OK, the omniscient entity can say that it will rain next July 1, and also it will be dry and sunny, and also cloudy and humid, and also reasonably cool, not none of that all at once. But I could also say that, and we’d both be right, and we’d both be entirely unhelpful. More tech isn’t going to help with the answer precisely because the answer above is already correct. — noAxioms

But why would an omniscient make such an irrational statement about the weather on July 1st 2023?
An omniscient knows what the weather will be on that day at every location and for every time reference or else they are not omniscient. An omniscient has all possible tech or else it is not omniscient.
I really don't see the point you are trying to make in the above quote.

:fire:

... some of us choose extinction ... El Rachum. — Agent Smith

:death: :flower:

Memento mori, mi amigo.
Memento vivere!

:up: :up:

You don't need to be Jewish to qualify.
You would have to explain yourself much more.
What caused you to choose to live life as a curse.
You can't heal until you know where all the wounds are and what caused them.
What can you not forgive yourself for?
What did you do? or was it done to you? — universeness

:sad: Good poetry. :up:

Which parts ring true?

Ok, but again we diverge here, as I give no credence or value to the Platonic concept of ideal or perfect forms. I refer to Platonic forms described in wiki as: — universeness

We are discussing a philosophically divisive topic here. And judging by the unusual number of replies to my posts, my unconventional (immaterial) worldview has hit an emotional hot button for otherwise placid philosophers. Where you give "no credence" to Plato's Forms, it's the foundation of my personal En-Form-Action thesis. Plato's theory of Forms was not talking about material objects (teapot orbiting the moon) but about human ideas about (aboutness) physical objects. Forms are mental metaphors, not material things. Do you deign to "give credence" to your own ideas, or just to other people's invisible intangible ideas. Obviously, you are misinterpreting my ideas, due to lack of understanding of its scientific & philosophical foundation.

I'm pretty sure that astrobiologist Caleb Scharf has never heard of Enformationism. But in his 2021 book, The Ascent of Information, he makes some assertions that would also touch a nerve on this forum. From the cover : "a universe built of and for information" ; "information is, in a very real sense, alive" ; "it's an organism that has evolved right alongside us". These are not materialistic scientific statements, but philosophical interpretations of cutting-edge science (quantum, not classical). Likewise, my view of the role of Information in the universe is not intended to be judged by materialistic scientific criteria. Instead, it's supposed to be an update of ancient belief systems : both Material-ism and Spiritual-ism.

Due to the sudden explosion of incredulous responses to my posts on this Emergent thread, I may not have time to address all of your credibility concerns individually. But I have already covered most of them in the Enformationism thesis, and the BothAnd blog, in case you are really interested in a novel synthesis of modern Science and timeless Philosophy. :smile:

Enformationism :
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

BothAnd Blog :
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/

PS__The incredulous remark about Plato & Idealism reveals a watershed in our worldviews. Philosophical Mathematician A.N. Whitehead once commented on Plato's thought: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." Since mathematicians deal with abstract ideas instead of concrete matter, an openness to Idealism might be expected. But philosophers are also manipulators of abstractions ; yet some have come to view Empirical Science as getting closer to Truth, because it manipulates real tangible objects and produces real world material results. Ironically, in a matter-based world, symbolic money buys real goods, while philosophical metaphors & analogies yield nothing tangible. So, what is the value of Wisdom (sophos), and what is its material substance?

PPS__The screenname "Universeness" seems to imply an open-ness to the intangible qualia of the world. Ironically, in the Enformationism thesis, Generic Information is the substance of Both quantitative Matter & qualitative Mind ; also of everything, and non-thing (e.g. Virtual Particles), in the Universe.

The suffix "-ness" means "state : condition : quality" and is used with an adjective to say something about the state, condition, or quality of being that adjective.
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/Nouns-ending-in-ness

PPPS__Enformationism is an Emergence & Systems theory about the Holistic qualities of the world that emerge from the evolution of malleable matter & causal energy.

Emergence : In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own ; (i.e. Holism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

You don't need to be Jewish to qualify. — universeness

:smile:

The Jewish people have been persecuted for nearly a thousand years now. They seem to take it well. One would think after being inhumanely treated for so long, their spirit would be crushed, but no, they're back on their horses so to speak. What's their secret?

Survival is a mitzvah. :fire:

Well, that's what we are discussing. 'Immaterial,' has no demonstrable existent, if it is being used to propose something supernatural. — universeness

No. That is a mis-interpretation of my intent. "Im-material" simply means not-made-of-matter. It does not mean super-natural. Are the ideas & ideals in your mind super-natural, if we can't see them under a microscope? Are Virtual Particles super-natural simply because they have "no demonstrable existent"? VPs are simply mathematical metaphors for sub-atomic physics that must be inferred instead of empirically demonstrated. Mathematics consists of inferred (mental) immaterial inter-relationships, not on observed (objective) physical connections between values. Unfortunately, Pythagoras did interpret his harmonies & ideal solids in the spiritual terminology of his day, 2500 years ago.

