• bahman
    526
    Consider a system in state of S which evolves to S' obeying laws of nature, S'=L(S). S and S' cannot exist together at the same time therefore S should be annihilated before S' created. This requires an instant that neither S nor S' exist. So we have the series S, "nothing" and S'. It is however impossible to create S' when there is no information about S. This requires a mind which is conscious of S when there is no S and S'. That is mind which creates S' and annihilates S.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    There are no Laws of Nature (totally manufactured concept) and life (mind) is continuous.
  • bahman
    526

    Of course there is the laws of nature. We experience it in any moment of our lives. Mind is however dominate to the laws of nature.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    I followed you through the point where you argued that if State A changed to State B, there had to be some amount of time between those states where either A and B existed simultaneously or where neither existed, but I don't follow your solution that the mind is able to exist without being subject to the same problem.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Of course there is the laws of nature. We experience it in any moment of our lives. Mind is however dominate to the laws of nature.bahman

    I have no idea what Laws you are experiencing. I am (my mind) is experiencing all kinds of things, but certainly not Laws. The Mind made up the Laws of Nature as it did God. It is a story. A myth. The Mind likes creating myths and stories. It's fun.
  • bahman
    526
    I followed you through the point where you argued that if State A changed to State B, there had to be some amount of time between those states where either A and B existed simultaneously or where neither existed, but I don't follow your solution that the mind is able to exist without being subject to the same problem.Hanover

    Mind does not change. What it experiences changes.
  • bahman
    526
    I have no idea what Laws you are experiencing. I am (my mind) is experiencing all kinds of things, but certainly not Laws. The Mind made up the Laws of Nature as it did God. It is a story. A myth. The Mind likes creating myths and stories. It's fun.Rich

    I think there is a reason, more than being fun, behind this, since this is not fun at all.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    I think the mind does change. You think it doesn't. Are you trying to change my mind?
  • bahman
    526
    That is content of your mind which changes.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    This requires a mind which experiences S when there is no S and S'. That is mind which creates and annihilates.bahman

    I don't think you're paying enough attention to what you wrote. The experience of S is not S, and the experience of S occurs only in the mind that experiences it. There are then two sorts of changes to account for. First, the real change in the experience, and second, the presumed change in S itself.

    Both accounts are tedious to reproduce. Mainly, your argument is just a riff on Zeno: the arrow doesn't move, Achilleus never crosses the finish and never beats the tortoise, and so forth. The trick is usually in having a correct understanding of the sum of an infinite series. But it's all a twice-told story. Why bring it up (again) here?
  • bahman
    526
    I don't think you're paying enough attention to what you wrote. The experience of S is not S, and the experience of S occurs only in the mind that experiences it.tim wood

    Yes, that is correct. I never said that S and its experience are same.

    There are then two sorts of changes to account for. First, the real change in the experience, and second, the presumed change in S itself.tim wood

    The change in experience is the result of perceiving S and later S'.

    Both accounts are tedious to reproduce.tim wood

    Not really. Here I am arguing that having S, one agent can be conscious of S and then he annihilates S and then create S'.

    Mainly, your argument is just a riff on Zeno: the arrow doesn't move, Achilleus never crosses the finish and never beats the tortoise, and so forth. The trick is usually in having a correct understanding of the sum of an infinite series. But it's all a twice-told story. Why bring it up (again) here?tim wood

    My argument has nothing to do with Zeno argument. What I am arguing is that you need a mind with ability to annihilate and create in order to have motion.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    My argument has nothing to do with Zeno argument. What I am arguing is that you need a mind with ability to annihilate and create in order to have motion.bahman

    There Mind is creating new forms by use of will and it is recognizing and conceiving forms by use of memory but it is not annihilating. The universe is more like a clay of energy that is constantly being manipulated and changing.

    There is no series. The universe is a continuous and entangled. Using symbolics such as words, mathematics, or logic cannot be used to represent a continuous universe in flux. The only b way to understand it is via observation.
  • bahman
    526
    There Mind is creating new forms by use of will and it is recognizing and conceiving forms by use of memory but it is not annihilating.Rich

    Memory of past is what is experienced, S and also those state before S.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    There are no states. Everything is continuous. This idea of states is a symbolic concept that may be of practical use but does not describe the universe. If you insist on states, then you cannot understand or explain what is transpiring. This is where academia education goes off on it's on track.
  • Harry Hindu
    5.1k
    I have no idea what Laws you are experiencing. I am (my mind) is experiencing all kinds of things, but certainly not Laws. The Mind made up the Laws of Nature as it did God. It is a story. A myth. The Mind likes creating myths and stories. It's fun.Rich

    There Mind is creating new forms by use of will and it is recognizing and conceiving forms by use of memory but it is not annihilating. The universe is more like a clay of energy that is constantly being manipulated and changing.

