Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.Ralph Waldo Emerson
I just happen to visit Cosmic Variance yesterday after not visiting for some time. The timing seemed appropriate to my questions about our histories, not only from a detailed research perspective, but from a personal one as well in terms of our memories. I do not care who is an atheist or not. Why should I apply a stereotype to another person and dictate the way the conversation can go?:)
Sean Carroll has a interesting set of four entires about the backwardness of the arrow of time and how it would appear. This is an interesting exercise for me on how perception about the current direction of the universe could have represented "the Egg before the chicken" scenarios.
Incompatible Arrows, I: Martin Amis
Incompatible Arrows, II: Kurt Vonnegut
Incompatible Arrows, III: Lewis Carroll
Incompatible Arrows, IV: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chicken or Egg
Illustration from Tacuina sanitatis, Fourteenth centuryReverse chronology — narrating a story, or parts of one, backwards in time — is a venerable technique in literature, going back at least as far as Virgil’s Aeneid. Much more interesting is a story with incompatible arrows of time: some characters live “backwards” while others experience life normally.
There are reasons why I find this fascinating and why the topic of Kurt Godel was introduced in that comment section. It is something that caught my eye while researching Kurt Godel. I will try and find this point and put it here for consideration. While considering the version I saw of his authored biographical comment, it made me think of the views people "can have" about the nonsensical. The feelings they can have about the "incompleteness of this life" and the succession of our views on this life as a "metamathematical position." Where is that? Some "OverSoul" perhaps?:)
It reminded me about the perspective we can have "from the here and now."
Mind Body problem
Proud atheists
Steve Paulson:I know neither of you believes in paranormal experiences like telepathy or clairvoyant dreams or contact with the dead. But hypothetically, suppose even one of these experiences were proven beyond a doubt to be real. Would the materialist position on the mind-brain question collapse in a single stroke?
PINKER: Yeah.
GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, if there was no other explanation. We'd need to have such clear evidence. I have to tell you, I've had some uncanny experiences. Once, in fact, I had a very strange experience where I seemed to be getting information from a dead person. I racked my brain trying to figure out how this could be happening. I did come up with an explanation for how I could reason this away. But it was a very powerful experience. If it could truly be demonstrated that there was more to a human being than the physical body, this would have tremendous implications.
While I had read your link Phil on Goldstein, I am not an atheist(I try and refrain from groupings) in any form, and, like the topics of "Intelligent design" or the Anthropic principle, this has no bearing on how I want to move and think in the world. I am convinced, as Goldstein was, on what is consider "proof of the afterlife" that I do not need to be reminded of what is evidenced to the contrary, until it is proofed conclusively.
"Death, so called, is but older matter dressed
In some new form. And in a varied vest,
From tenement to tenement though tossed,
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost."Poem on Pythagoras, Dryden's Ovid.
I may share a trait of Plato eh?:)Emerson? Benjamin Franklin?
From A Defense of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) by John Dryden
Imagination in a man, or reasonable creature, is supposed to participate of reason, and when that governs, as it does in the belief of fiction, reason is not destroyed, but misled, or blinded: that can prescribe tot he reason, during the time of the representation, somewhat like a weak belief of what it sees and hears; and reason suffers itself to be so hoodwinked, that it may better enjoy the pleasures of the fiction: but it is never so wholly made a captive as to be drawn headlong into a persuasion of those things which are most remote from probability: 'tis in that case a free-born subject, not a slave; it will contribute willingly its assent, as far as it sees convenient, but will not be forced....Fancy and reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last behind; and though fancy, when it sees the wide gulf, would venture over, as the nimbler; yet it is withheld by reason, which will refuse to take the leap, when the distance over it appears too large
See:
The Universal Library
Hi Plato,
ReplyDelete“While I had read your link Phil on Goldstein, I am not an atheist(I try and refrain from groupings) in any form, and, like the topics of "Intelligent design" or the Anthropic principle, this has no bearing on how I want to move and think in the world. I am convinced, as Goldstein was, on what is consider "proof of the afterlife" that I do not need to be reminded of what is evidenced to the contrary, until it is proofed conclusively.”
Plato I am truly sorry if you understand that my mention of Goldstein’s statements had any purpose other then to point out her views on Gödel. They in no way were intended to tie you with a position of any nature one way or another. It is clearly evident in the material that you post you are if anything a seeker and a wonderer. That in effect is our common ground and why I feel so comfortable revealing what I see as what could form the path to the light could be. You might also find it interesting that I have a link to Goldstein that although certainly indirect is not as that of the seeds in the wind, as Aristotle would have described the consequence random.
It was simply meant to broaden and at the same time focus the discussion, as to what I was aware of and would like to share. Once again I must remind I am but the echo of others and not the source. Sometimes those echoes will perhaps originate from creatures of the light; and at other times from those of shadows. The truth being, I myself still squint to discover which they might be and expect always in many cases to do so.
Best,
Phil
Phil, you provide the incentive "by cooperation" to help me question my own position that I wilfully set the pace for myself to look at what you are offering. In no way should you think I take it offensively to what you present.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to make sure you understood that I appreciate your thoughtful comments, and the sources that you are quoting for further inspection.
Phil:They in no way were intended to tie you with a position of any nature one way or another.
Yes I understand. I had a long post yesterday that was eaten and by the time I could get to the blog to try and comment again I was already down to 16800 on my dial-up. Work was calling for today. I needed some sleep.
I'm going to try and post this.
