I am an aspiring philosopher of physics and ethics studying at Auburn University, a small land grant university in northeast Alabama.
I have been laboring to create a comprehensive unified theory of free will that reinterprets traditional theories of physical causality. Earlier today I had an insight of practical application that I think would quickly end terrorism. I am writing about that here.
The fundamental premises of my paper are that:
1) We live in a participatory universe, a universe which requires cognitive observers like ourselves who resolve questions of quantum superposition (as in the case of the famous "Schrodinger's Cat" thought experiment). This means that a great deal of ethical study and moral responsibility is essential to what it is for a human to live "the good life". Because we are agents who consciously form intentions, we have a great deal of responsibility derived from our power interpreting what goes on in the universe.
2) Physical causality itself is subject to a sort of anthropic principle; that is, humans are like dream machines. Our intentions manifest results according to our wills. This is one reason why good wills are in a sense the only good. Good wills take good as their essential component; good results that occur as a consequence of good will are in a fundamental way of greater significance than good results that might sometimes occur as a consequence of a malicious will - no matter how strongly the malicious will intends to claim good results.
Many humans, especially those that respect the autonomy of liberty of others are often confused as to their own status as causative agents. The unfolding of good intentions preserves the freedom of others all good minds. But everything has a mind, from plants, to animals and rocks, humans and even computers. The real manifestation of my good will is often seen only after filtering through all the other minds who exist in my universe. This means that my good will often manifests in ways I don't recognize although it is my will that had as its result this good consequence.
3) Causality actually takes as its origin the singularity at the beginning of the universe. This is an interesting idea I had some years ago but realized an essential implication only today.
The singularities at the center of black holes actually correspond exactly to the singularity that kicked off the real universe with what we call the big bang.
Before you dismiss this claim out of hand, consider the following major concern about the general theory of relativity. The theory of relativity implies that nothing, not even information can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. The speed of light is the upper bound on information transfer. BUT, we live in a participatory universe, and this boundary to information transfer implies what appears to be a contradiction. If we situate three agents in a triangle, with a hypotenuse AC and a right angle at vertex B, then the distance ABC is farther than the distance AC.
Then if the speed of light is a constant, the universe of each agent A, B, C is discontinuous from all agents not equidistant from itself. The problem is that if the universe is participatory then each agent is in some sense existing in an independent realm of causality. Each agent is deciding, determining important facts about the universe. But the agents are not cotemporal in relativity's account, and this means crashes occur.
While I don't have time to explain all the implications of this right now, one that struck me as of great significance is that black holes are essentially interesting and confusing points of inversion that resolve discontinuities in the spatial universe. Basically black holes are causality tunnels that resolve problems of continuity among causal agents.
There is certainly a lot more that could be said about this, especially as it might relate to what we call wormholes. I hope to say more about this later either here or in some academic publication.
"OK" Computer
Finally I would like to venture an interpretation with what I feel is practical and spiritual significance. An insight I had about string theory was that if humans are causal agents capable of resolving quantum events, then quantum level phenomena are perceptible in a variety of ways. Hindu Yogi get a lot of flak for Yogic Meditation wherein they are accused of staring into a visualizer "for all eternity" (and of not doing any work).
But this is not precisely the case. In fact, and this is in my opinion very important, quantum level phenomena that are resolved via a special form of perception, are almost certainly what these Yogi are visualizing as they practice meditation. Through transformative processes the Yogi are capable of immediate experience of quantum-level phenomena, visualizing them with great accuracy despite not using the traditional equipment of Western empiricism.
Essentially the Yogi are exercising what can only be called a good will to resolve quantum-level phenomena which exist in superposition until perceived by a cognizing observer. Despite decreasing popularity in recent years, it is my evaluation that this is a very important job, and that the Yogi despite being the subjects of intense scrutiny may be our best defense against malevolent "supersymmetric strings" (essentially reality code) generated by the malicious wills that are the causal forces behind such serious concerns as terrorism which we observe in the macroscopic universe but which probably in large part stem from quantum-level events translated according to what we call the laws of physics.
