Those who back constructivism, whether they know it or not, provide a pretext for those who would care to dictate reality. We must be responsible with our constructs.
Well, I got bad news for you. The universe is just one of those things a wee bit too big for our tiny little brains, in the scheme of things, to understand and express within the limits of human language. Essentially we try to explain the unexplainable.
Me--I save myself the headache and stick to fiction, where I can do anything I want to. Quite soothing.
The mind operates on the brain. The mind connects us to whatever is out there, which can thereby intercede in our world. I think we are mostly left to our own devices, but often not. See (interpret) the Bible and Torah Codes for details.
Specifically as I read this analysis of Hoffman and time it made me think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I think of that principal a lot though :). This article also reminded me of Henry Stapp's Mindful Universe. Thanks for the thought provoking article.
Harris and Hoffman are simply mouthing ancient religious doctrines-Dharmas dressed up in pseudo-scientific terminology. The belief in Fate i.e., absence of free will was a central tenet of Stoicism for example. Other examples are the Hindu concept of "Maya," i.e. the material world is an illusion, a manifestation of Brahma, the only true reality. In Taoism, the traditional religion of China, this ultimate reality is known as the Tao, or Dao, as symbolized by the dragon, ubiquitous throughout China. The true reality simply goes through illusory exterior changes. True reality never changes, simply repeats itself endlessly in the Wheel of Time. In Buddism we find the dharma-doctrine of "No-self" i.e., we do not exist as individual entities, merely as emenations of the "Buddha- Nature. These concepts are designed to undermine the "Western Mind," with its fundamental concepts of linear time, the scientific method, logical thinking, rationalism, mathematics, and empiricism. Hoffman gives himself away when he admits that he meditates two hours a day, meditation being an ancient religious-spiritual practice.
.....this IS my playground, Jamie - HAS been for a while now and, although the associated existential, scale-unifying framework I've identified can't be EMPIRICALLY demonstrated in its EVERY aspect - at present, feel that it's built on a VERY solid foundation.....evidence has overwhelmingly shown that natural order INITIALLY (however applicable that word is HERE; conceded) goes from simplest expression to most-complex organizational patterns, NEVER the reverse.....an ability to recognize aspects of our 'existence'' is determined by decreasingly-subjective experience of MAGNETIC (every other such as even 'gravity', RELATED 'time', 'electricity', heat' SECONDARY or tertiary) resonant informational effects to the mixed media (and evolutionarily-designed INSTRUMENTS for same, such as eyes - 'light', conceptually RESULTING from them, ears - likewise 'sound', fingers) of varying densities that we ALL are.....NO better example of material consciousness can be FOUND, than what's CALLED 'blood' - or, MORE accurately, 'plasma' (but AGAIN, as ALL 'life' - INCLUDING 'water', is) providing a VITAL resonant value, baseline reference point which, when it's compromised or even interrupted altogether, ultimately produces necrotization / tissue 'death', devitalization.....
okay, so science, the rationale, which is descending into the deeper levels of being corrupted badly in the direction of becoming the faith-based religion of scientism...
has worthiness to the degree it provides meaningfully predictability which is compromised to the degree this perspective considers from a math-based, atomistic, maximin resolution, bottom-up reductionistic, limited modeled perspective...
which leaves out the perspective of what is the energized archetypical setting of potential from which our observed experience within consciousness births forth from, this model considered for meaningful predictability within a top-down reductionistic framework, that sure we can play strawman about the opposites of the aether vs atomism polarity but whatever we call it i would contend that science is compromised without this as a developed perspective, that to perceive at any level of scientific depth perception you need to consider from more that the solo perspective that is atomism...
all this driven by the issue of the insecurity that goes along with accepting that meaningful predictability is the best science the rationale can provide, that any concept of truth, morals, ethics, is at best a social concept which has been valuated to at least the meaningful predictability of what is perceived to serve us well...
that much of our social life is beyond meaningfully predictable where we are by default required to consider from an irrational, what feels most warm and fuzzy, perspective, so the setting where intuitive hunches birth forth from, where chaos theory explains CG Jung's concept of synchronicity...
