The Present State of Physics, Mathematics, and Science

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your reply. Indeed, it is important trying to sort out facts from fiction. I totally agree.

But I would like to apply that also to what you call "physics". All we have in physics are patterns. Mathematical patterns and patterns of behaviour. And we have explanations that use terms (symbols) which point to things that we not really understand, for example "particle", "energy", "time", "space", "information", "number". In this sense we permanently handle partial unknowns - and thanks to the fact that these terms relate to the external world via patterns that everybody can see and prove to be existent - we are in the situation to calculate with them and get reliable results, although we are calculating with partial unknowns.

This calculating with partial unknowns surely can and does also happen when the brain processes internal information, means when it examines beliefs, hence unknowns, to find out their truth values. It is surely true that these "unknowns" are not the same as "nothing", they are not placeholders but surely can be understood as codifications, as high level symbols. It is also true that in my example with Galileo Galilei, for coming to his result he had to use some physical terms (symbols) like for example force and weight that had not been internal confabulations of his brain, but did come to him from the external world. But force and weight are mainly quantitative measures of something he at his time couldn't further specify, and in this sense they had been unknowns for him. Nonetheless he arrived at the correct result.

Leaving aside scriptures about God, we can surely think about what the possible consequences could be if such a God did exist. We can do this in the same way as for example thinking about what the consequences would be if the universe would be infinitely old (as some people believe).

If we for example scribble a time-line on a paper with a point somewhere on it that symbolizes our present (here and now), then for a universe that is infinitely old (always existed) this time-line is infinite in the left direction (in the past direction). We now can ask if such a belief in an infinite linear time does make sense or not. If we would like to trace this line from our present back to the left, we logically couldn't come to any starting point of that time-line since it continues infinitely long to the left.

If we now additionally think that this universe and everything in it evolves according to strictly deterministic laws and causes, then - as a matter of fact - at the point on our scribble (our present) parts of the matter in that universe deterministically formed our known patterns (humans, planets, suns). But how can that be, since a strictly deterministic chain of events necessarily had to have needed an infinite amount of time to arrive at our present moment - and therefore we and our world logically could never exist? The only answer I know to this is that in such an infinite universe there would be surely no single distinguished point where our present had to happen on that infinite time line, but there had to be infinitely many such points: in other words there had to have happened infinitely many exact copies or our known universe in such an infinite past. Including the exact copies of you and me with the exact same conversations.

One now can believe that this is the scenario that really describes the course of events in our universe - or one can decide to drop one of its assumptions, either that strict determinism is all there is to explain all events or that time is something that did exist always in the past. Surely, when doing such a line of reasoning, I have to operate also with "knowns" and not only with unknowns. For example I must assume that what mathematics says about infinities is true, complete and reliable. And I must interpret the term "time" such that causes are always prior to their effects.

IF I now would additionally bring in what your main point is - on which I agree with you -

namely that

"This "discriminat[ion] between it's parts" aspect is the consciousness/ knowledge/ logical/ information aspect of the world that is experienced by agents: it can't be represented by equations."

THEN I would conclude that I at least had to drop the assumption that strict determinism is all there is to explain all events in the world.

But there will be people that do not agree with you for several reasons. Let's only focus on those people that do not agree because they believe in the above mentioned strict determinism. For me it is logical that they then had to drop the assumption that time is something that did exist always in the past - IF they do not agree that a universe that is infinite in time has already produced infinitely many copies of our universe and will proceed to do so (no escape here for people that believe in a "Big Freeze" of our universe in the future, since in an infinitely old deterministic universe that already must have happened and that would be in contradiction with our present facts).

There are quite a lot of IF...THENs in my considerations. So here is another one:

IF human thinking and consciousness is exclusively only the result of deterministic physical processes, THEN only some complex "information" processing (brains) can use IF....THEN logics to determine the consequences of some unknowns. But wait a minute, according to that strict determinism, already all mechanical parts of what you have called the "perpetual movement machine" act according to that IF...THEN logics, since they are thought of as permanently determining the consequences of some unknowns. The unknowns are the "numbers", or likewise the positions and momenta etc. Neither these mechanical parts know these values, nor do humans know these values. Hence, what these mechanical parts do does not depend on any knowledge. But nonetheless, IF position and momentum of X is such and position and momentum of Y is such, THEN A and B happens if both meet.

Now the strict determinist would say, wait another moment: for all the mechanical parts there isn't really such an IF...THEN in our world, since whatever these mechanical parts have done in the past and will do in the future, all this is completely determined - and consequently also all my lines of reasoning and the accompanying emotions I have.