    There is no series. The universe is a continuous and entangled. Using symbolics such as words, mathematics, or logic cannot be used to represent a continuous universe in flux. The only b way to understand it is via observation.
    Rich

    There are no states. Everything is continuous. This idea of states is a symbolic concept that may be of practical use but does not describe the universe. If you insist on states, then you cannot understand or explain what is transpiring. This is where academia education goes off on it's on track.Rich
    Strange. You say that you experience no laws, yet every post you created in this thread is espousing some objective state-of-affairs (laws). In telling us how things really are and work, are you not espousing laws?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    objective state-of-affairs (laws)Harry Hindu

    There is no objective state of affairs. Everything is in continuous flux. We are all involved and sharing experiences.

    And when the heck did I ever use the concept of Laws? Everything is constantly changing. However, habits are formed which appear to be repetitive but are always different.

    The fundamental error in all academic and scientific analysis of the universe is replacing symbols (which are static) for flow, which is what we are all experiencing. This is where philosophy can step in and say "what the heck"?. Instead philosophy plays along, even substituting some measurement which science calls time for the real thing.
  • bahman
    526

    You cannot deny that the stuff we experience has a form, meaning that it is in specific state.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    It has form that is constantly changing. There is no state, ever, there is continuous change.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k
    I am arguing that having S, one agent can be conscious of S and then he annihilates S and then create S'.

    Consider three movements:

    1) S is hypothesized
    2) S becomes destabilized as it it is negated (-S)
    3) S' the synthesis of S & -S

    Determinate negation.
  • prothero
    429
    How about it is no longer there, when experienced? Given the time involved in perceptual processing
    or
    It is not as experienced? Given the limitations of perception and the filtering and organization of the perceptual process.
    Does mind create and destroy "Reality"? Does mind exist outside of "Reality"? Not as I understand the meaning of the terms but we likely have a language problem as well as a philosophical one.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Nature is in a state of change. All states are states of change; there are no truly static states, but there are patterns and regularities of change; that much seems obvious.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Ok. Everything is constantly changing. No need to make it more complicated than that. If you v want to say there is one and only one BIG STATE of change, so that the word state is worked into the sentence, no big deal. We can work in as many scientific words as one wishes.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    There are many discernible states of change within the "one BIG STATE" of change that we call the universe. That is what science studies states of change, rates of change and regularities of change. Do you find a problem with that?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    There are many discernible states of change within the "one BIG STATE" of change that we call the universe. That is what science studies states of change, rates of change and regularities of change. Do you find a problem with that?Janus

    Everything is continuously changing. Science just approximates. Problems arise when people start substituting approximations (for some practical application) for the actual experience. That's what creates paradoxes, Zeno's being the most famous.

    The universe is one gigantic blob that constantly changing and we are changing with it and we (our minds) are causing change. This is real evolution. No need to fabricate some Laws of Nature that naturally loves Big Macs.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Science attempts to model change; of course the model is not what is being modeled. Models are not perfect; they can be improved, probably endlessly, but cannot ever become perfect. Zeno's paradox is easily solved by science; it is only seems to be a paradox to the untutored. What "laws of Nature" are has not been settled by science or by philosophy of science.

    Are they given by God? Are they "nature taking habits" as Peirce contended? Are they something which we will never be able to discover the origin of? Are they merely descriptions with no provenance beyond the human mind? Take your pick; whatever you choose, you will find plenty of others that disagree.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Take your pick; whatever you choose, you will find plenty of others that disagree.Janus

    I just observe my mind doing its thing. For some reason Descartes gets credit for this observation even though the ancient cultures pretty much observed the same. If someone wishes to make up stories of non-existent particles getting together and playing soccer or talking things over on a forum, that their deal not mine.

    As for Pierce, he wrote that Mind came first which is not that much different from Daoism.
  • prothero
    429

    That is what objects are, repeating patterns of events. In some ways that is what nature is. The present consists of elements of the past and possibilities pulled from the future. The world is a continuous "becoming" not a static "being"
  • Janus
    16.3k


    I don't believe that mind can be observed; it is the act of observing. Also Peirce does not say that mind came first as far I remember of what I have read of him. Perhaps you could cite a passage where he says this.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    I agree with this. It sounds like you are a fellow admirer of Whitehead.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    I don't believe that mind can be observedJanus

    It's not that difficult. It's right there.

    From Peirce's Law of the Mind (note the title of the article):


    "I have begun by showing that tychism must give birth to an evolu-
    tionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of
    mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a Schelling-fashioned
    idealism which holds matter to be mere specialised and partially
    deadened mind."

    As far case Peirce is concerned, he proposes a Daoist-like Tychism which begats mind, which begats matter as deadened mind.

    Bergson adopted some of this in his own view of the Creative Force and Matter.
  • prothero
    429
    Yes, I find process metaphysics (Whitehead in particular) very appealing, provided one adjusts for the advances in scientific knowledge.
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