you might be quite interested in quantum physicist Nicolas Gisin's use of L.E.J. Brouwer's Intuitionist Mathematics. These address many of these same problems and frame it as the problematic assumption of infinity within the idealist mathematics we currently use. Gisin's basic premise is that you can't use real numbers, which he renames "random numbers" because they assume an infinite amount of information within a finite space which is not possible. This brings back in time. This is a big argument he makes, using Brouwer's mathematics and quite profound. I have an article coming out in the fall in a Bloomsbury publication titled discussing this from the perspective of medieval Indian philosophy, the 11th century philosopher Abhinavagupta. “Abhinavagupta’s Svātantryavāda: Mental Causality, Emergentism and Intuitionist Mathematics” in Cross Cultural Approaches to Consciousness: Mind, Nature and Ultimate Reality. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2022.
“math itself is a human construct that fairly well represents the necessary relationships among objects and processes, and numbers about objects and processes”
Agreed 100%!!!
What are your views on logic? Tool constructed by humans? Or somehow intrinsic to or inherently part of reality? Or something else entirely?
On Hoffman? I don’t know. But I strongly believe that what each of us holds in our mind as reality, is as much an approximation to reality as mathematics is. One thing mathematics allows us is a kind of social contract on a person-independent level to judge and settle discrepancies between our mental models. A sort of agreed upon ruler by which we measure “truth.” Its utility to humanity has been incalculable. Is it the best way? No idea.
Lastly, I’m beginning to wonder if there are significant advantages to allowing a small number of people to dictate reality(TM) to the rest. It’s been done that way for most if not all of recorded history. Even recorded history itself is an instance of exactly that. I’m afraid of what feels like impending tyranny, but when I compare it to the past, it feels the same. And we’re all still here. And we’re more advanced than before. Could it be that this friction is routine in human history and is simply part of the story? Could it be a significant driver of huge innovations and improvements? Could the friction we’re experiencing be a signal that we’re about to break free of the cycle of tyranny for what seems like the first time in human history? I don’t know any answers to any of these questions, but I’m starting to see value in the stability offered by dictators of the reality(TM). Despite the previous pattern that highly educated and critical people like me are the first to get trampled by the tyranny.
I'm reading Hoffman's book "The case against reality" at the moment (I recommend it). I've not finished it, so this may be incomplete, but I think a) he takes the position you can be sure of the "I am" and b) his argument about the interface can be mathematically backed up by what he calls the Fitness Beats Truth Theorem.
I haven’t studied much of Hoffman - just one Friedman video - but it seems to me, James, that you see through his claims pretty well. Yes, Hoffman says some interesting things, but the plain English word “reality” means something that is necessarily (in virtue of the meaning of the word) distinguishable from appearance. That doesn’t imply anything about what reality is or whether we can always separate it from appearance, or how that is to be done when we do it - though surely we sometimes do know when appearances have deceived us. It also doesn't imply anything about the nature of reality. The point I'm making is a semantic/conceptual one, not an empirical one.
Take, for example, the perceptual illusion of seeing a cube where there isn’t one. Hoffman says our minds create the cube. Huh? Of course we all get what he means - we see the cube and we get the idea that the appearance has been created by the way our eyes and minds work. But if he were being really careful about using words, would we agree with the way he makes the claim? Did our minds create a cube? No. We did not take a piece of clay and shape it like a cube. To be exact, that - or some similar process - is what it means to create a cube. Hoffman, without noticing it, has conflated appearance with reality. Then when he mixes that conflation with a lot of interesting ideas, theories and observations it all sounds profound and difficult to grasp. But maybe it isn’t so profound - just confused.
Okay, maybe I just haven’t studied Hoffman enough to understand what he’s really saying. But talk of “real reality” seems a pleonasm to me, indicating that the word “reality” wasn’t properly understood in the first place.