I say IF that would be so, THEN the assumption that

"only some complex "information" processing (brains) can use IF....THEN logics to determine the consequences of some unknowns"

must be false since there wouldn't be any "IF....THEN logics" anywhere, not even in the human brain. The contradiction here is that one can come to that conclusion by directly using that "IF... THEN logics.

Notice that the reason for that contradiction is that we can handle counterfactuals as if they where facts. Galileo did this and we can too. Now, a counterfactual in my brain is not only a counterfactual, but also a fact - since it is in my brain. So we can simulate something as if it where real, whereby the simulation is indeed real. So a strictly deterministic world then is able to simulate some things AS IF they would be parts of that world - but aren't. In fact, that's what brains do strikingly often.

The crucial point now is in my opinion that this behaviour of brains obviously is goal oriented - by using counterfactual simulations brains try to determine some facts, they try to sort fictions from facts. Therefore the big question is why a strictly deterministic world at some point in time aims to know what are facts about itself and what are fictions. If one assumes a strict determinism to be true, then brains are part of that. Why should these brains trying to sort out fictions from facts, something that must be considered as goal-oriented? All this happens in an assumed-to-be deterministic world where it is believed that there cannot exist any goals at all in it.

Dear strict determinists, please do not confuse natural selection (survival etc.) with your strictly deterministic world to explain why brains try to sort out facts from fictions, since within the framework of strict determinism, natural selection (survival etc.) with all its effects that have happened in the past was strictly determined: it can only be furthermore interpreted as a selection process if one would bring in some (goal-oriented) conspiratorial elements that aimed to make that selection process happening at the very beginning - and hence would necessitate such a beginning (initial conditions etc.). Or one is forced to believe in the above mentioned universe that is infinite in time and therefore has enough time to assemble anything that is physically possible in principle - infinitely often.

So the next questions are: is there any evidence for or against such an infinite deterministic time-line? If the world is strictly deterministic, then neither particles nor human beings need any knowledge to be what they are and to act like they do.

Why is there nonetheless some knowledge existent and what does it mean that it nonetheless exists? If it's existence only means that it exists, then also the existence of a strict determinism only means that it exists, what amounts to the conclusion that everything really means nothing - what would be another astonishing piece of knowledge possible in our universe.

If everything means nothing then there are no reasons to stick to any kind of world view. Nonetheless people don't stop to stick to world views, not even strict determinists. So obviously these world views mean something to them such that they can't skip them: they stick to counterfactual meanings and at the same time affirm that counterfactuals have no place in the world!

(continued)

I am in the mood to make a tiny continuation of my previous post.

For everybody who has read that previous post an thinks that the people who believe in a strict determinism and find that world view meaningful - albeit at the same time affirming that the term "meaning" has no fundamental place in a deterministic world (only a relative one, if at all) - are simply forced by the deterministic courses of events to think so, I would reply the following:

Wouldn't your objection MEAN that your deterministic world view is a consistently closed system? Wouldn't your objection MEAN that this consistently closed system is somewhat self-explanatory?

I would answer both questions with YES.

BUT I nonetheless would object the world view of a strict determinism for the following reasons:

Firstly, we know that there can be constructed many systems that are logically consistent, but this does not mean that each and every such system must be non-counterfactual. Not every consistent system can be automatically considered as being able to describe all of reality.

Secondly, isn't it somewhat MEANINGFUL that a strict deterministic world, populated with some conscious computers (humans), plays out its deterministic movie AS IF there would indeed be some deeper meaning behind that movie? Isn't it somewhat MEANINGFUL that every detail of that movie is logically ordered such that there are different levels of description that are switched from time to time when the movie for example shows natural selection at work, or chemical reactions, or encodings of symbols and complex data processing?

Thirdly, isn't it somewhat MEANINGFUL that some conscious computers (humans) within that movie begin to think about that movie and like to understand what they see?

Fourthly, isn't it somewhat MEANINGFUL that points 1-4 are POSSIBLE at all? Even a universe that is infinite in time is not forced by anything to make points 1-4 POSSIBLE, so the hard-core deterministic story goes.

So, if a multiverse, or a single infinite universe is nonetheless forced to make points 1-4 possible, what could these forces then be? And if it is not forced to make points 1-4 possible, how then can one explain points 1-4 being FACTS?

A strict determinism can only answer that these FACTS cannot be explained, since there are no reasons at all existent for that to happen. Strict determinism only can shrug it's shoulders to that question or declare it as being meaningless.