Phil:It was simply meant to broaden and at the same time focus the discussion, as to what I was aware of and would like to share.
ReplyDeleteYes, you seem to be able to direct most appropriately. For not being a scientist, a philosophy major perhaps?:)
Phil:Rebecca Goldstein's book on Godel called [Incompleteness (The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel)-Atlas Books-2005-
I will most certainly try and locate it to read.
Phil:What stands out for me in this regard is what I consider to be perhaps the reason for Godel’s failure as it appears. That is he was actually caught in the limitations of his methods of reason; for though he recognized and proved that the axiom’s of mathematics although powerful could not provide the tools necessary to actual probe and then actually realize the depth to which it had. So like the axioms, Godel himself was limited by his own incompleteness.
You know I think the effect Godel had on Einstein might be thought about for consideration here. I find something very odd about their relationship at Princeton. Godel in his later life, a clean freak, and Einstein's dishevelled habits, while totally involved in his work.
Their seems to be a juxtaposition there? :)
Also the effect Godel was on Einstein in terms of the cosmological constant? Any ideas there? Godel also provided for the possibility of time travel?
Which of course brings me to the nature of the post and the incompatible arrows for further consideration.
With regards to Goldstein and Pinker. I always appreciate the convictions they have for adopting a view on how they will accept reality.
Hi Plato,
ReplyDelete“You know I think the effect Gödel had on Einstein might be thought about for consideration here.
I find something very odd about their relationship at Princeton.”
You seek commonality. Rebecca Goldstein in the book I have mentioned draws a powerful image as to what this may have truly represented to be, when she says on page 36 the following:
“There is a sense, then, at least when I have tried to penetrate to the core of a friendship that mystified onlookers, in which Einstein and Gödel were fellow exiles within a larger exile. And in some sense goes beyond the geographical conditions that caused them to seek safety in Princeton, New Jersey. I believe they were fellow exiles in the deepest sense in which it is possible for a thinker to be an exile. Strange as it might seem for men so celebrated for their contributions, they were intellectual exiles.”
I would contend that as Plato and Descartes had discovered, that quite often when one seeks the truth, it is not just simply difficult by way of its nature, yet also resultant of the isolation forced upon one by those that inhabit the shadows. Goldstein thus recognizes that Gödel and Einstein had reached this plane early in life and when meeting felt fortunate to find that although they would remain exiled, were no longer alone.
This serves to remind that although Plato recognized those of the shadows as prisoners of ignorance, he never the less was himself an exile of the light. It is then easier to understand, why truth is so rarely sought, as it carries the price of having few you might be able to share it, since most not fail to understand by preference, yet since they fear the attempt and misunderstand those that would try.
Best,
Phil
Phil:You seek commonality.
ReplyDeleteYes, in a sense you are right. It is part of the attribute of historical review that I would like to get to the bottom of in terms of the nature of the "cosmological constant" and how it was instituted in Einstein's mind.
While I look to the relationship, it is attributes of the way each thought, that I realized there is something not being said, and from this, I am looking for this "tangibility of reason," with which they worked.
Is it important in the larger context?
I think it is when we accept attributes of general relativity and look at what is allowed and how this became so.
That the incompatibility's of seeing general relativity applied at such a "chaotic state" is part of my accepting that Einstein "remained to see" that this consistency still existed, whether we understood "probabilities" or not.
This was reduced to "causality" in my mind and whether there was this process in nature that allowed us to be part of this "continuous flow." While observant in the realm of the fifth dimensional probabilities, the consistency was "who was observing."
My previous post to you on "Richard Feynman," will highlight some of this explanation.
Phil:Strange as it might seem for men so celebrated for their contributions, they were intellectual exiles.”
I am fortunate to have this outlet called the internet, because the "law of attraction" seems to work within the "field of information "that those of like mind will appear?:) I tend to think things unresolved have a way of coming together again, if not reconciled.
Also, that while I work in the real world, any "representative of this quest" would have been thought more then the standard set by our everyday lives, so, sometimes one must remain cloaked, so that they can continue to work to that "aspiration of truth and light." Work with those of like mind, whether a name of their choosing or not, the "personal endeavour" will not go unrecorded.
The perfecting of the self and return to the light, in the score of lives and attempts, thus, with every step forward, many steps backward, it is my contention that the striving will allow us a greater insight into "who and what we are," as "struggling souls for the light."
You would not be wrong to think I have found a close relationship to the source underlying all the manifestations of "this soul," that each life lived would be as a "capsule," "a symbol," of what was accomplished at one time or another in our pasts.
Maps are very useful in this context and would be lost to our everyday waking reality( one's words used.) What if I were to say, "that the relationships of the emotive struggle" while housing endocrinology sources within us, physically, also manifests in the outer. As a manifestation of a finer aspect of our thinking minds?
Our memories too, are of "such substance" that we could apply it to the nature of the subtle?
IN the end, it is not worth having my name in the real world.....because it is personal.. that what is in a name is more the recognizing that even while Plato was part of the shadows as well, he knew and understood "the work" that was set before him.
We are the same as every one else in this struggle. Why, I have accepted whole heartily "the life having already live" and the wonderful aspects it has granted me in my relations. Continues to provide for in terms of learning, patience, kindness to others.
While you recognize the exile of those two men more then the leaving of their circumstances, society was quite bright to allow them the nurturing in Princeton for them, to allow them to excel in their ingenuity? Nurturing, and "insight development" by providing that environment along these lines, is as important sometimes as those who recognize the elements in nature?:)