Well, I got bad news for you. The universe is just one of those things a wee bit too big for our tiny little brains, in the scheme of things, to understand and express within the limits of human language. Essentially we try to explain the unexplainable.
Me--I save myself the headache and stick to fiction, where I can do anything I want to. Quite soothing.
The mind operates on the brain. The mind connects us to whatever is out there, which can thereby intercede in our world. I think we are mostly left to our own devices, but often not. See (interpret) the Bible and Torah Codes for details.
Specifically as I read this analysis of Hoffman and time it made me think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I think of that principal a lot though :). This article also reminded me of Henry Stapp's Mindful Universe. Thanks for the thought provoking article.
Harris and Hoffman are simply mouthing ancient religious doctrines-Dharmas dressed up in pseudo-scientific terminology. The belief in Fate i.e., absence of free will was a central tenet of Stoicism for example. Other examples are the Hindu concept of "Maya," i.e. the material world is an illusion, a manifestation of Brahma, the only true reality. In Taoism, the traditional religion of China, this ultimate reality is known as the Tao, or Dao, as symbolized by the dragon, ubiquitous throughout China. The true reality simply goes through illusory exterior changes. True reality never changes, simply repeats itself endlessly in the Wheel of Time. In Buddism we find the dharma-doctrine of "No-self" i.e., we do not exist as individual entities, merely as emenations of the "Buddha- Nature. These concepts are designed to undermine the "Western Mind," with its fundamental concepts of linear time, the scientific method, logical thinking, rationalism, mathematics, and empiricism. Hoffman gives himself away when he admits that he meditates two hours a day, meditation being an ancient religious-spiritual practice.
.....this IS my playground, Jamie - HAS been for a while now and, although the associated existential, scale-unifying framework I've identified can't be EMPIRICALLY demonstrated in its EVERY aspect - at present, feel that it's built on a VERY solid foundation.....evidence has overwhelmingly shown that natural order INITIALLY (however applicable that word is HERE; conceded) goes from simplest expression to most-complex organizational patterns, NEVER the reverse.....an ability to recognize aspects of our 'existence'' is determined by decreasingly-subjective experience of MAGNETIC (every other such as even 'gravity', RELATED 'time', 'electricity', heat' SECONDARY or tertiary) resonant informational effects to the mixed media (and evolutionarily-designed INSTRUMENTS for same, such as eyes - 'light', conceptually RESULTING from them, ears - likewise 'sound', fingers) of varying densities that we ALL are.....NO better example of material consciousness can be FOUND, than what's CALLED 'blood' - or, MORE accurately, 'plasma' (but AGAIN, as ALL 'life' - INCLUDING 'water', is) providing a VITAL resonant value, baseline reference point which, when it's compromised or even interrupted altogether, ultimately produces necrotization / tissue 'death', devitalization.....
"Falsifiability is the hallmark of Science: Any hypothesis worth considering must be testable."
Is this proposition falsifiable? If yes, how? If no, then how do you verify that it's true?
okay, so science, the rationale, which is descending into the deeper levels of being corrupted badly in the direction of becoming the faith-based religion of scientism...
has worthiness to the degree it provides meaningfully predictability which is compromised to the degree this perspective considers from a math-based, atomistic, maximin resolution, bottom-up reductionistic, limited modeled perspective...
which leaves out the perspective of what is the energized archetypical setting of potential from which our observed experience within consciousness births forth from, this model considered for meaningful predictability within a top-down reductionistic framework, that sure we can play strawman about the opposites of the aether vs atomism polarity but whatever we call it i would contend that science is compromised without this as a developed perspective, that to perceive at any level of scientific depth perception you need to consider from more that the solo perspective that is atomism...
all this driven by the issue of the insecurity that goes along with accepting that meaningful predictability is the best science the rationale can provide, that any concept of truth, morals, ethics, is at best a social concept which has been valuated to at least the meaningful predictability of what is perceived to serve us well...
that much of our social life is beyond meaningfully predictable where we are by default required to consider from an irrational, what feels most warm and fuzzy, perspective, so the setting where intuitive hunches birth forth from, where chaos theory explains CG Jung's concept of synchronicity...