Effectively that declaration amounts in declaring everything as being meaningless: consequently everything means NOTHING. But nothing can only come from nothing, whereas something can only come from something.

So where did our world came from - and does that world exist at all? Of course it exists and it didn't came from nothing. But strict determinism nonetheless argues AS IF it came from nothing, in the same sense that a strict determinist believes he came from nothing and will end up in nothing. If true, his world view also means NOTHING. Because in the absence of any consciousness, although there may be everything (except consciousness), no one would know this and hence there also could be absolutely nothing.

BUT: there is not nothing and there is not everything, there is "only" something. I consider that as a mystery.

Like followers drawn into a cult, little do those young people who love physics know that they are buying into a view of the world in which it was the laws of nature that were responsible for flying the planes into the twin towers, NOT people that were responsible for flying the planes into the twin towers.

As Rick Lockyer has made clear, an arrogant male dominated physics proclaims to the world that it was the laws of nature, and nothing but the laws of nature, that flew the planes into the twin towers.

Oh yes, the physics PR b**llsh**t is that people did it.

But the actual physics, that these arrogant men religiously believe in, says that the laws of nature are responsible for every number outcome for every variable.

Rick,

I didn't make clear in the above post [1], but I have repeatedly said ad nauseam, that in the real world there are relationships, categories and numbers which we symbolically represent by equations, variables and number symbols. But I often just say equations, variables and numbers as a shorthand, because otherwise the whole thing just gets a bit unwieldy.

I'm saying that:

(1) The necessary, fundamental aspect of the world that discerns difference in the equations, variables and numbers; and

(2) The necessary, fundamental aspect of the world that assigns new numbers to variables in response to situations that are discerned (e.g. a higher-level situation might be that a tiger is approaching, and there are trees and cars nearby),

can only be symbolically represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

.....................

1. Lorraine Ford wrote on Oct. 11, 2021 @ 21:17 GMT

Stefan,

Sorry, but I don't think that there is any greater meaning than the meaning (i.e. subjective experience, and philosophy of life) that individual living things experience. I mean that there is no greater purpose to the world, there are no greater lessons for people to learn than what they are already learning. I give credence to the lives of people, and other living things, in that they experience genuine tragedy, and beauty, in their lives. Nothing, no afterlife, no God, can compensate for tragedy and wrongdoing. I give credence to the lives of individual people and individual living things: if you will excuse me for saying so, we are not pawns in the game of a higher being. Instead, if there is a God, then we (particles, atoms, molecules and living things) are all a part of this thing.

But I'm agreeing with you that there are aspects of the world that physics can't represent with equations, variables and numbers.

I'm saying that these aspects of the world are 100% necessary in order for the world to function as a system; and that these aspects of the world can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

Obviously, this type of world is a VERY, VERY different type of world to the type of world that physics, mathematics and philosophy claim we live in.

P.S.

But I agree that: "there is not nothing and there is not everything, there is "only" something. I consider that as a mystery.". However, I would say that we (particles, atoms, molecules and living things) are all a PART of this mysterious thing: we are not a PRODUCT of this mysterious thing.

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your reply.

I am happy that you agree with me on that mystery that I mentioned.

In my opinion it is worth to examine this mystery a little bit more, what I will do here.

As I already mentioned, a strictly deterministic view of the world can be considered as being "self-explanatory". Everything in such a world follows necessarily from something other.

But such a strictly deterministic world cannot explain why it exists at all. Its mere existence does not (at least not obviously!) follow necessarily from something other. Therefore it cannot explain why itself is at all possible to exist.

So, although some consistent systems like strict determinism are "self-explanatory" by virtue of their internal consistency, their explanatory power must break down at a certain limit (just like General Relativity).

Consequently, no self-consistent system, defined as strictly deterministic, can determine the answer to the question why such a system is possible in the first place. Notice that strictly deterministic systems can only handle necessities, but not possibilities. Logics is at the border of being able to somewhat handle both.

Consequently, if we do NOT assume something to be existent that is responsible for the existence of such a deterministic world, then asking what's the reason for the existence of this world is surely an illogical question.

But the assumption that our world exists for no reason at all is equal to assuming that this world either came out of literally nothing - or factually existed eternally in the past.

However, it must be noticed that both assumptions are somewhat illogical: Whenever something can come from nothing, then everything can come from nothing, even the contrary. And whenever something existed forever for no reason, then it cannot be excluded by some logical arguments that it is impossible for it to vanish into literally nothing in a blink of an eye for no reason at all.