insists on the same mis-use of my novel & unconventional, but philosophically & scientifically defined, terminology. Unfortunately. my non-textbook definitions for
Enformationism can't overcome the prejudice of Materialism/Physicalism as a belief system. So, due to our divergent vocabularies, we have ceased to communicate on topics that go beyond the 18th century concepts of classical Newtonian physics. :smile:

Forget Space-Time: Information May Create the Cosmos :
So, the question then becomes how to understand "information," a common term whose technical or scientific sense can be disruptive. . . .
What are the basic building blocks of the cosmos? Atoms, particles, mass energy? Quantum mechanics, forces, fields? Space and time — space-time? Tiny strings with many dimensions? . . .
A new candidate is "information," which some scientists claim is the foundation of reality. The late distinguished physicist John Archibald Wheeler characterized the idea as "It from bit" — "it" referring to all the stuff of the universe and "bit" meaning information. . . .
So here's the deep question: Is information the ultimate constituent from which the cosmos is constructed? I started as a skeptic. Information as reality seems so outlandish, so trendy — a metaphor on steroids. ___Robert Kuhn
https://www.space.com/29477-did-information-create-the-cosmos.html

Virtual particles are only used to satisfy mathematical requirements and are not real in any sense of the word. They have not been proven in any way to really exist, except mathematically,
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-proof-that-virtual-particles-actually-exist

Are you sure the TS hasn't taken place? One possible reason why we haven't met ET is because they don't want to (be discovered). — Agent Smith

Maybe the TS has already happened and we are being kept from discovering ETI by our TS-saturated satellites, telescopes & space probes? Maybe the TS covertly studies both ETI and us? :yikes: — 180 Proof

What is ETI? That means extraterrestrial intelligence to me, but some AI built by us isn’t extraterrestrial.
TS isn’t a thing that saturates satellites like skynet or something. It’s just a threshold where the machine is more efficient at improving the machine than are its creators. There’s no robot walking around or anything, escaping somewhere for instance. Any machine that meets the qualification above will be very much leveraged to give its creators a competitive advantage over the places with the human developers.

Some of us wish to go extinct mon ami! — Agent Smith

An individual cannot meaningfully go extinct. It’s only a term that applies to a species.

I accept that particular humans can excel in areas that they have studied for years in, and they can become 'better than most or even all, in THAT field, at THAT time.' I was probably better than Einstein at many many things. — universeness

Einstein wasn’t particularly well-studies. He had trouble with most of his schooling, which perhaps is a critique on the way education is taught. Einstein was unusually open minded, willing to question any intuitive bias.
Being well-educated or well-rounded in skills has little to do with passing an IQ test, which for the most part doesn’t test how educated you are.

Cryonics:

The wish to die only when YOU want to, is very strong in most humans, including myself. — universeness

Agree, but granting wishes to individuals has little to do with benefit to humanity except perhaps in a negative way. People living for 500 years isn’t going to prevent environmental catastrophe or get any kind of expansion into the galaxy happening.

I just think that there is very little evidence that whatever is stored in your brain, is preserved via cryogenic freezing.

Since they’ve never done it, there is also no evidnce that the information is lost. I think they’ve done it to other things. Amphibians are a natural at it and I’ve heard of some things (dinosaur almost?) getting revived briefly after a really long sleep. That story might be myth. Can’t find it now.

Well , If I wonder if there will be 'points of merging,' in the distant future that augments humans into some genetic/cybernetic merge.

Likely actually given we last long enough. Putting human parts in a machine (as opposed to putting machine parts in human) seems inefficient. All this life support to do something probably better done without all the extra overhead.

Holotech may be a great way to project yourself great distances, very quickly, for communication purposes or even as a way of investigating planets without travelling there yourself, physically.

We have that now. It’s called a TV and phone. Neither works faster than light, so no VR is going to let you walk around and control some avatar light-years away. Still, the military does that with drones and such because the distances are not so far. Even doing at the moon would be awkward, as are communications with those long pauses.

What do you mean by 'something less specific?'

You said humanity, in context of something to which a thing has a purpose. The less specific thing would be a collection of agents, humanity being only part of the larger collection, to which the thing has collective purpose.

If we met another alien race and we 'pooled' our science instead of trying to wipe each other out, would that not help all concerned answer all the tough questions we have?

One race would be likely far advanced compared to the other and would have little to learn from the lesser, at least as far as technology is concerned. The lesser race would likely not be ready for ‘all the answers’ at once, and so if it is deemed reasonable/safe to bring this lesser race up to speed, it would probably have to be done quite slowly. Remember the main reason for advanced technological development. It isn’t for exploration or for fantasies about omniscience. It’s about military advantage. You don’t give super-advanced toys to a race like that. That’s part of the transhuman effort: To collectively change who we are so we can survive our own advancement.

If you believe that there are things that can be known then we diverge there.

Cannot be known, and I gave examples. The weather 6 months hence was one.

"There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, ..... always!”

Well, the Korean thing has to end eventually. The death of somebody with absolute power instigates a struggle to replace him, and one of them eventually won’t know how to hang on to the power.

But why would an omniscient make such an irrational statement about the weather on July 1st 2023? — universeness

Wasn’t an irrational statement. Under several interpretations, it’s entirely true. The future weather is in superposition of all those states. It isn’t measured by us, and under several interpretations, measurement by something not part of the structure isn’t meaningful. So if the definition of omniscience is that the entity must know this unknowable thing, then the only logical inconsistency is the positing of such an entitiy.

