I've been thinking about doing a video on emergence. You see it everywhere, including mathematics (think of the wonderful Mandelbrot and Julia sets that emerge from iterations of simple formulas).
In fact, I believe that if you define reductionism right, then materialist reductionism is not only compatible with emergence theory, but it complements it in such a way as to give you a more complete explanation of reality.
I agree fully. I have had a life long love of iteration and recursion. To the point of almost religious ferver for recursion. The idea of recursion is so satisfying to me I can't explain it in mere words, it's emotional. So I'm a bit biased but also very eager to see that compatibility established, it makes intuitive sense to me.
Emotional! Me too, I call these iterations I see "The Morphogenisis recursive interference field".....So much nicer a word than the sterile word "GOD"
you're giving me effects envy. again good stuff. personally tho, i think dark matter is a "god of the gaps" type theory. i think the darkness is simply the abscence of light over vast areas.
nope dude. That was their first idea. The basics of dark energy... galaxies rotate too fast for the matter we see. We can tell their rotation because one side is bluer and one side redder, due to Doppler shift in light. If the matter were just "not lit" we still see it because it's in a galaxy with lights in it, and we can see what light the dark stuff (if it's baryonic like all the matter we know) absorbs (studying rainbows from space, basically). It's not normal matter.
ok, if im wrong say so, but from what i understand, dark matter isnt just matter, like earth, which reflects light, not producing, but matter that absorbs light. if there were dark matter between us and other galaxies, it would block the light. when they say 90%+ of the univ. isdark matter, do they think the visible univ. is enclosed in a bubble of dark matter? because it doesnt seem to be between here and there. maybe i am just not getting it, couldbe the problem, i just dont see evidence.
I'll clarify: light does not interact at all with dark matter, it is neither absorbed nor emitted, it is "invisible matter".
It's nothing like the matter we interact with. The phenomenon is there, and it's probably stuff like matter and energy (though exotic) as opposed to evidence in a flaw in gravitational theories, which it could still turn out to be. It's just the latter has not fared well, and some observations are demonstrating the matter-like nature of dark matter.
Dark Matter interacts with regular matter gravitationally (that's how we know that it exists), but not in any other way (electromagnetically, strong & weak nuclear forces) so it would pass right through us and we'd never know it except for it's slight gravitational perturbation.
No, remember that it doesn't interact with normal matter (except gravitationally). Energy, on the other hand (NOT dark energy), doesn't necessarily pass right through us. Our bodies stop many frequencies of light. Our bones stop some that soft flesh won't. Water and metals and other materials stop other wavelengths of energy.
ok, all good points. if dark matter is invisible, and not defined by regular matter, ie passes thru us...it seems like god of the gaps. if there only evidence is mysterious gravitational pulls, it could be a number of other things. it couldbe that there are other energies we dont know about. it could be variables about gravity we cant understand because we are subject to a 1 star reality, compared to binary systems, or more. r these gravational anomolies influencing 90%+ of everything?
There are other theories besides dark matter to explain the observed gravitational anomalies (MOND is one), but whenever their predictions have been put to the test, they have thus far been falsified. Dark matter is still standing.
I'll PM you a blog post I wrote on the subject back in August 2006
A small minority of physicists think it may be explained by altering our theories of gravity. The differences between that answer and the dark matter idea can be addressed with observation, e.g. by looking at colliding galaxies and getting gravitational maps of the aftermath. Since regular matter collides but dark matter doesn't, the splatter of colliding galaxies can tell you what sort of matter is where.
it's not god of the gaps because science always has gaps, that's what they work on.
only in the sense that all matter is energy. Quantum theory for example allows types of mass that would interact with other mass of its type just like our mass does with itself, but not interact with mass of these different types. A meteor of this type would pass right through us (and us through it) but be like matter in that it could colide with mass of its own typel. As cousino pointed out, this stuff does interace with us gravitationally, so we would have tidal affects from it's passage.
i read havier's article. i have away better understanding. still seems trippy & kinda sketchy. if its different than matter or energy, they shoulda gave it a new name. its confusing calling it matter that passes thru other matter. i think thats why i never understood it before.
when we hold these thoughts in the mind it can cause existential nausea, disassociation w reality, pschyzophrenia (i just made that one up), super creativity, unfear of death, increase of deja vu/synchronicity, and creation of worm holes. our bio-electrical bodies are virtual reality chemical reactions directed from the center of the sun;)
i have a hard time thinking of stuff as "just chemical" bc i love chemistry, so i don't understand why that is diminishing things. matter generates ability to feel makes it more amazing.
i don't like it when you say chemicals know how to love. :(
too smushy. i demand you respect the chemicals and not treat them like cute stuffied animals. hurumph.
i was under the impression that dark matter and energy aren't here on earth, they just exist in large regions in space.
no, they are here, we just don't notice them because gravity is a slow force... as the slow (weak, hah) force it plays out over millions of years, and it's effect is therefore most notable at large scales. But it would also be here, all around us, 95% of the energy/matter right here, invisible exotic stuff.