you might be quite interested in quantum physicist Nicolas Gisin's use of L.E.J. Brouwer's Intuitionist Mathematics. These address many of these same problems and frame it as the problematic assumption of infinity within the idealist mathematics we currently use. Gisin's basic premise is that you can't use real numbers, which he renames "random numbers" because they assume an infinite amount of information within a finite space which is not possible. This brings back in time. This is a big argument he makes, using Brouwer's mathematics and quite profound. I have an article coming out in the fall in a Bloomsbury publication titled discussing this from the perspective of medieval Indian philosophy, the 11th century philosopher Abhinavagupta. “Abhinavagupta’s Svātantryavāda: Mental Causality, Emergentism and Intuitionist Mathematics” in Cross Cultural Approaches to Consciousness: Mind, Nature and Ultimate Reality. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2022.
“Falsifiability is the hallmark of Science”
“math itself is a human construct that fairly well represents the necessary relationships among objects and processes, and numbers about objects and processes”
Agreed 100%!!!
What are your views on logic? Tool constructed by humans? Or somehow intrinsic to or inherently part of reality? Or something else entirely?
On Hoffman? I don’t know. But I strongly believe that what each of us holds in our mind as reality, is as much an approximation to reality as mathematics is. One thing mathematics allows us is a kind of social contract on a person-independent level to judge and settle discrepancies between our mental models. A sort of agreed upon ruler by which we measure “truth.” Its utility to humanity has been incalculable. Is it the best way? No idea.
Lastly, I’m beginning to wonder if there are significant advantages to allowing a small number of people to dictate reality(TM) to the rest. It’s been done that way for most if not all of recorded history. Even recorded history itself is an instance of exactly that. I’m afraid of what feels like impending tyranny, but when I compare it to the past, it feels the same. And we’re all still here. And we’re more advanced than before. Could it be that this friction is routine in human history and is simply part of the story? Could it be a significant driver of huge innovations and improvements? Could the friction we’re experiencing be a signal that we’re about to break free of the cycle of tyranny for what seems like the first time in human history? I don’t know any answers to any of these questions, but I’m starting to see value in the stability offered by dictators of the reality(TM). Despite the previous pattern that highly educated and critical people like me are the first to get trampled by the tyranny.
Highly enjoyable article!!
I'm reading Hoffman's book "The case against reality" at the moment (I recommend it). I've not finished it, so this may be incomplete, but I think a) he takes the position you can be sure of the "I am" and b) his argument about the interface can be mathematically backed up by what he calls the Fitness Beats Truth Theorem.
I haven’t studied much of Hoffman - just one Friedman video - but it seems to me, James, that you see through his claims pretty well. Yes, Hoffman says some interesting things, but the plain English word “reality” means something that is necessarily (in virtue of the meaning of the word) distinguishable from appearance. That doesn’t imply anything about what reality is or whether we can always separate it from appearance, or how that is to be done when we do it - though surely we sometimes do know when appearances have deceived us. It also doesn't imply anything about the nature of reality. The point I'm making is a semantic/conceptual one, not an empirical one.
Take, for example, the perceptual illusion of seeing a cube where there isn’t one. Hoffman says our minds create the cube. Huh? Of course we all get what he means - we see the cube and we get the idea that the appearance has been created by the way our eyes and minds work. But if he were being really careful about using words, would we agree with the way he makes the claim? Did our minds create a cube? No. We did not take a piece of clay and shape it like a cube. To be exact, that - or some similar process - is what it means to create a cube. Hoffman, without noticing it, has conflated appearance with reality. Then when he mixes that conflation with a lot of interesting ideas, theories and observations it all sounds profound and difficult to grasp. But maybe it isn’t so profound - just confused.
Okay, maybe I just haven’t studied Hoffman enough to understand what he’s really saying. But talk of “real reality” seems a pleonasm to me, indicating that the word “reality” wasn’t properly understood in the first place.