An omniscient has all possible tech or else it is not omniscient.

Really? God needs a barometer to measure the pressure? Tech is only to tell you something you don’t know, or do something you can’t do yourself, and the omniscient omnipotent entity doesn’t need any of it.

One would think after being inhumanely treated for so long, their spirit would be crushed — Agent Smith

Not so. Persecution cements faith which otherwise tends to stagnate. The Christians were never stronger in their belief than when they had to hide it from the laws at the time. It kept them unified too.

An individual cannot meaningfully go extinct. It’s only a term that applies to a species. — noAxioms

Can't I be a species unto myself - a particular lineage and I've heard the phrase "the last of his line". I am that.

Survival is a mitzvah. — 180 Proof

:up:

We are discussing a philosophically divisive topic here. — Gnomon

Well, the exchange between us here seems to consolidate around what credence level either of us assigns to the existence of and value of any references to the supernatural. The division comes in how we each interpret particular nomenclature and how we each interpret the contents of the sources we each cite. I am sure we can both keep any acrimony to an absolute minimum and respect each others viewpoints, if they are earnestly held.

Forms are mental metaphors, not material things. Do you deign to "give credence" to your own ideas, or just to other people's invisible intangible ideas. Obviously, you are misinterpreting my ideas, due to lack of understanding of its scientific & philosophical foundation. — Gnomon

Misunderstanding the position of others is always an issue. I am trying my best to understand your viewpoints and idea's in the area of what you think is 'emergent,' in human beings and based on the content of my OP. If you think I am misinterpreting your ideas then I look forward to your continued corrections, so that I can gain a better understanding of your position.

"information is, in a very real sense, alive" ; "it's an organism that has evolved right alongside us". These are not materialistic scientific statements, but philosophical interpretations of cutting-edge science (quantum, not classical). — Gnomon

This honestly seems like nonsense to me. I have not read the book you cite and I have not heard of Caleb Scharf, so I am only giving my opinion of the words you have chosen to cite.
Information is not 'alive' based on any criteria that qualifies something as being 'alive,' that I know of.
Information is not 'organic' under any definition of the term I know.
So, I am left with considering further your 'not materialistic scientific statements' and 'quantum not classical.' Which aspects of quantum physics are you citing here?
You then typed:

Likewise, my view of the role of Information in the universe is not intended to be judged by materialistic scientific criteria. Instead, it's supposed to be an update of ancient belief systems : both Material-ism and Spiritual-ism. — Gnomon

How can an idea be a update of materialism if your 'update,' "is not intended to be judged by material scientific criteria?" That seems to contradict!
In what sense are you using the term 'spiritualism,' here?

Due to the sudden explosion of incredulous responses to my posts on this Emergent thread, I may not have time to address all of your credibility concerns individually. — Gnomon

I wouldn't call the responses 'an explosion of incredulous responses,' as the number of responses are very low and hardly explosive. I do however appreciate that detailed responses can take a lot of time.
We can each only do, what we are compelled to and have the time to, do!
Probably, like yourself, I have a large outstanding list of 'need to read this literature.'

yet some have come to view Empirical Science as getting closer to Truth, because it manipulates real tangible objects and produces real world material results — Gnomon

I am much more attracted to this that anything from Plato or Aristotle. They just knew nothing in comparison with what we know now. There is always a place for historical characters, real or invented, as we don't want to repeat old mistakes, but I don't see the musings of Plato or Aristotle as being of any more value today, than the babbles in the bible.

Ironically, in a matter-based world, symbolic money buys real goods, while philosophical metaphors & analogies yield nothing tangible. So, what is the value of Wisdom (sophos), and what is its material substance? — Gnomon

Time to get rid of money then as it is just a human invention and one that has proven to be quite pernicious. The value of wisdom has not changed and continues to be almost priceless imo.
Material substance is based on quarks and electrons which may actually be quantum field excitations or even inter-dimensional vibrations of strings and imo also includes massless excitations such as photons.
There is no supernatural existent and for me, it remains important to qualify any use of term such as 'immaterial' or 'spiritual.' If they are being used as references to anything supernatural then that should be made clear.

The screenname "Universeness" seems to imply an open-ness to the intangible qualia of the world. — Gnomon

I chose the handle 'universeness,' as a reference to being OF the universe, nothing more.

also of everything, and non-thing (e.g. Virtual Particles), in the Universe. — Gnomon

To me, the term 'virtual particle,' means not a real particle. So, some physicists describe virtual particles as mathematical conveniences that help make our equations work, some others say they 'wink in and out of existence so fast that we just don't know exactly what they are but they are momentary existents.'
"A virtual particle is a theoretical transient particle that exhibits some of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, while having its existence limited by the uncertainty principle. The concept of virtual particles arises in the perturbation theory of quantum field theory where interactions between ordinary particles are described in terms of exchanges of virtual particles."