Thus, the intermediate result so far is that logics breaks down when we do not consider logic as something that is superior to all the existing rest, but consider it as being just a mysterious part of all the rest. Now let's proceed.

Let's assume that logics IS NOT superior to all the rest but simply a part of our world and nothing more - a contingency amongst other contingencies.

Then consequently the "self-explanatory" system of strict determinism wasn't determined to exist by anything at all. This in turn amounts to saying that literally its existence was determined by NOTHING. So it can also vanish into literally NOTHING at every point in time.

The logical problem here is that with denying any reasons for a self-consistent system to be existent, one introduces a severe logical inconsistency, because logics as we know it is such a system.

Furthermore, since in a world that is not logical, everything as well as nothing can come from literally nothing and also can vanish into literally nothing, this is EQUAL to an inconsistency. Since we know that from inconsistencies everything can follow, there is no real reason to believe that everything should follow from some logical deductions necessarily all the time without exceptions (means, it could then also only possibly follow from such deductions, but must not do so).

The next intermediate result therefore is, that if we do not consider logics as superior to the mantra of "deterministic information processing", then we can put a lot of our "knowledge" about the world into question - because inconsistent systems can disprove a lot of what we at this point in time derived by virtue of science with the help of "logics".

This tells me that denying any existent reason for why there is "something" instead of literally nothing OR why there is "something" instead of literally everything (everything one can imagine for example) is simply illogical.

Now, I arrived at these conclusions via logics. The conclusion is that the question about the reason for the existence of our world can be defined as being illogical. Because logics simply breaks down at this limit. But it is assumed to hold when we do not touch this limit, means within the boundaries of known science.

Sentence 1): So, logics within the boundary of science is logical for no reason, whereas logics beyond the boundary of science is illogical for no reasons.

Wow - could this be the whole story? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Because assuming what I wrote in sentence 1) is just an AD HOC ASSUMPTION, not a proven fact.

What are the consequences of all of that?

Either existence is illogical and senseless at its very foundations (means it has NO "foundations"), or it is logical at its very foundations (means it has some logical foundations).

Sentence 2): Obviously, something can either be (considered as) logical or (considered as) be illogical depending on what one assumes!

But wait a minute! Has sentence 2) been drawn by the power of logic or by the power of illogics? Or is the answer to that question simply "that depends on you only!"? I would say yes to that question, as illogical as it sounds at first glance. For me it could indicate that humans obviously have a degree of "free will" that enables them to even define logics as illogical and vice versa.

With that we are approaching the limits of human logics. At least we can say that human logics is possibly not what it seems to be. It possibly can transcend the deterministic system of ordinary logics and touch a realm about I would say that it cannot any more be precisely determined within a deterministic system, but only outside of it.

I further would say that our best physical theory today, quantum mechanics with its somewhat weird consequences may not be such weird when having touched the limits of logics as I did so far.

Please notice Lorraine, that the main point you always wanted to make, namely that there is a striking inconsistency between a physical description of a reality of deterministically evolving "numbers" and the dichotomy of a certain degree of "free will" in conscious agents only proves your conclusion (according to the standards of human logics) that

"this type of world is a VERY, VERY different type of world to the type of world that physics, mathematics and philosophy claim we live in"

to be LOGICAL - WHEN you ASSUME that logics is logically reliable independent of being applied within the boundaries of science or beyond the boundaries of science.

IF you do not assume that logics is somewhat superior to the existence of all the rest, THEN it is NOT logically guaranteed that the point you want to make tells us some TRUTH about the world. Because when logics isn't universally reliable, then it may well be that humans use IF....THEN logics all the time - BUT for no LOGICALLY explainable reason at all and therefore your arguments do not prove anything!

In other words, you can only deduce with logical certainty what you want to deduce if you accept that some kind of deeper logics is superior to all the physical equations, all the maths and all the IF....THEN conditionality. But this can not be guaranteed by only the AD HOC assumption that logics is reliable within the boundaries of science whereas it does not need to be reliable beyond the boundaries of science.

Surely, nonetheless this could be the case. But in my opinion it would be an AD HOC argument, equivalent to the ad hoc argument that asking for a deeper explanation of existence is illogical.

Hence, you can only deduce with logical certainty what you want to deduce if you accept something that has been termed as LOGOS - even if we humans cannot understand this logos completely.

It is known that when a system reaches its limits of applicability, the results become somewhat ambiguous at first glance, since these results cannot be captured by the old framework unambiguously. I would say that quantum theory is such an application at the limit of a strictly deterministic framework and it points to something beyond it that at first glance may seem equally fuzzy than a precise distinction between logics and illogics. Both ambiguities in my opinion point to something not yet fully known and understood.

