• unenlightened
    8.7k
    How does the everything modify itself if it can't be modified from without?csalisbury

    You're leading the witness, but - from within, obviously.

    Like what's being chosen to be measured somehow, through that choosing, is already smuggling in the conclusions it advocates. do you get that vibe too?csalisbury

    Yes. The one thing science cannot at all deal with is freedom. It just comes out as random in every theory.

    As to to stereoscopy, what if its stereoscopic all the way down?

    Two flat pictures that contradict at the margins. And the third, non-picture, that is the integration of information, that 'looks like' a 3d scene... We contradict each other at the margins while agreeing almost everywhere, and see our relationship as we see the world, and perhaps it is the relationship that has the better view.

    The domination of a creature's forward directed stereoscopic vision, necessitates its seeing everything in terms of seeing, if you see what I mean (no freedom there). So science takes the transcendent view and can change nothing; it takes the scientist to even construct an experiment. Like Jesus. Every good scientist comes to that moment when he has to infect himself with the disease he thinks he might be able to cure. Take up your cross and follow me...

    I think if we could follow it 'all the way down' there would be a limitless limit like the dateless gate, where the integration is complete and the conversation falls into silence...

    Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we...
  • ChatteringMonkey
    1.3k
    2. I only know pop science so this is that. Electrons, so I'm told, exist in some kind of weird probability space. They don't exist anywhere but are smeared proabilistically with some places more likely, others less, and are effectively nowhere til [something] collapses them. I know no science but if an electron collapses in an improbable place does that radically alter what's probable after? — csalisbury

    As I understand it, yes. Once a measurement has collapsed the wave-function, it is exceedingly probable that it will be observed there again.

    It seems that the percieved weirdness of QM now is due to a lack of understanding of what the equations actually mean, and that some kind of paradigm shift is needed to truely understand it... a bit like how curved space-time solved the mystery of gravity being instantanious action at a distance in classical newtonian physics.
  • Deleteduserrc
    2.8k
    I'm sorry I was a dick upthread. I objected to the question you posed because it seemed like the only outcome it could lead to was an old and interminable debate, and then I went ahead and ensured it did that, in needlessly personal attacks.

    More soberly, this time: I think the question is misplaced. So, for example, Newton thought that absolute space was God's 'sensorium' but the weirdness of this doesn't mean we now discount Newton. In fact, he's taught to this day. We see his understanding as partial, and we can even see why he thought it was God's sensorium, and how this wasn't simply an error, but a precise conceptual knot which would be disentangled by later physicists. I don't agree with Schopenhauer but my disagreement isn't based on the fact that some of his terms seem spooky. If you see him from 'within' the immanent logic of his thought, you can understand why 'will' is still a valuable way of thinking about things, in the same way if you understand Newton from 'within' you can understand 'God's Sensorium' in a fruitful way.

    Two paradigms

    (1) paths of thought traversing the same terrain in different ways, with various missteps on the onehand and helpful trailblazing on the other
    (2) Foolishness (worshipping spooky idols) and clearheadedness (seeing things as they are)

    I think (2) is likely to become the thing it worries about.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I think the idea, expressed in the term 'conatus' predates Schopenhuaer.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conatus
  • frank
    14.5k
    It's supposed to be an analysis of the way we think, so it works better if there is evidence that people have thought about it that way.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I'm not sure I'm understanding you: do you mean the idea of conatus is supposed to be an analysis of the way we think?

    Two paradigms

    (1) paths of thought traversing the same terrain in different ways, with various missteps on the onehand and helpful trailblazing on the other
    (2) Foolishness (worshipping spooky idols) and clearheadedness (seeing things as they are)

    I think (2) is likely to become the thing it worries about.
    csalisbury

    Nice analysis!
  • frank
    14.5k
    I'm not sure I'm understanding you: do you mean the idea of conatus is supposed to be an analysis of the way we think?Janus

    Have you read Schopenhauer?
  • Janus
    15.4k
    Yes, I read World as Will and Representation, other bits and pieces of his, and several secondary texts, many years ago. I'm quite familiar with his, Kant's and Nietzsche's ideas. Why?
  • frank
    14.5k
    Cool. Then you know he analyzes the way that we think. ?
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I'm not sure I'd put it quite like that. I'd say he analyzes the difference between our "outer" and "inner" experience. As far as I remember he says the outer is in the form of representation and the inner (or at least the non-outer-representing part of the inner) is in the form of will. He then universalizes the idea of will to apply to all of nature both living and non-living (as its "inner" aspect so to speak), so it seems to me that he is more proposing the way we should think about the world, than analyzing the way we do think about the world. But perhaps I have misunderstood your drift?
  • frank
    14.5k
    He then universalizes the idea of will to apply to all of nature both living and non-livingJanus

    Do you remember what he said about subject and object? That would clarify.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I remember that he says the world of representations is the world of objects, and that there are no objects without subjects.
  • frank
    14.5k
    Subject and object are interdependent. This shows up in the way we speak about the world.

    Listen, it's like we read two different Schopenhauers. This probably isn't the place to determine who went wrong and why.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I'm not sure why you say "we read two different Schopenhauer's" given that I said that I thought that for Schopenhauer there are no objects without subjects and that you said that "subject and object are interdependent". Is it because I didn't add "there are no subjects without objects"? If so, that was just taken for granted, so I didn't emphasize it.

    I also of course agree that the way we experience the world "shows up in how we speak about the world"; how could it be otherwise? I know that Wittgenstein was influenced by Schopenhauer, so perhaps he carried out the analysis from the linguistic angle that Schopenhauer didn't?

    Although, of course Wittgenstein would not reify the will as Schopenhauer does. Could this mean the former may be considered to be more of an idealist than the latter?
  • Deleteduserrc
    2.8k
    Two flat pictures that contradict at the margins. And the third, non-picture, that is the integration of information, that 'looks like' a 3d scene... We contradict each other at the margins while agreeing almost everywhere, and see our relationship as we see the world, and perhaps it is the relationship that has the better view.

    The domination of a creature's forward directed stereoscopic vision, necessitates its seeing everything in terms of seeing, if you see what I mean (no freedom there). So science takes the transcendent view and can change nothing; it takes the scientist to even construct an experiment. Like Jesus. Every good scientist comes to that moment when he has to infect himself with the disease he thinks he might be able to cure. Take up your cross and follow me...

    I think if we could follow it 'all the way down' there would be a limitless limit like the dateless gate, where the integration is complete and the conversation falls into silence...

    Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we...
    unenlightened

    Silence appeals to me, maybe just because I can't stop talking, but if we use stereoscopic in the way you mean, then 'all the way down' could also mean conversation and relation all the way down.
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    Silence appeals to me, maybe just because I can't stop talking, but if we use stereoscopic in the way you mean, then 'all the way down' could also mean conversation and relation all the way down.csalisbury

    There is no incompatibility; in the relation that is a conversation, there is on both sides, or as many sides as there are, both talking and the silence of listening.

    I ought to say something profound here about John Cage 4'33
  • Deleteduserrc
    2.8k
    I ought to say something profound about John Cage 4'33unenlightened

    ha! thats it in a nutshell.
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