Astrophysics has done this before... Galileo saw Jupiters moon with the first telescope and thought we too probably moved around the sun. Moral: to look far away is to look inward.
Would you agree that intangibles, like consciousness--while they are only found in relation to matter and embodied by it--are more than what they are made of? I'm thinking here of the difference between the substance and the form it takes, or perhaps the structure and the ongoing organization which is realized through it...
Dualists make the mistake of conceiving of "mind" as a substance, as it instead appears to be the process which self-organizes out of a soup of chemistry and physics.
the semantics here is tricky, the language is unfriendly... I believe the truism that the sum is more than the parts... meaning only that some properties emerge from networks that are not evident in their parts when isolated (individuated as parts). It's a colloquial meaning. Materially, intangibles are not more than their parts, they are the results of the parts. I think it's more true to say the parts have more potential than we readily see in them alone.
yes, but the processes are not separate from the whole, the process beyond an intangible is not separate, it is merely the relationship between the parts, joined with it. That's all I mean.
I mean, like I say the language is unfriendly to this point, but another way of putting it is the "relationships" between the part is another part, it is one of the parts of the whole, so, it is not separate from the "parts"... in the same way that we are not just the mass of our body, but also its energy.
i agree with you on the language bit, in reality there are only developments/energy and all things/parts/relations are constructs in a language system that is inherently incapable of the whole.
whenever it is possible to coin a verbal phrase though the separation is less strict...
hey matt. i think the important word is "property." when something emerges out of a system, it isn't a thing, its a characteristic (property) of the system. out of a string of amino acids will emerge the ability to add phosphate groups to certain substrates. out of a network of neurons will emerge the ability to feel and think. they are not more than what they are made of as much as they make what they are made of much much more.
I suppose what I was trying to emphasize was the importance of the dynamics which play out over time, the organization which takes hold of the material parts (plays the music which gets them to dance, so to speak) and steers them toward the types of emergent activity that give rise to consciousness. Let us not forget that both energy (matter, space) and time are a part of nature. Time adds something significant to the stuff, which without time would indeed be "dead."
matt: time: bi can go for incorporating the time dimension. similar to how frequency of waves make a tone. the vibration plays out over space and time. i could see patterns of signals in the brain generating a property. i like oscillations.
reductionism often assumes it is allowed to take the shine off our best experiences. "I feel love"... "but I have reduced your feelings to chemicals so you feel nothing"... no, I still feel love, at somehow, that feeling comes from chemical reaction, and it's still good, and chemical reaction must be more than we reduced IT to.
Our brains are made of chemicals, and our brains can love; therefore, chemicals know how to love? Inmendham is starting to make more and more sense to me, which is scary.
if a worm dissappears into a bag of apples... it's in there somewhere.
we are just chemicals, we love, therefore somehow, groups of chemicals can love. Law of conservation. We still await a definition for love, but we don't wait for the feeling.
this being a metaphor, are you saying that love may have disappeared within you into another universe? iow, we still see the worm in there, we are just not sure exactly where.
Using a worm as a metaphor for love doesn't work for me, because a worm is a thing and love is not. I don't view love as a component of our chemistry any more than I consider wind as a component of an electric fan. It exists as a product of the operation of the mechanism, but is not a component of the mechanism. However, without a definition of love, we may be talking about two entirely different things.
have you ever felt love? if so then the question is only "what did you feel" and "what did it mean" and "where does it come from" and the like, not "does it exist".
The first definitions are always indicative, a finger is pointed at a thing and it is given a name. Have you felt love?
No, I've never felt love. Almost felt it once, but as soon as it started up in me, I stopped and said "Whoa! What is this thing I feel? What does it mean? Where does it come from?" By the time I had completed my analysis, I didn't feel it any more. Too bad, in a way.
My chemicals have some regard for their chemicals, but I don't consider anything to be true love unless it gives me a boner. By the way, I stole your image for use in my last video and talked about you in the video, too. No offense intended, though.
You're welcome. The way it's being done this time I rather enjoyed the process, and hopefully was of value to others who were looking for channels of interest. I'd certainly want to take a look at those you recommended.
This is wonderful; Pyrrho's cinematic & I bet scandinavian, 2.
TJae1 3 years ago
hahahaha, but excellent thoughts you've got there.
Octoberpupilla 3 years ago
I've been thinking about doing a video on emergence. You see it everywhere, including mathematics (think of the wonderful Mandelbrot and Julia sets that emerge from iterations of simple formulas).