Of course, it may also point to an abyss whose borders say that beyond these borders, there is no more knowledge existent, because beyond these borders there isn't any more anything existent. NOTHING. But as I tried to explain, the consequences would be that there would be no logos, no guarantees that our "deductions" really can and do deduce some truth.

What I further tried to do with this in turn lengthy post is to examine what consequences an illogical world would have, compared to a logical one. Here we have to stick and to work with what we have, namely human logics, even if stressed to its limits.

(continued)

I like to make one point from my previous post clearer.

When I say that there are no guarantees that your deduction really can and does deduce what you believe it deduces - and when I say that

"it may well be that humans use IF....THEN logics all the time - BUT for no LOGICALLY explainable reason at all and therefore your arguments do not prove anything!"

it has to be understood as follows:

Your correct observation that there is IF....THEN procedures existent, that these procedures can nowhere be found in our scientific theories - although these theories claim to be complete and consistent - only leads to the deduction that these theories aren't really complete and consistent when you stick to all necessary logical steps to be able to obtain that result.

If you do not stick to all these steps, your result will be non-conclusive.

Non-conclusiveness - for example by having used a false assumption - in your case means the following:

The equations of our current theories do not use IF....THEN procedures, whereas such procedures are nonetheless part of the real world (human thinking and behaviour, "free will"). This indicates that the real world is in opposition to what physics and its equations say about the real world - therefore there is something wrong with what physics says about the real world.

So far so good. But if you assume that the logics you used to come to your result must be considered as something that exists - for no reason at all, in the same sense that the existence of our universe, its beauty, our emotions and imaginations would have no reason at all - then there may be nothing wrong with what physics says about the world and there may be nothing wrong with what you say about "free will".

The only thing that is then wrong - for the case that logics isn't universally applicable due to the (assumed!) lack of a deeper meaning of its existence - is that it cannot be any more excluded that two mutually exclusive things can simply be possible to exist in such an illogical world: namely that what you say (we have "free will") and what physics says (we have no "free will") are both TRUE.

I hope I made it clearer with that post where I see the weakness in your arguments and where I would see the power in your arguments.

Rick,

You CLAIM that people were genuinely responsible for flying planes into the twin towers.

But in order to be GENUINELY responsible, people have to assign numbers to their own position variables [1] for their own hands, arms, legs, and vocal cords etc. etc.

But you can't seem to explain how the world could be such that people could assign numbers to their own position variables.

I.e. you can't seem to explain how the world could be such that people could be GENUINELY responsible for flying planes into the twin towers.

1. More correctly, equations, variables and number symbols are just symbols that are used to represent the actual reality. These symbols are the way physicists would symbolically represent the following fundamental aspects of the world: lawful relationships, categories of information (like position or energy), and numbers respectively.

Stefan,

There are seemingly 2 aspects of logic: the general mechanism of logic (which can be symbolically represented), and the concept of logic (which is like a single word that summarises the mechanism).

(1) The general mechanism of logic:

People can't avoid using logic. But if one wants to discuss the topic of logic itself, the best that one can do is to try to be logical about logic.

And the best way to do this is to use symbols to represent a standalone system, and then one can examine the standalone system and how it works.

This standalone system is nothing but a whole lot of symbols, including symbols representing the law of nature relationships (symbolised by equations), and symbols representing logic and agency (symbolised by Boolean and algorithmic symbols).

Clearly, logic is not really separable from differentiation (discerning difference), knowledge, consciousness, and information.

The essence of what one can do with logic (symbolised by Boolean and algorithmic symbols) is to collate, analyse and summarise a lower-level information situation (which might be symbolically represented as numbers that apply to variables). It's only via the collation and analysis of this lower-level information that one can derive higher-level concepts/ categories of information like "tiger" and "tree".

(2) The concept of logic:

"Logic" is itself a higher-level concept, just like "tiger" and "tree". But the word "logic" is not the reality of logic, just like the word "tiger" is not the reality of the tiger. When communicating, people represent these higher-level concepts with written and spoken words.

Lorraine,

isn't it a bit of a stretch to assert that for for anyone to be truly responsible for their actions, they must assign numbers to variables (and etc.) when the simple reality is that human beings are not very smart and we do a lot of really stupid things. Those people on 9/11 acted as they did because they decided somewhere along the way that they had discovered something that everybody else just absolutely had to know and accept to save society from itself, you can find the same thing in all walks of life including the sciences. jrc

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your reply. I agree with all of what you wrote, although my example with the word as the Logos wasn't meant to be understood literally, but as a summation of an (yet) unknown but nonetheless existent principle of intelligence. But I like to add something else.

