminology (deterministic, predeterministic), from the inception of the universe everything must happen that will happen.  If all knowledge could be had, again regardless of the terminology, the future could be extrapolated and whatever follows must be what was going to happen because the past is immutable.  Please, tell me you understand that.

 

 

Probably not.  Which I why I have insisted that the distinction between natural's words are moot.  I believe you covered a useful paradigm in which the world is (whatever)deterministic in your essay Free Will: Why we don't have it, and why that's a good thing.

Edit: I just found this.  I want an explanation... please.

What exactly is the difference?  I've been over it again and again and I can't find the bloody difference.  If you look at my posts above, is there an error in my reasoning?  I really, really want to know if I've made a mistake.

And I found this, which is problematic to me.

But if the outcome of which the person has knowledge doesn't come to pass, then obviously that wasn't the future, right?  Right?  I mean, right!?

(My brain hurts... just, let me know if I'm wrong.)

That's a great point, Hamby.  I guess that's what had me caught up.  I realized as I was posting my last response that if I had written one sentence more I would have stumbled into something I can't bring up because I'm almost perfectly ignorant of it (that and it had the implication of destroying my argument... I think), quantum indeterminacy.  See, hypothetically we could extrapolate the future if we had all knowledge of the present, but if it's possible that there are some truly random events in the universe, that notion is destroyed.  What becomes clear in light of that is the distinction here between determinism and predeterminism.  I think I understand the difference now, but it still seems moot to me, because once the future happens and because the past is immutable, what will happen still must be what must happen.

(I think I better go back to natural's thread and, uh... explain myself.)

 But... I did just have a really interesting thought.  The only people who are qualified to comment on predeterminism are quantum physicists.

 

Thomothy, you took the words right out of my mouth. Thanks for for rephrasing it for me. I sometimes have a problem putting my thoughts into words that accurately represent the thoughts. I think maybe the distinction arises from the ties to predestination and it's subsequent ties to God/fate. Predetermination and freewill are mutually exclusive ideas. Just for shits and giggles though I will make one more attempt at my position.

 

The point that I was trying to make is that a plan is not needed. Only a beginning state and a set of inescapable rules. In such a system determination and predetermination are the same idea. Just like a set of dominoes, events are going to fall into place in the only manner the initial state will allow. It's just cause and effect on it's grandest scale.

 

Natural if you have any questions as to terms I have used don't hesitate to ask. The misunderstanding is more likely than not stemming from some error in definition one or both of us are simply not noticing. It is likely a problem of one of us assuming one definition of a given word or concept, when the other party is operating on another definition or interpretation of the same word or concept. I hope you don't take the discussion personal. I don't want to appear as though I am some sort of enemy. Truth is, I often times will play the devil's advocate just to force people to rethink their assumptions and conclusions, not in this case however. That being said, I don't want to create any sort of tension between us.

That doesn't seem to address your every-day run-of-the-mill determinism, though. For instance, we can predict the motions of the planets for thousands of years before indeterminacy makes us talk statistics. A thrown ball will travel accurately enough for my dog to be able to catch it in the air every time. We can use QM to create dependable calculating machines (though very simple at the moment) based on quantum principles.

I guess what I'm asking is, at what scale and in what situations is determinism practically different from pre-determinism? And is that a question we have even vaguely enough information to answer, even in the most general terms?

 

Right.  I was careful to specify predeterminism.  

I don't think there is a practical difference.  We are unaware of the future in any meaningful sense, and so the universe for us must be perceived as yet to be determined.  The discussion of determinism seems to me to be akin to the analogies math physicists use to try to conceptualize multiple dimensions beyond four.  Understanding the "true" deterministic nature of the universe can help us understand epistemology, but it's not going to change the fact that we don't know what card's coming up next at the blackjack table.

 

 

 

Well, there's your mistake. They are not the same.

No. Predestination means the future is laid out, but not necessarily deterministic. Predestination allows for things like miracles. Pre-determinism does not. (Some Christians actually do equate predestination and predeterminism, but I see them as distinct.) Pre-determinism is a sub-category of determinism. Pre-destination is not necessarily a form of determinism.

You need to talk to more complacent determinists. I have met several people who think the future is determined and unchangeable, and so why bother doing anything at all. That's pre-determinism.

But actually, you exactly hit on my point. Pre-determinism is used as a straw man of determinism by non-determinists. This is the original reason I gave for making the distinction explicit.

This completely misses the distinction. You are describing determinism (the general category) and calling it pre-determinism. Pre-determinism, as already established in philosophy, includes the additional idea that the future is known ahead of time, whereas your description does not include this idea. Your description shows that the future is steadily discovered by a causal chain, not that it is known before it happens.

Here's an example that hopefully highlights the distinction:

Imagine a mega-powerful computer, a la Laplace's demon, which can exactly calculate the future of the universe, based on deterministic laws/equations. This computer is so powerful that it can fit in the palm of your hand and run on a single AA battery.

The question is, can this computer calculate the future *faster* than the future arrives?

If the computer can calculate *exactly* what will happen 10 hours from now in only 5 minutes, *and* this future always comes about exactly as the computer predicted, then we can safely say that this universe is pre-deterministic.

However, if it is *impossible* to create such a computer (or any other oracle-like device) that can calculate the future before it happens, while the universe itself is still deterministic, then we can safely say that the universe is merely deterministic.

For instance, I might be able to use a computer to *exactly* predict what will happen in 5 minutes, *but* it takes the computer 10 hours to perform the calculation. This is not pre-determinism, it's mere determinism.

A non-predeterministic universe is such that the only computer that can exactly calculate the future is *the universe itself*. The future can *not* be known ahead of time.

My example of the 1/0 program proves that the development of such a computer that is faster than the universe itself is *impossible*. If such a computer existed, you could ask it what my program was going to output, and then feed this answer into the program, and the program will output the opposite result.

Does this help make the distinction clear?

My program disproves that such perfect predictions can be made before the events themselves.

Please point out exactly where this error is. Quote my erroroneous statements.

My statement was that this universe is either post-deterministic, or indistinguishable from post-deterministic. I also said that *if* this universe is pre-deterministic, then it is impossible to provide a simple computer program with knowledge of its pre-determined output. Where is the error?