Artgurl replies:

Welcome to the world of relationships

Damn David...

I understood all of that!

As always, you inject some consideration regarding the concepts of language and meaning within the discussion. The consideration of regarding the relationship between teaching and knowing lies at the 'root', to use your analogy.

It brings into 'light' the importance of not only what one has been taught, but also how well that which has been taught corresponds to that which can be learned as a result of it.

Definitions necessarily constitute boundaries of language which are completely dependent upon meaning.

Energy does nothing all by itself, does it?

This statement illustrates a total breakdown in communication and meanings of words.

1. THE WILL is JUST THE WILL (and is always FREE.)
2. THE WILL IS CAUSE therefore it is not predetermined by cause. IT IS CAUSE.



Let me clarify. Consciousness manifests reality.

Ummm...


Ummm...


Tell that to the dinosaurs!

That statement has no basis. Instantaneous existence does not exist.

You're demanding that Consciousness exist apart from any actuality.

You argument is simply one of PURE FAITH.

How is that different from religion?

You're just claiming that some undefined "conscioness" has free will and is intervening in this otherwise mundane and completely predetermined world.

All you're doing is claiming the existence of divine spirit that is seperate from this world in the sense that it operates on a different principle.

I have no problem with that, but lets face it, that's a PURE FAITH assumption that has absolutely no evidence or scientific basis. Plus it places spirit outside of this universe and acting on it in an intervening way!

If that's what you beleive then perhaps you should reconsider Christianity.

Quantum Mechanics allows for a completely pantheistic world. No need for any outside consciouness to intervene. What you see is what you get. This is it. All is one.

No need to seperate spirit from this universe. It's all one being.

Dinosaurs do not exist.

Good point!

I have evidence that backs up my theory.

Dinosaurs do not exist.

Therefore, it follows that all that exists must exist NOW in this present moment.

Not in the past, not in the future.

Time indeed exists, and is required to do so in order to even be able to contemplate your statement that it does not.

Circular?

That is like holding an orange in your hand while claiming that it did not exist before so.

No that is NOT what I am claiming. And it is NOT based on pure faith. I have evidence that backs up my theory.

How is the universe dissimilar to billiard ball game? The balls do not move on their own to the pockets. When you rack them and break, there are an infinite number of possibilities that can affect the end position of the balls, but one could not say that it is a randomness that caused those balls to come to rest there. It was the interaction of those balls with each other, with cue, the player, the environment, the table, etc.. The end result of that event could be measured using physics and geometry.

In our current understanding of the universe, we believe everything began with the big bang. So all events at some level owe their progeny to the big bang. There is your single cause. If we could know all the factors involved in the big bang and we had the mental capacity and time we could measure that event and if we could see the universe laid out in time line we could see how everything that happens had a cause.

I want to say that I would like to entertain this line of thought, and will do so later...

Until then, I am sure that James has much to offer!

The only thing that i can express at this time is that billiard balls and their 'world' do not offer an explanation for the unpredictability contained within human behavior. Some call it 'free will', although I would not choose to do so because that would necessarily involve freely choosing, which I hold cannot be done. However, the unconscious elements are not the same, and I believe that those are what cause the unpredictability in our behavior.

More later...

I am not advocating any "outside" entity or consciousness. Consciousness dwells within us. We arise from that core.

All behavior can be boiled down to chemical reactions to external and internal stimuli, free will is an illusion created by humans. Randomness is like the olden days claims of attributing all things intangible in the human mind to a soul or spirit, it is just a way explaining that which we do not yet understand.

I still hold then that you are necessarily in agreement with me if this is your stance.

If you are claiming that Consciousness dwells within us and we arise from that core and we can make Free Will choices (i.e. choices that are based purely on random whim and not rigidly predetermined by cause), then ultimately you are agreeing that there is a random essence at the core of our existence.

That's all I've been claiming all along.

I would have to differ with you dramatically on this.

Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Observations, Quantum Actuality (i.e. experimental evidence) all suggest otherwise.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Complementarity, Quantum Entanglement, the EPR argument and Bells Theorem, all suggest that the randomness that we obvserve in quantum phenemonon are not due to a mere limitation in our understanding, but are indeed a directly property of nature.

In other words, even nature herself cannot know ahead of time what the results will be.

This is a fundamental requirement of Quantum Systems.

And it's not just theory.

Technologists are actually using quantum technology to do things that would otherwise be impossible to do if these conclusions were not true.

The randomness of quantum mechanics is real.

You can talk about it in terms of forfeiting the barrier of the speed of light if you wish, but if you pay very close attention to that path you will see that you must also forfeit any concept of temporal cause and effect to do that.

So yes, while that path leads to similar results it doesn't preserve anything.

Once you do way with the concept of time, all cause and effect goes out the window.

What have you got left but total randomness?

The key is in the concept complentarity the impossiblity of any event in this universe to have anymore than one "perfectly" defined trait at a time.

That's the KEY!

If you want to change one of it's traits all you need to do is put your finger on one of those traits, and the other trait is then free to become whatever you wish it to become.

It's a universe that is a balancing act of part cause and effect, and part randomness.

There will never be a time when that will change, unless the very nature of the unviverse itself changes!

This property of the universe has already been observed!

It's not just a theory.

In fact, people are already designing computers that take advantage of these facts.

And the Bose-Einstein condensates are bringing the quantum behavior into the MACRO WORLD! So keep an eye out for that technology to blossom as well.

Newton's universe is dead. Bless its soul.

The quantum universe is our 'new reality', although it's been our reality all along actually.

Scientists have used new optical technologies to observe interactions in nanoscale systems that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle usually would prohibit, according to a study published Jan. 17 [2008] in the journal Nature.