Ultimate reality (whatever it is) is the biggest existing stand-alone system - the totality. So i am concerned with asking what's the - logical - reason for the existence of that totality, about which the prevailing conception of physics assumes to know everything (in the future?). The answer is that there is no precise, logical, generally applicable answer existent to that question.

Since a precise, logical, generally applicable answer to that question is neither existent within that totality and surely also not beyond it (per definition), the fact that it exists must be at least considered as non-rational in the traditional sense.

The question then arises whether non-rational things can also occur within that totality. I see no logical reason to assume that this is impossible, no logical reason other than it would defy our logics. The fact that it would defy our logic can only be a logical in-principle reason against the existence of non-rational things when we assume logics to reign over all of that totality (in the same sense in which a human being reigns over its mental concepts, theories, ideas and symbols, but more intelligent and without errors, without inconsistencies).

That logics should reign over all of totality is merely an assumption, not a proven fact. It is an assumption that cannot be proven to be true or false due to in-principle reasons. These in-principle reasons are the same why one cannot prove or disprove that reality indeed follows the equations of physics in each and every case, equations which are believed to be capable of for example predicting (or describing) precisely the movement of a water-vortex (in my bath tube when I pull the peg).

Of course, many physicists will say that the mere idea that this water-vortex could not (completely) follow the equations of physics is a deeply irrational idea. If true, it nonetheless would show that deeply irrational things are at least at some level existent within the mentioned totality, namely in my imagination.

The connection with the contradiction you found is that in a totality that has no rational means at hand to watertightly prohibit that illogical things can happen qua the power of inconsistency, one cannot draw an unambiguous conclusion form a contradiction, since from a contradiction within an inconsistent system can follow everything, including the contrary.

Only if one assumes that no such inconsistencies are possible within that totality, I would consider the contradiction you found as meaningful in the sense that it is a strong logical argument for the existence of free will. Of course, I do not believe in non-rational things to happen, since I think all things happen for certain reasons, although not always being equal to deterministic causes. So I consider your argument as a strong argument.

On the other hand it could well be that we live in a world that allows some irrationality such that it exactly follows the known laws of physics, even in the brain, but nonetheless there would be genuine free will for human beings (and animals).

THIS would indeed be genuinely unexplainable but nonetheless true in the same sense that the existence of the totality itself is unexplainable but nonetheless true, since it exists. The mentioned irrationality would mean that there is genuine free will for human beings (and animals), and at the same time there is NO free will for human beings (and animals) - for no logically reasons, because there wouldn't exist such reasons at all - in the same sense that the mentioned totality is assumed to exist for no reasons at all.

That scenario of contradictory existences couldn't be proven to be true or false due to the in-principle impossibilities I mentioned above and therefore most of us would consider such contradictory existences as nonsense. Most of us do believe that it is nonsense (as I do) and they have faith, but due to what I so far wrote they (and I) do not really have logics at their sides - as long as they don't make certain additional assumptions about the ontological status of logics itself.

Why can't physics explain how the world could be such that people could be GENUINELY responsible for flying planes into the twin towers?

Why would physics refuse to countenance the only possible GENUINE explanation of responsibility, i.e. the view that matter/ living things/ people are actually assigning some new numbers to the position variables for their own bodies [1]?

Answer:

(1) Because that view of the world would be against physicists' deepest religious beliefs about the fundamental nature of the world.

(2) Because physicists have never thought that it was necessary to understand real-world numbers (the numbers that apply to the variables) and how a number system might work.

(3) Because there can be no equations to explain people assigning the numbers to their own variables; you need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols to represent people assigning the numbers to their own variables in response to situations people face.

........................

1. More correctly, equations, variables and number symbols are just a way of symbolically representing the underlying reality of the world: lawful relationships, categories of information (like position or energy), and numbers respectively.

Stefan,

I think that we collectively (particles, atoms, molecules, living things) are the thing that exists; and we are the thing that knows; and we are the thing that acts. I.e. the thing that exists, exists in a particulate form. We can't really say why this is so. And we can't really say whether the parts once existed as a whole.

But I think that we are not a product of a separately existing external thing. Physics says that separately existing external Platonic laws of nature caused the product; religion says that a separately existing external God caused the product.

But I would say that it is an inside job: we internally existing things (particles, atoms, molecules, living things) collectively caused the product.