In fact, I believe that if you define reductionism right, then materialist reductionism is not only compatible with emergence theory, but it complements it in such a way as to give you a more complete explanation of reality.
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
I agree fully. I have had a life long love of iteration and recursion. To the point of almost religious ferver for recursion. The idea of recursion is so satisfying to me I can't explain it in mere words, it's emotional. So I'm a bit biased but also very eager to see that compatibility established, it makes intuitive sense to me.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
Emotional! Me too, I call these iterations I see "The Morphogenisis recursive interference field".....So much nicer a word than the sterile word "GOD"
bionaught 3 years ago
javier yes! do a video on it!
bipolarcooksoldlady 3 years ago
you're giving me effects envy. again good stuff. personally tho, i think dark matter is a "god of the gaps" type theory. i think the darkness is simply the abscence of light over vast areas.
cozmikzen 3 years ago
nope dude. That was their first idea. The basics of dark energy... galaxies rotate too fast for the matter we see. We can tell their rotation because one side is bluer and one side redder, due to Doppler shift in light. If the matter were just "not lit" we still see it because it's in a galaxy with lights in it, and we can see what light the dark stuff (if it's baryonic like all the matter we know) absorbs (studying rainbows from space, basically). It's not normal matter.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
ok, if im wrong say so, but from what i understand, dark matter isnt just matter, like earth, which reflects light, not producing, but matter that absorbs light. if there were dark matter between us and other galaxies, it would block the light. when they say 90%+ of the univ. isdark matter, do they think the visible univ. is enclosed in a bubble of dark matter? because it doesnt seem to be between here and there. maybe i am just not getting it, couldbe the problem, i just dont see evidence.
cozmikzen 3 years ago
I'll clarify: light does not interact at all with dark matter, it is neither absorbed nor emitted, it is "invisible matter".
It's nothing like the matter we interact with. The phenomenon is there, and it's probably stuff like matter and energy (though exotic) as opposed to evidence in a flaw in gravitational theories, which it could still turn out to be. It's just the latter has not fared well, and some observations are demonstrating the matter-like nature of dark matter.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
Dark Matter interacts with regular matter gravitationally (that's how we know that it exists), but not in any other way (electromagnetically, strong & weak nuclear forces) so it would pass right through us and we'd never know it except for it's slight gravitational perturbation.
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
it would pass right thru us? wouldnt that make it energy?
cozmikzen 3 years ago
"wouldnt that make it energy?"
No, remember that it doesn't interact with normal matter (except gravitationally). Energy, on the other hand (NOT dark energy), doesn't necessarily pass right through us. Our bodies stop many frequencies of light. Our bones stop some that soft flesh won't. Water and metals and other materials stop other wavelengths of energy.
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
ok, all good points. if dark matter is invisible, and not defined by regular matter, ie passes thru us...it seems like god of the gaps. if there only evidence is mysterious gravitational pulls, it could be a number of other things. it couldbe that there are other energies we dont know about. it could be variables about gravity we cant understand because we are subject to a 1 star reality, compared to binary systems, or more. r these gravational anomolies influencing 90%+ of everything?
cozmikzen 3 years ago
There are other theories besides dark matter to explain the observed gravitational anomalies (MOND is one), but whenever their predictions have been put to the test, they have thus far been falsified. Dark matter is still standing.
I'll PM you a blog post I wrote on the subject back in August 2006
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
MOND is not too viable as it only explains the galactic situation, not more local observation, but there is an updated MOND that is doing OK iirc.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
A small minority of physicists think it may be explained by altering our theories of gravity. The differences between that answer and the dark matter idea can be addressed with observation, e.g. by looking at colliding galaxies and getting gravitational maps of the aftermath. Since regular matter collides but dark matter doesn't, the splatter of colliding galaxies can tell you what sort of matter is where.
it's not god of the gaps because science always has gaps, that's what they work on.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
only in the sense that all matter is energy. Quantum theory for example allows types of mass that would interact with other mass of its type just like our mass does with itself, but not interact with mass of these different types. A meteor of this type would pass right through us (and us through it) but be like matter in that it could colide with mass of its own typel. As cousino pointed out, this stuff does interace with us gravitationally, so we would have tidal affects from it's passage.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
I'll PM you the same essay I sent cozmikzen.
