Thursday 24 July 2008

A Post In Which Miss Dreamy Sets Out To Prove That Women Can Wear Red Lacy Knickers And Still Have Brains....




“The Universe does not wait upon our getting round to perceive it...It has a life of its own...It doesn't exist just in order to be perceived by us...” Jonathan


“To be is to be perceived...“ Berkeley



If the manner of our observation determines the universe, can knowledge bring about its own existence?


The universe proves little beyond its own
existence. If reality depends on our choice of measurement, no clear dividing line exists between ourselves and the reality we choose to experience. Indeed,
it is at this point that cognition in terms of identity and locality enters the theory inevitably and inexorably.

Whereas quantum mechanics denies objectivity
and locality - arguments of probability take precedence over the precise
establishment of facts - the materializing faculty of knowledge is deployed with
extraordinary power and incisiveness. Particle and wave are as much states of
mind as mutually exclusive, actual events. If consciousness is choice, a means
of intelligent conceptualisation of either wave or particle, knowledge is
analogical. It is the process whereby potential reality becomes actual reality.
Whether positive ‘holes’ in a sea of electrons represent the genuine
architecture of the universe, or whether the particle physicist evolves a
net-work of such analogies disguised as statement of fact, from any point of
view, in seeking to reconcile theory and observation, he deftly replicates and
exemplifies the phenomenal and verbal structure of man’s inner mind.

One may be inclined here to create an analogy - it would be precipitous
to treat it as more - with the physicist's process of reciprocal (i.e. negative
and positive) suggestion as a classification of semantic archetypes. Pairs of
opposites are archetypes of the coordinate system used to measure the asymmetry
of electrical charges. And since no other logical explanation suggests itself,
‘the occasional unoccupied state, or “hole”, in the sea of negative energy
electrons’, has long since been recognized as the positron.

The point of the analogy is this: the dichotomy of the human mind and
its empirical psychology is an inherent part of the process by which a system of
ideas is so ordered as to arrange itself in balanced, complementary opposites.
If the physicist is the great intellectual synthesizer, facing an abstract
conceptual world, all the anticipated effects are there. Indeed, it is a matter
of common observation that theoretical predictions of new properties, are often
made before the slightest experimental evidence has come forth. Thus, by the
principle of contrasts, consciousness, having conceived of itself as a problem,
also solves it. The universe has been turned into an idea, an unconscious but
self-assertive principle of never-ending solutions. That is to say, it grasps
itself as a paradox and, in apprising itself of that which it has opposed to
itself, creates itself.




Dreamy

15 comments:

All Shook Up said...

I have never pretended that my theoretical prediction of red lacy knickers doesn't inevitably and inexorably influence my cognition of their identity and locality. So you're probably right.

However. Surely there's a objective universal presence of err... stuff.. even though we must subjectify it by observing it. Our human limitations can't limit the Universe itself can they?

Jonathan said...

Very agreeable pictures, my lady!

And a welcome reminder of the self-justifying glory of the somatic amidst all this metaphysics.

Why so defensive about the alleged brainlessness of the sexy dame? Do you not sustain the dichotomy thereby....no?

The juxstaposition of the sexual and the conceptual, of course, well to me at least, defines the highest frisson of the desired.

That besides, I still don't see how what you say doesn't only concern the universe as it relates to us, and we, creatively, relate to it. As opposed to what it is in itself.

I disagree with The Bishop.

I'd say "To be relevant to us and a part of our world is to be perceived." Isn't that common sense?

Are we to think that planets circling distant suns in faraway galaxies wait for us to determine their nature through our knowledge choices as to how we make sense of them?

Anonymous said...

I was going to say much the same ... ahem.

Pants hay? You can't beat 'em can yer? Fave fetish thing 'n all...

Selena Dreamy said...

“However. Surely there's a objective universal presence.”

Such as, ASU?

Selena Dreamy said...

“Are we to think that planets circling distant suns in faraway galaxies wait for us to determine their nature through our knowledge choices as to how we make sense of them?”


Very endearing thought, Jonathan, that distance alone should serve to invalidate an entire epistemological principle. A bit like the ostrich burying its head in the sand, don’t you think.

But nevertheless, why not try to attempt a description of those faraway galaxies - I’m curious to know what they look like when no one is determining them for what they are.

Colours are mere cerebral increments, heat converts into nothing but motion, sound is resolved into electromagnetic waves, and indeed, light is dark since the photon comes into existence as a spot on my retina only when you or I see it. Nor are such concepts as time and space applicable, since space-time is a conception which can only be derived from relativistic experience...

Selena Dreamy said...

Thank you all!

I certainly welcomed this opportunity to clarify my ideas concerning the scientific approach to what are essentially problems of ontology.

Jonathan’s question, though not accompanied by any grasp of scientific theory, competently sums it up: Am I schizophrenic? A kindly psychiatrist might diagnose something like a form of rational insanity, I suppose. But it would certainly have been unrealistic on my part not to expect this type of madness to be misunderstood. Point taken. Though the history of this particular dispute is as old as Plato, or indeed, Tao or the Hindu Vedas, philosophical debate usually centres around what to order at Starbucks on a Thursday night, and one can only regret that modern man is never more mediaeval than in his perception of what is at the forefront of scientific ideas.