This is a different worldview to the highfalutin ideas of religion and physics. This is more like an indigenous religious worldview where human beings are not the special chosen ones that (e.g.) Christianity or Islam seem to think human beings are. This is a totally different attitude to the world to the attitude of (e.g.) Christianity or Islam, where the world is merely the means to an end; the desired end being individual human beings "saving" themselves, and being rewarded with eternal life. The attitude of (e.g.) Christianity or Islam is that human beings are special, different, and apart from the rest of the world.

John,

I am NOT talking about whether human beings are smart or dumb, or good or bad. I am talking about what is requited for human beings to be GENUINELY RESPONSIBLE for their actions, and how one would symbolically represent this.

Oops. "Required", not "requited".

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your reply and your honest words. I enjoy that kind of honest conversation very much.

As you maybe know I do not like to read plain assertions without any justification of why someone who claims something does claim it and without writing her/his lines of reasoning about how they arrived at all at their conclusions. Otherwise we could simply wrote a one-liner with an assumption or a claim and that would be it.

Therefore, because it was me who introduced the issue of God and the issue of Christianity, I like to tell you and the reader a bit more about how I see the several issues I mentioned so far. Not because I want to convert anyone to Christianity, but simply because my mentioning of it can cause irritations about how and why I arrived at it and how it could relate to science.

As you already know, I believe that we are responsible for our actions as well as our thoughts, since actions - at least actions with certain consequences - follow from thoughts.

Your are honest in your replies, what I see in that you confess that we really can't say with certainty why the world is like it is and whether or not our detectable universe with all that is in it once was in a state of non-separation from a higher "thing". And you are intelligent enough to not advertise what you believe as facts, but instead label it as thoughts, as a world view. I appreciate this honesty.

For me, if the world wouldn't really be a kind of remnant of what once had been a much better, non-separated state within a higher intelligence (God), then I think I had to consider, at the end of the day, everything what happened and happens within this mysterious totality as well as the existence of that totality itself must be totally senseless and meaningless. That totality may be stable and it may work perfectly, but for no reasons and hence, the fact that it works perfectly and is stable is meaningless when considered from the point of view that we all have to die at some not so far away point in time, many of us after having suffered severe pain and injustice.

Now, I think that I am not alone with this kind of feeling. To the contrary, almost every human being at least once or twice in its lifetime is faced with that kind of feeling. And if one then further thinks about all of it (and has the time to do so), it may get much worse. So I think that for example the people who committed 9/11 where people that thought Islam solves that existential problem for them. Anyway, I think this was not all what lead to 9/11. There also must have been a severe kind of subliminal aggression against how the world and the people in it are have been present in these persons (compared to how they would like it to be) to commit the actions they did.

In fact, I think a part of all human-made tragedy can be ascribed to the fact that the people who cause these kind of tragedy haven't coped with living in an assumed-to-be meaningless world. Another version of that is the "devil-may-care" attitude of people. Of course, all these tragedy raises severe pain and questions for the victims of these human-made tragedy (inclusive murdering and other bad things) about the meaning and appreciation of their existences and those of their loved ones. In fact, there are things that happen to people about one can say with confidence that these people didn't deserve them in any way - be it man-made tragedy or natural, contingent desaster.

Hence, naturally the question arises of how all of this can be reconciled with the idea of God in Christianity that is supposed to be good and loving. As a first answer, in my opinion this should not depend on whether God considers (some) human beings as special chosen ones (maybe amongst other created beings, aliens etc.). If you have more than one child, I think most of us would love each and every one of them AS IF it would be the only child. And I think that must be also true for God's view. I do not know whether or not God also created other lifeforms at other locations than earth.

Nonetheless all of this does not answer why there are so much bad and painful things in OUR world and how one can reconcile that fact with the idea of such a God.

I would suspect that this has something to do with free will. If one indeed assumes that there has been a state of non-separation from a good an loving God, then there must be a reason why that isn't any more so.

If one accepts free will to be existent, it then could also have existed for every single living entity during that state of non-separation from God. The only way I can reasonably imagine how our world with its huge amounts of bad and painful things in it came about is to assume that certain beings equipped with a soul and free will within that non-separated state from God asked themselves "how would it be like to be separated from God?". This then would be a counterfactual question at this point of affairs.

That question then is equivalent to asking "How would things be when there would be no God?".

Obviously, in our world we live, we can see how it is to be separated from God and how it would be when there would be no God.

