* Olivia Newton John's singing and movie career was hardly something I personally found terribly exciting, but there never seemed any doubt that she was a likeable and decent person in real life, given how well people who knew her spoke about her. (She also came across very well in interviews, and celebrities who do a lot of charity work get a big tick from me too.) So yeah, sad that she didn't get to live longer.
* Ron Howard's dramatisation of the Thai cave rescuse - Thirteen Lives - has got good reviews. Hope I can deal with the claustrophobia aspect though. Watching people in tiny caves can actually make me feel very uncomfortable.
* Schrodinger believed there was only "one mind" in the universe? I think I had probably read that before, but I'm not sure:
In 1925, just a few months before Schrödinger discovered the most basic equation of quantum mechanics, he wrote down the first sketches of the ideas that he would later develop more thoroughly in “Mind and Matter”. Already then, his thoughts on technical matters were inspired by what he took to be greater metaphysical (religious) questions. Early on, Schrödinger expressed the conviction that metaphysics does not come after physics, but inevitably precedes it. Metaphysics is not a deductive affair but a speculative one.Inspired by Indian philosophy, Schrödinger had a mind-first, not matter-first, view of the universe. But he was a non-materialist of a rather special kind. He believed that there is only one mind in the universe; our individual minds are like the scattered light from prisms:
A metaphor that Schrödinger liked to invoke to illustrate this idea is the one of a crystal that creates a multitude of colors (individual selves) by refracting light (standing for the cosmic self that is equal to the essence of the universe). We are all but aspects of one single mind that forms the essence of reality. He also referred to this as the doctrine of identity. Accordingly, a non-dual form of consciousness, which must not be conflated with any of its single aspects, grounds the refutation of the (merely apparent) distinction into separate selves that inhabit a single world.
Yeah Newton john had a limited vocal range and sang boring songs. It got to the absurd when they tried unsuccessful to make her sexy however she certainly had her feet on the ground and put some of her money to good use in trying to overcome some cancer problems.
ReplyDeleteand that movie does sound good as well
Alan Watts had a better analogy:
ReplyDeleteIndividual consciousness is like the droplets of water that rise in the air as the ocean crashes against the rocks that eventually fall back into the ocean of consciousness.
I'm not particularly interested in metaphysical speculations and that includes materialism, of which I have long held doubts because information, the most powerful thing we know of, can be presented in multiple physical substrates so information is not materially dependent. There are those who argue that that physics is reducible to information theory. I'm too ignorant to have any opinion about that but one reason I resent the New Atheists is because there are materialists and they are wrong about that.
"* Schrodinger believed there was only "one mind" in the universe? I think I had probably read that before, but I'm not sure:"
ReplyDeleteThere is only one aether. Thats the thing. We need to work forward from this reality to see what it means for consciousness.
"Inspired by Indian philosophy, Schrödinger had a mind-first, not matter-first, view of the universe."
Well its aether first. Thats pretty clear. But whether that means the consciousness came before matter is not as certain. I know a few Christians who would like to say so.
Well its aether first. Thats pretty clear. But whether that means the consciousness came before matter is not as certain.
ReplyDeleteBut what if it's not just an... aether/or case? ;)
Graeme,
ReplyDeleteIf the aether doesn't exist neither does space therefore neither does space time and nor can nothing be curved.
The idea of one mind is silly. It's just a stab in the dark. I'm fed up with panpsychism because it makes the concept of consciousness meaningless.
Maybe there's one consciousness with many subconsciousness? We are the multiple personality disorder of the Universe!
ReplyDeleteMaybe there's one consciousness with many subconsciousness? We are the multiple personality disorder of the Universe!
ReplyDeleteTim it has been suggested we are the Universe's way of looking at itself.
"If the aether doesn't exist neither does space therefore neither does space time"
ReplyDeleteSpace-time? Come on man. Don't Jive me with that cosmic debris. There is no such thing as time for starters. Though no conscious being can do without the CONCEPT of time since without that concept you cannot organise your memories. Even the language cannot work without the concept of time. Time is just a concept based on regular cyclical movements and memory.
And space? Well some people say that space is just the way we orient objects between each other. So you could argue that there is no such thing as space either. I don't make that argument. Certainly we have evidence for space every waking moment.
But the idea of "space-time": is crazy Jew Jive. There has never been any evidence for any such unicorn. There is no three dimensions of space. There is only ever one dimension and we try and describe it with a three-way co-ordinate system. You have to try and unlearn all that stuff that the ethno-narcissists have forced into your head.
Such a menace to science this racist lobby group.