The Jewish people have been persecuted for nearly a thousand years now. — Agent Smith

So have women, black people, gender variant people, indigenous tribal peoples, etc, etc and for just as long as Jewish people or much longer, in the case of women. This is why I typed that you don't have to be Jewish to qualify as a person who has been severely abused, almost since birth. All humans must take full responsibility for this and imo, it is the responsibility of all humans (including you,) to do what they can to help stop such abuse.
This life is less about just me, me, me and more about us, us, us. You can only really help significantly, when you have the power to do so but small assists are also sooooooo needed.
Out of little acorns, big oak trees grow. If you are living life as a curse anyway, then dedicating what's left of it, to help others, may be the best way to go. I am not suggesting this describes you, I am merely stating that every human can make a difference, an improvement, any improvement, in the life of another or others. It does not even have to be people, it can be animals or ecology that an individual helps maintain/protect/thrive etc. Another good thing is that you can be utterly godless and still be a humanist with more empathy for the suffering of fellow humans, than the vast majority of theists demonstrate.

Good advice.

No. That is a mis-interpretation of my intent. "Im-material" simply means not-made-of-matter. It does not mean super-natural. — Gnomon

Ok, so you are just referring to what quarks and electrons might do as fundamental combinatorials, yes?
You are using 'immaterial' as a reference to 'massless energy forms,' such as photons.
You are also positing that information is a fundamental but what is the fundamental involved, the bit(BInary Digit)? I have already stated that DATA is 'at some level,' a universal fundamental but I think the data fundamental is probably a quark, a photon, a planck length, a vibrating one dimensional string, what is your enformation fundamental?

Are the ideas & ideals in your mind super-natural, if we can't see them under a microscope? — Gnomon

No, they are 'fundamentals' that are just currently undetectable, just like the fundamentals of dark matter or dark energy. Do you give credence to Sir Roger Penrose's erebon particle of dark matter?

Are Virtual Particles super-natural simply because they have "no demonstrable existent"? VPs are simply mathematical metaphors for sub-atomic physics that must be inferred instead of empirically demonstrated. — Gnomon

No, they are not supernatural, they may simply be mathematical conveniences that help towards understanding a natural process that science currently does not fully understand. So, we agree here, that there is nothing supernatural going on with virtual particles. Do you consider virtual particles, a candidate for 'the fundamental of data/information or even your enformation?

Mathematics consists of inferred (mental) immaterial inter-relationships, not on observed (objective) physical connections between values. — Gnomon

@jgill is the member I turn to for conformation of valid definitions of 'what mathematics is and does.'
I think maths can perform both of the functions you suggest above but I think your use of the word 'immaterial' above is again poorly chosen, as it is such a 'loaded' word.

Enformationism can't overcome the prejudice of Materialism/Physicalism as a belief system. — Gnomon

But these are very provocative words that any atheist would associate with theosophism.
Naturalism or materialism/physicalism is not prejudicial and it can only be a 'belief' system if you are comparing it with some alternate belief system. What would that alternative belief system be, if not a theological belief? I fully understand @180 Proof''s point of view.

A new candidate is "information," which some scientists claim is the foundation of reality. The late distinguished physicist John Archibald Wheeler characterized the idea as "It from bit" — "it" referring to all the stuff of the universe and "bit" meaning information. . . . — Gnomon

But bit means binary digit! My candidates for any data fundamental would be the ones I already offered in my previous post. Please state your candidate(s). Binary is a 'two state' system such as on/off.
Is your candidate for the fundamental of information/data, two state?

I started as a skeptic. Information as reality seems so outlandish, so trendy — a metaphor on steroids. ___Robert Kuhn — Gnomon

Yeah, I have watched many episodes of 'closer to truth,' and I like Robert Kuhn, but even he or anyone he has interviewed, has NOT suggested a fundamental for information/data. So, the suggestion of a fundamental of information/data, that combines, to create the universe, is at best, as speculative as 'strings' and at worse not even as plausible as strings. Data as a universal fundamental is interesting, but you would need to identify it's fundamental 'states' and how many of them exists. Can you (or anyone else) currently do that?

Virtual particles are only used to satisfy mathematical requirements and are not real in any sense of the word. They have not been proven in any way to really exist, except mathematically, — Gnomon

I agree, but so what? In what way is that significant? other than to confirm that humans invent labels for concepts such as 'infinite,' 'perfect,' 'supernatural,' 'esoteric,' 'virtual particle,' 'dark energy' 'big bang,' etc, which have a range of validity ranging from 'inaccurate to mostly useless (like god).'

The wish to die only when YOU want to, is very strong in most humans, including myself.
— universeness
Agree, but granting wishes to individuals has little to do with benefit to humanity except perhaps in a negative way. People living for 500 years isn’t going to prevent environmental catastrophe or get any kind of expansion into the galaxy happening. — noAxioms

I think the phrase 'granting wishes' in the context you use it, is poorly chosen mockery of the (perhaps forlorn) hopes of currently live people, who face and have to come to terms with, their own death.
I see many many advantages to vastly increased lifespan and robustness for living humans.
I agree that there would be various affects on human population, but if we can create valid extraterrestial habitats, and find and develop extraterrestrial resources, then we can afford a population much bigger than the current 8 billion on Earth.
People living for 500 years may offer a level of accumulated knowledge within some individuals that surpasses all past levels of 'genius.' I think that such would indeed help prevent environmental catastrophe and provide advanced tech to help us become an extraterrestial/interstellar species.