Furthermore I think it is important to notice that the assumptions I made so far and further will make for explaining evil, pain and senselessness in this world should not be interpreted as a kind of funny game these souls started to play. Because in my opinion this would not be a game (for example like hide and seek), but rather in many individual cases unfortunately a very real bad choice. This implies that nonetheless, God allowed its beings to make choices, even the choice of separating oneself from God and I have to accept this free will in the same way that I had to accept free will when there indeed would be no such God existent.

Furthermore I have to accept that choices have consequences.

Several posts above you wrote that

"Nothing, no afterlife, no God, can compensate for tragedy and wrongdoing".

Yes, as beautiful as this world may be (and is), I agree with that. But if you believe in an afterlife and at least in parts of the bible, then God will dry the tears of those who had to live through severe pain, despair and injustice. Afterlife then means the realm where all of that tragedy began in the first place. I believe that this realm really exists, since in our world there are many different non-common sense phenomena that hint in exactly that direction. But here is not the place to discuss them.

What about evil?

According to what I wrote so far, evil at least is the absence of God, the separation, its at least the absence of a certain amount of love and goodwill events. I do not exclude that there are some real evil entities existent that made its way also into our known world. But I do not want to focus to much on that kind of evil here. Fact is that some people commit crimes and all kinds of other things for the exclusive reason of torturing other people because the former really like torturing others.

My explanation scheme does also not exclude the possibility that some entities that decided to experience what is is like to be separated from God will not find their ways back to non-separation with God. At least not in the next couple of aeons, since I think (not know!) that people who lived a life of passion for evil which cannot be any more compensated for themselves (unless these people deeply pray for forgiveness and deeply ask their victims for forgiveness) and others cannot enter any kind of heaven again due to free will: they will experience what they freely decided to experience, namely

what it is like to be separated from God.

And honestly I think this will be a rather hellish experience.

Therefore I do not think that we are pawns in the game of a higher being, as you wrote in a reply somewhere above. Rather I would say what anyway is obvious in this world, namely that some people blame their bad decisions on God, thereby using God as a pawn in their responsibility games. Surely, with that I do not refer to those people that suffer(ed) from desaster and tragedy they themselves have neither caused nor wished to happen to them. These cases are clearly existent.

And clearly, it is really difficult to explain all that kind of suffering in front of the background-assumption of an existing God. At least I have no other explanation for this suffering than what I presented here. In the revelation of John - if one takes it seriously - God promised to dry at least all the tears of those that suffered (horrible) injustice.

Nonetheless, please notice that I do not judge nor know who will make it into heaven and not (except for the cases I above mentioned I do judge), since I know that I really do not know everything. I think the answer to that last question is really a matter between God and every person personally, in the sense that it matters what one has done or/and hasn't done during one's lifetime and with which motivations and intentions that came about and/or did not came about. But again, this is only my subjective explanation since I do not know everything. I am neither in the position to finally judge all people nor to finally know everything. And I think each and everyone of us is also not in that position.

Stefan,

I'm sorry, but I'm sick of the puffed-up self-importance of human beings: they are specialists just like fish and birds are specialists; they are not special. People are exactly the same stuff as the rest of the world, the same stuff as particles, atoms, molecules and other living things, and even the same stuff as rocks.

Living things have advanced information about their situation in the world, and they have an advanced ability to have a genuine effect on the world, only because these information and agency aspects of the world already existed in primitive form from the start. And these information and agency aspects only ever existed in primitive form because they were necessary in order to have a working system.

While people might think "heaven", "evil", "good", or "tiger", only the tiger really exists. However, the idea of "heaven", "evil", "good" and "tiger" are all similarly arrived at: via the collation, analysis and summarising of information coming from people's eyes and ears, due to the situations they found themselves in. An ability to convert masses of low-level information, coming from the eyes and ears, into useful higher-level information ("tiger") has been extended further into: "heaven", "no heaven", "evil", "good". This type of higher-level information is all a bit debatable: while it can be useful to people, it can also lead to strange ideas.

I think people should be thoughtful about other living things and the environment, but people should stop worrying about themselves so much.

P.S.

While people might think "heaven", "evil", "good", or "tiger", only the tiger really exists as a genuine entity outside of the subjective experience/ thoughts of individual people.

So how do the ideas of "heaven", "evil", "good" and "tiger" exist? They don't exist as measurable bits of the brain: you can't measure "heaven", "evil", "good" or "tiger". The ideas of "heaven", "evil" and "good", just like the idea of a "tiger", only exist as the logical organisation and logical interconnections in the brain: these logical aspects of the world can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

The following necessary aspects of the world:

differentiation (the discerning of difference), consciousness, information, knowledge, ideas, logic

can only be represented and understood via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.