I think I would qualify for the Special Yogi Anti Terror Agency, because I am all for good vibes...now I haven't tried the stuff YokoKano has, but I am sure I'd enjoy trippin' balls on goverment funds.
You aren't the first one who thinks the Yogi need to be reigned in. The entire country of Japan dedicated almost one millennium of its existence to the development of Kobe beef. Diablo's famous "Cow Level" is a tongue-in-cheek satire of this bizarre but extremely long-lived foundation for the Zen tradition and Samurai feudalism. The drop tacitly attributed to a Cow King kill is Silks of the Victor, the unique Ancient Armor. Certain occult groups believe that Indian worship of cows is symbolic of mishaps involving Astral Projection wherein the spirits of the highest Brahmin were no longer compatible with human imperfection, and traveled to animals, bestowing the apparently harmonic sanctity of perfect consciousness upon the lives of beings who we perceive as possessed of "Animal Spirits". It is unclear whether there is truth to this idea. Even to this day, the Japanese persist in the consumption of Kobe beef, a ritual that scholars maintain is the last remnants of ancient Zen, the memories of glorious Samurai battle having been swept from the land as human reincarnation of saints in the Yogic tradition are misunderstood and the goods they bestow.
I really hate people like you who distort public perception of general relativity and quantum mechanics (and thus basic physics in general) by such gibberish. I don't mind you developing your weird spiritual theories about reality, but this habit of mixing in them misunderstood theoretical physics is really silly.
I am rapidly becoming a fan of yours, so please do not get yourself nuked from this board by arguing on the general forum. I'm interested in hearing your solution to stopping sexual assault in the near future.
On April 04 2015 06:46 Apoteosis wrote: And well, religion is always the same, no matter the country: they try to convert you anyway possible.
Marxists are more evangelical than Jews are. But aside from that, I like the statement "religion is always the same". There's no single agreed upon definition of what a religion even is, because they're so wildly diverse.
I have a question. What if Yogis' meditation isn't actually directly influencing any quantum fields? Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in this whole operation?
On April 04 2015 23:53 Freakling wrote: Erm... Well... You do realize that April fool's day was 2 days ago?! Or did your wave function need that long to collapse?
On April 04 2015 17:19 ninazerg wrote: I have a question. What if Yogis' meditation isn't actually directly influencing any quantum fields? Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in this whole operation?
I'm glad you are at least taking the OP seriously. Your question is a good one. The Yogi are notoriously passive creatures. What is it about humans that enables them to resolve certain instances of superposition that another observer, say a fire ant, would be unable to resolve? Meditation certainly has some positive properties. Achieving one-pointedness engages a sort of superposition in itself, connecting the meditator's mind simultaneously to many other minds. We can be almost sure that a scientific advantage of meditation is it allows one to directly embrace all other minds. This enables the skilled meditator to simultaneously speak for all living things, circumventing what I see as being the greatest problem of quantum mechanics. In this way we can be certain the Yogi are influencing quantum fields, and miraculously not generating dark matter (which occurs when the resolution of superposition is not agreed upon by willing beings). But whether you choose to call the Yogis direct influence is another question.
On April 04 2015 17:19 ninazerg wrote: I have a question. What if Yogis' meditation isn't actually directly influencing any quantum fields? Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in this whole operation?
I'm glad you are at least taking the OP seriously. Your question is a good one. The Yogi are notoriously passive creatures. What is it about humans that enables them to resolve certain instances of superposition that another observer, say a fire ant, would be unable to resolve? Meditation certainly has some positive properties. Achieving one-pointedness engages a sort of superposition in itself, connecting the meditator's mind simultaneously to many other minds. We can be almost sure that a scientific advantage of meditation is it allows one to directly embrace all other minds. This enables the skilled meditator to simultaneously speak for all living things, circumventing what I see as being the greatest problem of quantum mechanics. In this way we can be certain the Yogi are influencing quantum fields, and miraculously not generating dark matter (which occurs when the resolution of superposition is not agreed upon by willing beings). But whether you choose to call the Yogis direct influence is another question.