We have that now. It’s called a TV and phone. Neither works faster than light, so no VR is going to let you walk around and control some avatar light-years away. Still, the military does that with drones and such because the distances are not so far. Even doing at the moon would be awkward, as are communications with those long pauses. — noAxioms

Yeah, you are assuming that the 'classical laws of physics,' will dictate what can and cannot be achieved in any future timescale. What's going in quantum physics suggests to me, that that's not necessarily true.
The lecture I posted from Lennard Susskind earlier, has a section where he proposes that manipulation of quantum entanglement may indeed mean we can observe and measure what going on at large distances without any 'signal travelling,' involved. That, was only my interpretation of the complex ideas he was putting across. I am always very reluctant indeed, to claim that I have the physics needed to interpret such a lecture correctly. In fact, I just don't, so I am completely reliant on the interpretative skills that I do have, in relation to such a lecture.

You said humanity, in context of something to which a thing has a purpose. The less specific thing would be a collection of agents, humanity being only part of the larger collection, to which the thing has collective purpose. — noAxioms

If we meet alien lifeforms in the future that have the same or more or even a little less ability than we do, and we don't try to annihilate each other, and we share our science and become allies, then I would assume that our concerted (asymptotic) effort toward omniscience will be more successful that our individual efforts, so, all good ..... I hope!

One race would be likely far advanced compared to the other and would have little to learn from the lesser, at least as far as technology is concerned. The lesser race would likely not be ready for ‘all the answers’ at once, and so if it is deemed reasonable/safe to bring this lesser race up to speed, it would probably have to be done quite slowly. Remember the main reason for advanced technological development. It isn’t for exploration or for fantasies about omniscience. It’s about military advantage. You don’t give super-advanced toys to a race like that. That’s part of the transhuman effort: To collectively change who we are so we can survive our own advancement. — noAxioms

Your notes of caution here are well founded, given the bloody history of humans so far.
I remain hopeful that the 'military advantage,' you highlight may well still be sought but will only ever be used in defence and NOT EVER to attack.

If you believe that there are things that can be known then we diverge there.
Cannot be known, and I gave examples. The weather 6 months hence was one. — noAxioms

Yeah, I meant to type 'cannot' be known, sorry, but I don't value your example, as we can predict the weather in 6 months based on such as, last years data, combined with projecting any current weather patterns and climate change projections. I agree that it would not be a 'completely reliable' prediction but perhaps future 'weather based' tech will allow significant improvement in the predictive reliability of a '6 month from now forecast for a particular area.' I think you underestimate us and our future tech.

Well, the Korean thing has to end eventually. The death of somebody with absolute power instigates a struggle to replace him, and one of them eventually won’t know how to hang on to the power. — noAxioms

Exactly!

So if the definition of omniscience is that the entity must know this unknowable thing, then the only logical inconsistency is the positing of such an entitiy. — noAxioms

But that's a foundational claim of theism! You are trying to contemplate an omniscient god with your feeble human intellect. There is no unknowable thing for an omnigod, the fact that you cant perceive that is because you cannot know god and must simply accept its power ...... or else. We both know that's total BS. So omniscience, is only useful, as a concept to asymptotically strive for.

An omniscient has all possible tech or else it is not omniscient.
Really? God needs a barometer to measure the pressure? Tech is only to tell you something you don’t know, or do something you can’t do yourself, and the omniscient omnipotent entity doesn’t need any of it. — noAxioms

Omnigod does not need a barometer, as it already owns all data/information in the universe, past, present and future. Omnigod would not measure that which it already knows. All possible tech already exists as part of omnigod, as you suggest in your last sentence above, so we seem to be typing past each other here. We both understand the theistic definition of the properties of the omnigod posit.

Such teleology, only has value from the perspective of human intent and purpose, through their imposition of selective evolution via such tech as genetic engineering. No god posit, Platonic logos/form or Aristotelian first cause, has any contribution to make, imo. — universeness

True. If you are a pragmatic scientist with the intention of making a material difference in the world, there is no need to consider generalizations or ultimates. But, if you are a philosopher, hoping to answer Ontological & Existential questions, considering First & Last & Ultimate Intent would be a part of your job description. I'm not a materials scientist or genetic engineer, but merely an amateur philosopher, posting on a philosophy forum, just for funsees.

So, I hope you will forgive me for doing what feckless philosophers do to while-away their spare time : studying not material objects & "how" questions, but mental beliefs & "why" questions. I'm aware that some posters on TPF seem to believe that this is, or should be, a scientific forum, or that Impractical Theoretical Philosophy must be subordinate to Pragmatic Empirical Science.

If the traditional philosophical term "Teleology" sets your teeth on edge, how about "Teleonomy"? Enformationism is compatible with both understandings of natural progression. :smile:


Ultimate :
1. a final or fundamental fact or principle.
2. being or happening at the end of a process; final.

Quora :
A philosopher is a scientist who studies what cultures, countries groups and individuals believe and do and why they believe and do the things they believe . . .