No doubt, visitors to my blog may find it hard to be enlightened by a person who appears, by her very words, to specialize in being condescending. Mea culpa. Perhaps I just find it difficult to identify with anyone whose idea of a personal God it is to uphold the universe. Here, too, it seems to me, lies a kind of madness.

Dreamy

Anonymous said...

Nothing more about knickers then...?

All Shook Up said...

"Such as, ASU?"

Years ago, Dreamy, I went to a series of informal philosphy lessons given by an eminent Prof. I can't remember much of it.. but after running through a brief history of the major names in the field, the thing that sticks in my mind was a lecture where he gave "the cake in the cupboard" as an example of a concept similar to the one you are expounding.

His question was: "how do we know the cake is still there when the door is closed? (and doesn't simply re-appear when it's opened)" Sigh.

I don't claim to be anything like expert enough to engage in a discussion which will, no doubt, bring up the names of all the usual suspects like Heidegger & Co. whose positions seem to me both to be based on, and to defy, logic at the same time. I know that if I give a name to something in answer to your question, I shall have subjectified it right there.

However, as a matter of simple day-to-day experience... I'd say that things like gravity, radio waves, magnetic forces.. were in existence long before humankind developed the means to measure and utilise them and that, based on that fact, many other phenomena yet to be discovered similarly exist. Indeed, don't I remember a post from yourself predicting that inter-planetary travel will become viable once a means of transport is discovered that doesn't depend on conventional propulsion?

Yes there's a sense in which you're right. Existentialist and even Buddhist thought backs up much of what you say... but without wishing to demean the ideas, I have difficulty seeing them as much more than highly developed concepts, the value of which is often questionable in actual actuality.

Pip pip,
A.

Selena Dreamy said...

His question was: "how do we know the cake is still there when the door is closed?

The authoritative version of this is of course that known as Schroedinger’s Cat.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

Is the cat dead or alive?


Indeed, don't I remember a post from yourself predicting that inter-planetary travel will become viable once a means of transport is discovered that doesn't depend on conventional propulsion?

Forget Starship Enterprise - think of The Matrix! My post on this:

THIRD DIMENSION


“I'd say that things like gravity, radio waves, magnetic forces.. were in existence long before humankind developed.”

It is a common fallacy to exclude time from the epistemological concept as if it were a separate entity. Time does not subsist of itself. That we may retrospectively introduce our own past is already being discussed in elementary physics. (Though, frankly, there is no reason why there shouldn’t be myriad older intelligent species. )



I have difficulty seeing them as much more than highly developed concepts, the value of which is often questionable in actual actuality.

Point taken, ASU. Absolutely!

For that, indeed, to disprove is the whole objective of this series!

Selena Dreamy said...

Plenty more knickers to come, Mutley (some of them very urgent!)

xxx

Jonathan said...

'Jonathan’s question, though not accompanied by any grasp of scientific theory, competently sums it up: Am I schizophrenic?'

Sorry, which question? The one about the distant planets?

My position is pretty complex; and re scientific theory I never pretended to be an expert in such materialistic esoterica. One must not mistake the map for the territory, with regards to the minds attempts to compass reality.

I have never doubted that our perception of the universe changes the universe. All Im saying is that the Universe is not just the totality of what we perceive regarding it. Oddly enough, we are not God, even though God wants to become us (in my opinion).

My idea of a personal God is perhaps pretty unusual. All my ideas are based on my experiences, not baseless assent to propositions.

As to God upholding the Universe...why not? Would you not look after something if you'd created it?

Jonathan said...

I think I should have written:

"I have never doubted that our perception of the universe changes the universe- FOR US".

The mind sure likes to screw itself up into tangled frenzies. There mst be a reason for this...

Jonathan said...

"Very endearing thought, Jonathan, that distance alone should serve to invalidate an entire epistemological principle."

I wasnt using disatnce as my only device to question macro-solipsism (if that resonates); it just worked as an example.

"why not try to attempt a description of those faraway galaxies - I’m curious to know what they look like when no one is determining them for what they are."

well, obviously they would look like nothing if nobody that I know is there to enlighten me by an inter-stellar communication network. May you had better ask the resident aliens of said planets?:)

'space-time is a conception which can only be derived from relativistic experience...'

Our understanding of space-time yes. Ultimately, outside the universe, there is no time or space as we understand them...but they are important to uis and have integrity in themselves. They impart freedom and localised appropriations of meaning for creatures.

Its weird how we differ in that I dont want to grant to human cognisance the epic powers and God displacing drama that you want to, if i interpret you aright.

Personally i think peoples personal motivations in believing what they want to believe are pretty illuminating.

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely weekend xx

Selena Dreamy said...

The mind sure likes to screw itself up into tangled frenzies. There mst be a reason for this...

...it is not reason which pushes the mind to such tangled frenzies, Jonathan, but the prophetic conception of philosophy as a search for salvation!

And I thank you for that!

Dreamy

Jonathan said...

You are thanking me for the:

'prophetic conception of philosophy as a search for salvation'...?

Not sure I get thy drift.

Anyway, I thought that search (for salvation) would be more theology or mythology than philosophy. I Thought philosophy was more interested in just mapping things, rationally understanding and etc...through which ever type of lense and filter it chose (empirical/rationalist/existentialist etc).

Thats why i gave up philosophy after one term at UNI I think...I sensed this..too limited, lacking in soul. Readings of Gurdjieff confirmed.

Im looking forward to visiting Albion soon...:)