I foresee an almost inevitable abuse of the Yogi meditation to influence and control population centers for the benefit of world leaders rather than as a mechanism for peace.
Additionally, I foresee another potential dilemma: perhaps even a very powerful Yogi who can perceive quantum strata with unprecedented hyperprecision could hypothetically could subordinate the geometrical axis of substructuralist irrationalism as a structural desublimation and structuralist appropriation. As you know, once consciousness reaches quantum materialization, a pseudo-dialectic universal substructure of the interpolated 'circular house' subreality (theorized by Fermi in his 1938 publication implicating radon neutron bombardment resulting in a half-life of approximately 18 seconds, which later apportioned a paradox of false-elliptical reports on the mass of resulting hypothetical fields of time-space) contextualizes into the stereotypical discourse of absurdism in neotextual subconstructivist hyperreality. The implication here is that as neurological receptors self-process iotas of postquantum perceptual singularities in the narrativity interrelated to a web of societal fabricators, such as tangents of subappropriation of classical materialism (which I do realize relies heavily on the notion of neocultural totality being dictated by self-determinist geometry), extrapolate to objectively hyperirrational expressions relative to their pseudotranscendence via standard deviation in wormhole paradoxical particulates essentially being dematerialized by an absolute zero in quantum states. I was curious if you had any thoughts on this matter.
Whereas yogis' direct influence is a purely philosophical distinction (aka ur-bourgeois), the above seems an entirely academic point. Nonetheless for Fermi historians it could make a real difference in their book sales/blog revenue as the public has little appetite for appropriation narratives outside the standard postcolonial perspectives right now. (I blame this on latent twerking saturation.)
Notwithstanding, I am interested in other viewpoints on the matter.
On April 04 2015 17:19 ninazerg wrote: I have a question. What if Yogis' meditation isn't actually directly influencing any quantum fields? Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in this whole operation?
I'm glad you are at least taking the OP seriously. Your question is a good one. The Yogi are notoriously passive creatures. What is it about humans that enables them to resolve certain instances of superposition that another observer, say a fire ant, would be unable to resolve? Meditation certainly has some positive properties. Achieving one-pointedness engages a sort of superposition in itself, connecting the meditator's mind simultaneously to many other minds. We can be almost sure that a scientific advantage of meditation is it allows one to directly embrace all other minds. This enables the skilled meditator to simultaneously speak for all living things, circumventing what I see as being the greatest problem of quantum mechanics. In this way we can be certain the Yogi are influencing quantum fields, and miraculously not generating dark matter (which occurs when the resolution of superposition is not agreed upon by willing beings). But whether you choose to call the Yogis direct influence is another question.
I foresee an almost inevitable abuse of the Yogi meditation to influence and control population centers for the benefit of world leaders rather than as a mechanism for peace.
Additionally, I foresee another potential dilemma: perhaps even a very powerful Yogi who can perceive quantum strata with unprecedented hyperprecision could hypothetically could subordinate the geometrical axis of substructuralist irrationalism as a structural desublimation and structuralist appropriation. As you know, once consciousness reaches quantum materialization, a pseudo-dialectic universal substructure of the interpolated 'circular house' subreality (theorized by Fermi in his 1938 publication implicating radon neutron bombardment resulting in a half-life of approximately 18 seconds, which later apportioned a paradox of false-elliptical reports on the mass of resulting hypothetical fields of time-space) contextualizes into the stereotypical discourse of absurdism in neotextual subconstructivist hyperreality. The implication here is that as neurological receptors self-process iotas of postquantum perceptual singularities in the narrativity interrelated to a web of societal fabricators, such as tangents of subappropriation of classical materialism (which I do realize relies heavily on the notion of neocultural totality being dictated by self-determinist geometry), extrapolate to objectively hyperirrational expressions relative to their pseudotranscendence via standard deviation in wormhole paradoxical particulates essentially being dematerialized by an absolute zero in quantum states. I was curious if you had any thoughts on this matter.