Teleonomy :
Teleonomy is sometimes contrasted with teleology, where the latter is understood as a purposeful goal-directedness brought about through human or divine intention. Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomy

God and Other Ultimates :
What it takes to be ultimate is to be the most fundamentally real, valuable or fulfilling among all that there is or could be
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/

PS__For the record, Enformationism does not deny the validity of Materialism, as a guide for empirical research. And it does not advocate Spiritualism, as a guide to heaven. It does however assume that philosophical reasoning is a valid approach to evaluating immaterial ideas & beliefs. Yet it does deny the bolded words in the definition below.

Materialism, also called physicalism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/materialism-philosophy

... if you are a philosopher, hoping to answer Ontological & Existential questions, considering First & Last & Ultimate Intent would be a part of your job description. — Gnomon

IME, a thinker's first duty – intellectual hygiene and metacognitive fitness exercise – consists in not asking idle questions or raising paper doubts (Peirce, Witty, Kant, et al) such as "first, last & ultimate" whatever. As for "ontological and existential" questions, the theoretical works of natural scientists presuppose such aporia which most do not explicitly explore or examine because that almost always falls outside of the remit of scientific inquiry. And pragmatists, which you allude to, whether or not they are doing science, raise such abstruse questions, as Dewey or Popper might say, only to facilitate transforming indeterminate problems into determinate problems which can be dis/solved. :chin:

However, your musings and notions, Gnomon, demonstrate a penchant for overdetermining pseudo-problems because, apparently, you lack the acumen of a rigorous, as you say, "amateur philosopher" to avoid these incorrigibly dogmatic traps. You're not here to learn from our motley community of 'thinkers', as your post history attests to, but rather, evidently, to preach a quixotic sermon that pseudo-scientistically rehashes perennialism (though your expansive, well-documented blog does bedazzle, sir :sparkle: :clap:). "Hoping to answer ...Ultimate ... questions" is the "job description" of false prophets, televangelists and other charlatans pimping snake-oil "worldviews" or "beliefs", which may be what "philosophy" looks like from the outside to many folks who're still squatting on splintered pews in their burnt-out old cathedrals. :pray: :sweat:

postscript:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/746676 Yeah, it's déjà vu all over again. :smirk:

I think the phrase 'granting wishes' in the context you use it, is poorly chosen mockery of the (perhaps forlorn) hopes of currently live people, who face and have to come to terms with, their own death. — universeness

The context of the ‘granting wishes’ phrase is the Cryonic one, not extending a normal life for a human. And in either case, one will be forced to come to terms with one’s own death.

I see many many advantages to vastly increased lifespan and robustness for living humans.

Well I see plenty for the individual of course, but I thought the subject of this topic wasn’t the individual. We’d have to eliminate aging, meaning that we’d stay young and fit for a long time. Last thing we need is 80% of the population in some kind of retired state. If we do that, we have to do it to everybody, and that’s kind of a problem with a large population. This would be a disadvantage for the species. There’s a reason evolution invented aging.

I agree that there would be various affects on human population, but if we can create valid extraterrestial habitats[/quote]The extraterrestrial habitats are jails at best. If you want to put people in a box, it’s easier to do it here. If you want people to actually live on another world, they need to be evolved for that world. They cannot be human. There’s no planet B.
https://aeon.co/essays/we-will-never-be-able-to-live-on-another-planet-heres-why
If that doesn’t take you to the article, copy and paste it. I don’t know what’s messed up with links on this site.

then we can afford a population much bigger than the current 8 billion on Earth.

You say that like it’s some kind of benefit that a bigger number is better.

People living for 500 years may offer a level of accumulated knowledge within some individuals that surpasses all past levels of 'genius.'

Longer life doesn’t make one smarter. A little more wise maybe, but not more intelligent. You can breed for intelligence if you like (something that is currently being naturally de-selected), but again, by your analogy of re-inventing the wheel, why do we need more intelligence when the tool already exists?

I think that such would indeed help prevent environmental catastrophe

The 8 billion and growing count seems pretty precisely what is causing the environmental catastrophe. If there is some kind of purpose served by maxing out the number of humans that exist, trimming the population permanently down to around 6% of what is is today would be a great start. Less existing at once, but far more in the longer run.

and provide advanced tech to help us become an extraterrestial/interstellar species.

Or better, to help the tech become that interstellar species. If you want humanity to make its mark on the universe, that is how to go about it.

Yeah, you are assuming that the 'classical laws of physics,' will dictate what can and cannot be achieved in any future timescale.

Yea, what are humans good for if we can’t change the laws of physics? So put that on your list and jettison the VR thing which is just a fancy telephone.

The lecture I posted from Lennard Susskind earlier, has a section where he proposes that manipulation of quantum entanglement may indeed mean we can observe and measure what going on at large distances without any 'signal travelling,' involved.

Either you’re misreading his words, or he’s a quack. If his assertions actually said that and had merit, it would be huge news in the physics world. All of Einstein’s theories would get falsified and we’d have to reinvent a new theory to replace it. Time travel would become possible since I could observe something that hasn’t yet happened.
Sorry for all that, but perhaps a quote that leads you to this conclusion would help. It was a long vid to attempt to hunt down something I don’t think he said. If I had a quote, I could help interpret it since I’m not a total noob at this. I spend more time on the physics forums, and am a moderator at one of them.

If we meet alien lifeforms in the future that have the same or more or even a little less ability than we do

That’s like you and me picking a random number from one to 10 million, and both of us guessing the same one. Odds are they’re either as developed as lichen, or we are the lichen in comparison to them. Neither might recognize the other as life, or at least not as something one might attempt to communicate with. Do we share our technology with the squirrels? The squirrels have picked a number insanely close to ours, but not the same number.

I remain hopeful that the 'military advantage,' you highlight may well still be sought but will only ever be used in defence and NOT EVER to attack.

See? Time to first change who we are before we spread out and just make enemies of our colonies. Most every attack is justified as defense to its own people. Ever read up on what the Russians are telling its citizens about the Ukraine thing? Remember Bush and Iraq’s WMDs? “We’re doing this for defense”, not just to get back at somebody who insulted his daddy.

I don't value your example, as we can predict the weather in 6 months based on such as, last years data, combined with projecting any current weather patterns and climate change projections. — universeness

Sure, the farmer’s almanac does that, but it doesn’t say exactly where the rain will be falling at a specific time. Those specifics are what I’m talking about. Better tech has nothing to do with this.
If physics is perfectly deterministic and unitary, then yes, the omnipotent entity would know exactly that. But physics might not be all those things, in which case there’s no right answer to know.

But that's a foundational claim of theism!

Not always, but yes. Theism isn’t based on logic or observation. They’re up front about that. Making impossible claims isn’t something that bothers them, and the people consuming the story have little interest in the self-consistency of the story.

You are trying to contemplate an omniscient god with your feeble human intellect.

How so? A thing that knows all answers vs a question that literally has no right answer. Even a feeble intellect can detect something wrong with that.

An omniscient has all possible tech or else it is not omniscient.

Omnigod does not need a barometer, as it already owns all data/information in the universe, past, present and future.

The two above statements seem to contradict each other. You apparently suggest that a god has a closet full of completely unneeded stuff. He’s a hoarder, unable to keep the place neat.

All possible tech already exists as part of omnigod

So it doesn’t have a useless barometer in it’s closet, but rather has a useless barometer as part of itself, sort of like having eyes despite never using them. A human apparently strives to achieve a state where eyes and other senses are useless.

There’s a reason evolution invented aging. — noAxioms

:up: :grin:

Well, the exchange between us here seems to consolidate around what credence level either of us assigns to the existence of and value of any references to the supernatural. — universeness

I appreciate your willingness to engage in philosophical dialog, even though my posts may express a worldview that at first glance appears to violate your personal belief system. Some offended posters are motivated to express their anger & incredulity in the form of political-style put-downs. FWIW, I assure you that my BothAnd philosophy is not anti-science or pro-religion. However, it's also not pro-classical-science or anti-religious-philosophy. Instead, it views those contentious belief systems from a novel perspective, that may seem wrong-headed to those on one side or the other of the credence abyss.

Since Enformationism does make philosophical inferences that go beyond the knowable origins of Nature though, you could be forgiven for categorizing those conjectures as "super-natural". Yet quite a few professional scientists have put-on their philosophical hats, and conjectured non-empirical notions (e.g. Multiverse ; Cosmic Inflation) about the time-before-Time, and the pre-Big-Bang nature of Nature. So, I'm just doing similar philosophical postulating, but without the aura of authority that allows professional scientists to get-away with going beyond the limits of empirical methods. Remember, some of Einstein's colleagues cringed at his poetic references to God, but didn't attack him openly. :smile:

Misunderstanding the position of others is always an issue. I am trying my best to understand your viewpoints and idea's in the area of what you think is 'emergent,' in human beings and based on the content of my OP. If you think I am misinterpreting your ideas then I look forward to your continued corrections, so that I can gain a better understanding of your position. — universeness

I have posted hundreds of "continued corrections" (clarifications) on my blog and in this forum. But you are not alone in mis-understanding my unconventional worldview. Some are content to just pigeon-hole the strange ideas into old familiar categories. For example, Emergentism is a feature of Holistic worldviews, which to detractors indicates an Anti-reductionism (hence anti-science) Oriental religious belief. But it is also held by several prominent Quantum scientists. Also, Reductionism is an appropriate method for dissecting physical objects, but not very effective for parsing philosophical concepts.

My worldview is best explained at length in the Enformationism Thesis, and the BothAnd Blog. In forum posts, my unconventional position must be explained only in bits & pieces, hence may be interpreted by others in more conventional terms. You won't find my personal worldview in any Science or Philosophy textbook, so I rely on links to recently published authors, who are exploring the uncharted Information territory from a perspective similar to my own. Since the links are usually un-clicked, I typically include a brief quote to indicate the pertinent flavor of the ideas therein. :nerd:

Emergence :
Cognitive historian Y.N. Harari, in Homo Deus, foresees the emergence of a “cosmic data processing system . . . like God”, yet entirely natural and matter-based. On the other hand, I have deduced, from the same database, that the materialist's arbitrary “laws” of physical evolution are more like purposeful metaphysical codes.
https://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page16.html

Emergentism :
In philosophy, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism

How can an idea be a update of materialism if your 'update,' "is not intended to be judged by material scientific criteria?" That seems to contradict!
In what sense are you using the term 'spiritualism,' here? — universeness

My information-centric update of the philosophical implications of classical Materialism is mostly based on the current understanding of reality provided by Quantum science. It would indeed be a conflict, if I pretended to be a physical scientist. For example, Einstein & the Quantum pioneers "updated" Newton's mechanical physics, to much consternation at first. So, my philosophical interpretation of "scientific criteria" is primarily based upon sub-atomic physics, which has discovered the key role of mental & mathematical Information in the foundations of physical reality.