Nina, your question reminds me of a thought experiment I presented about potentially humorous implications of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. As you know, JSM's doctrine prescribes a course of action that leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Speaking as an Economist, the most interesting fact about Mill's Utilitarianism is that it is almost diametrically opposed to the fundamental axiom of Economics, that it is a study of rational self-interest. A broader description of what it means to be self-interested is presented by the famous biologist and philosopher "The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse" Daniel Dennett. This perspective incorporates kin selection and other mechanisms for expanding what it means to be self-interested --- Well, while this doctrine of benselfishness exists it is not taken very seriously by many students of Economics, and of course this a problem for the Philosopher --- If Mill had it right, then Dennett's benselfishness moves us in the right direction.
Aeons Anyway, where I think the problem gets interesting is the question of what I've dubbed Aeons. It can be proved that time is not unilateral nor does it resemble the set of natural numbers. Instead, there is a doctrine presented by the respected physicist John Archibald Wheeler in conjunction with the idea of a Participatory Universe, that humans are responsible for bringing about results not only in the here and now, but in the distant past and (perhaps in an unusual sense, the distant future).
Well, things get quite interesting here. If time is not, absolutely speaking, unilateral, then future events can cause past events. I have a theory that all causality originates from the origin of the universe. This is not strictly speaking obvious because there are apparently very strange manifestations of this idea. For instance, the idea that there exist singularities in black holes that actually are windows on the origin singularity is a very complicated although interesting idea.
Anyway, the possibility that time is not one-directional (or even necessarily one-dimensional) is pretty powerful when we couple it as Wheeler did with the Anthropic Principle we have been discussing. The idea that observers are actually participant in causing real events (for instance, by resolving states of quantum superposition --- and this leads to a chain of physical events that can be macroscopic)... This idea suggests that higher forms of intelligence like humans and Yogi (of particular interest in this case because of the enlightenment vehicle meditation)... That we as conscious observers, because of our intelligence, cognition, and language are actually creating loops in space time, causing things here and now by effecting changes to the past and future.
Humans are like boats, with a wake, and a sort of nose cone (like a plane breaking the speed of sound), but changes in the wakes and in the nose cone actually effect major changes for us as causal agents in the present. Humans shape both the past and the future so that at a given point in time we can say "this is what the past looks like at this point in time, but instead of being unchanging, when we look at it again, the past will look different".
Anyway, where this gets really interesting is when we start thinking about future beings, beings I call Aeons, and what they look like now, in the present. If we're able to change the past right now, then these future beings are able to change the present, "then", at some point in time in the future. For the most part I think Aeons of this nature are actually coming into being right now, and that there are a number of worlds in which they are expected to exist. Anyway, as you know, there are good Aeons (what Christians call Angels) and evil Aeons (what Christians call Demons), and these sort of futuristic beings are participating even now in the world as objects of cognition; and furthermore that we are participating in bringing about these beings.
So there are already Angels and Demons who influence our evolution from "the other side", that is, from the future. Evolution is not only a one-way street. Future beings are already influencing us, but probably because they don't in some sense "actually exist", yet, these Aeons aren't as powerful as legends tell us to believe. Even so, it looks more and more rational to believe in these future cognitive agents influencing us if we as humans are able to influence the past. It is an interesting question that relates to quantum superposition and whether we are "riding the wave of existence" if you will, while creating dark matter in the future and past --- events that did not "really" occur, but nevertheless play a significant role in shaping the world of causality.
Even more interesting is the question of how deep the proverbial rabbit hole goes. Are there *living* superpositions of Schrodinger's Cat who most of us perceive as dead, but that still walk around today, living out their lives as if the observer had no walked in and killed them?
Personally I think there are. I had the experience of being possessed by innumerable "ghosts" after an extended four day Zazen meditation, and I suspect that this was the nature of Samurai practice. Zillions and zillions of dead Samurai were embodied in each living Japanese that got blown up in the atomic bombings. Consequently there was serious conspansion and incoversion that followed the explosions. The best way I know to "clean up" and mint good spirits from the dead Japanese is to play Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, where Blizzard employees have created the most accurate map of "The Dead Zone".
EPT