I use the term "Spiritualism" in a provocative manner, to provide a strong contrast with "Materialism". Both are belief systems & worldviews that hark back to ancient Atomism and Animism. Today, Quantum theory has pulled the materialistic rug out from under Atomism. And Einstein's equation of intangible Energy with measurable Mass/Matter, has given us a modern way to interpret the invisible causes of Nature. :cool:

Quantum Physicist John A. Wheeler :
Wheeler's "it from bit" concept implies that physics, particularly quantum physics, isn't really about reality, but just our best description of what we observe. There is no "quantum world", just the best description we have of how things will appear to us.
https://plus.maths.org/content/it-bit

Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links :
This report reviews what quantum physics and information theory have to tell us about the age-old question, How come existence?
https://philarchive.org/rec/WHEIPQ

:yawn:

postscript:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/746676 Yeah, it's déjà vu all over again. :smirk: — 180 Proof

There’s a reason evolution invented aging. — noAxioms

Allah rahim

IME, a thinker's first duty – intellectual hygiene and metacognitive fitness exercise – consists in not asking idle questions or raising paper doubts (Peirce, Witty, Kant, et al) such as "first, last & ultimate" whatever. As for "ontological and existential" questions, the theoretical works of natural scientists presuppose such aporia which most do not explicitly explore or examine because that almost always falls outside of the remit of scientific inquiry. And pragmatists, which you allude to, whether or not they are doing science, raise such abstruse questions, as Dewey or Popper might say, only to facilitate transforming indeterminate problems into determinate problems which can be dis/solved. :chin:

However, your musings and notions, Gnomon, demonstrate a penchant for overdetermining pseudo-problems because, apparently, you lack the acumen of a rigorous, as you say, "amateur philosopher" to avoid these incorrigibly dogmatic traps. You're not here to learn from our motley community of 'thinkers', as your post history attests to, but rather, evidently, to preach a quixotic sermon that pseudo-scientistically rehashes perennialism (though your expansive, well-documented blog does bedazzle, sir :sparkle: :clap:). "Hoping to answer ...Ultimate ... questions" is the "job description" of false prophets, televangelists and other charlatans pimping snake-oil "worldviews" or "beliefs", which may be what "philosophy" looks like from the outside to many folks who're still squatting on splintered pews in their burnt-out old cathedrals. :pray: :sweat: — 180 Proof

:cool: Absit iniuria @Gnomon

I like Gnomon's mind even if what it thinks is philosophically suspect. A Mercedes Benz being used to transport manure. :grin:

More like a Mercedes with a busted tranny ... :wink:

More like a Mercedes with a busted tranny ... :wink: — 180 Proof

:lol: Nothing a good mechanic like yourself can't fix! :grin:

I'm a driver, sir, not a mechanic. :cool:

I'm a driver, sir, not a mechanic. :cool: — 180 Proof

So you are mon ami, so you are.

So, I hope you will forgive me for doing what feckless philosophers do to while-away their spare time : studying not material objects & "how" questions, but mental beliefs & "why" questions. — Gnomon

Forgiveness is not divine but it is humanist, so as a humanist, its part of my remit. :grin:
I am not a philosopher but I am interested in the views of philosophers, both the academic and non-academic variety. Science is our best tool for discovering new information but science does not cover everything that is part of being human. Philosophy has an important role to play.
I have no intention to push TPF towards becoming The Science Forum either, but I think TPF would be much less than it is now, if everything scientific was disallowed.

If the traditional philosophical term "Teleology" sets your teeth on edge, how about "Teleonomy"? Enformationism is compatible with both understandings of natural progression. — Gnomon

I assign more credence to teleonomy than teleology, yes, but also yes, more as perceived philosophical consequentials, than any notion of deliberate design, inherent in evolution via natural selection.

PS__For the record, Enformationism does not deny the validity of Materialism, as a guide for empirical research. And it does not advocate Spiritualism, as a guide to heaven. It does however assume that philosophical reasoning is a valid approach to evaluating immaterial ideas & beliefs. Yet it does deny the bolded words in the definition below. — Gnomon

Sounds good to me. I think you should be crystal clear in all your descriptions of enformationism, that your enformationism, has no association with god posits. You will always be challenged on that issue if you don't, unless you want to deal with such challenges, as enformationism IS some dressed up theistic proposal, that is trying to counter such atheistic philosophical evidence, such as Schellenberg’s hiddenness of god, as described in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Materialism, also called physicalism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them. — Gnomon

Is your enformationism not more related to some sort of panpsychist view of the universe?