CousinoMacul 3 years ago
i read havier's article. i have away better understanding. still seems trippy & kinda sketchy. if its different than matter or energy, they shoulda gave it a new name. its confusing calling it matter that passes thru other matter. i think thats why i never understood it before.
cozmikzen 3 years ago
Matter is condensed idea. (Materie ist verdichtete Idee.)
elgaed42 3 years ago
when we hold these thoughts in the mind it can cause existential nausea, disassociation w reality, pschyzophrenia (i just made that one up), super creativity, unfear of death, increase of deja vu/synchronicity, and creation of worm holes. our bio-electrical bodies are virtual reality chemical reactions directed from the center of the sun;)
matrixcmitech 3 years ago
i have a hard time thinking of stuff as "just chemical" bc i love chemistry, so i don't understand why that is diminishing things. matter generates ability to feel makes it more amazing.
i don't like it when you say chemicals know how to love. :(
too smushy. i demand you respect the chemicals and not treat them like cute stuffied animals. hurumph.
i was under the impression that dark matter and energy aren't here on earth, they just exist in large regions in space.
bipolarcooksoldlady 3 years ago
no, they are here, we just don't notice them because gravity is a slow force... as the slow (weak, hah) force it plays out over millions of years, and it's effect is therefore most notable at large scales. But it would also be here, all around us, 95% of the energy/matter right here, invisible exotic stuff.
Astrophysics has done this before... Galileo saw Jupiters moon with the first telescope and thought we too probably moved around the sun. Moral: to look far away is to look inward.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
Would you agree that intangibles, like consciousness--while they are only found in relation to matter and embodied by it--are more than what they are made of? I'm thinking here of the difference between the substance and the form it takes, or perhaps the structure and the ongoing organization which is realized through it...
Dualists make the mistake of conceiving of "mind" as a substance, as it instead appears to be the process which self-organizes out of a soup of chemistry and physics.
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
the semantics here is tricky, the language is unfriendly... I believe the truism that the sum is more than the parts... meaning only that some properties emerge from networks that are not evident in their parts when isolated (individuated as parts). It's a colloquial meaning. Materially, intangibles are not more than their parts, they are the results of the parts. I think it's more true to say the parts have more potential than we readily see in them alone.
Chemicals can will, we are proof.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
i'm with matt here, some properties are processes that we feel like we have to assign nouns to.
Mork5 3 years ago
yes, but the processes are not separate from the whole, the process beyond an intangible is not separate, it is merely the relationship between the parts, joined with it. That's all I mean.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
I mean, like I say the language is unfriendly to this point, but another way of putting it is the "relationships" between the part is another part, it is one of the parts of the whole, so, it is not separate from the "parts"... in the same way that we are not just the mass of our body, but also its energy.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
i agree with you on the language bit, in reality there are only developments/energy and all things/parts/relations are constructs in a language system that is inherently incapable of the whole.
whenever it is possible to coin a verbal phrase though the separation is less strict...
Mork5 3 years ago
hey matt. i think the important word is "property." when something emerges out of a system, it isn't a thing, its a characteristic (property) of the system. out of a string of amino acids will emerge the ability to add phosphate groups to certain substrates. out of a network of neurons will emerge the ability to feel and think. they are not more than what they are made of as much as they make what they are made of much much more.
bipolarcooksoldlady 3 years ago
I suppose what I was trying to emphasize was the importance of the dynamics which play out over time, the organization which takes hold of the material parts (plays the music which gets them to dance, so to speak) and steers them toward the types of emergent activity that give rise to consciousness. Let us not forget that both energy (matter, space) and time are a part of nature. Time adds something significant to the stuff, which without time would indeed be "dead."
0ThouArtThat0 3 years ago
matt: time: bi can go for incorporating the time dimension. similar to how frequency of waves make a tone. the vibration plays out over space and time. i could see patterns of signals in the brain generating a property. i like oscillations.
bipolarcooksoldlady 3 years ago
*i not bi
lol
bipolarcooksoldlady 3 years ago
Marvellous video. Why should groups of chemicals not love? Our model of physical reality is just that - a model. An impoverished one at that.
Cimbolic 3 years ago
reductionism often assumes it is allowed to take the shine off our best experiences. "I feel love"... "but I have reduced your feelings to chemicals so you feel nothing"... no, I still feel love, at somehow, that feeling comes from chemical reaction, and it's still good, and chemical reaction must be more than we reduced IT to.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
And we SAY "There is real chemistry between them".
Cimbolic 3 years ago
kewl ;-o
jogayot 3 years ago
lol-
loving glooming green chemicals teaching us the dark material truth !
Mork5 3 years ago
audacious. Worth favouriting for that alone.
falconelly 3 years ago
Our brains are made of chemicals, and our brains can love; therefore, chemicals know how to love? Inmendham is starting to make more and more sense to me, which is scary.
jonesr999 3 years ago
your whole body is an ongoing chemical reaction, so ascribing 'knowledge' to anything is a mere intuitive approximation in the first place
EverettsVLOG 3 years ago
if a worm dissappears into a bag of apples... it's in there somewhere.
we are just chemicals, we love, therefore somehow, groups of chemicals can love. Law of conservation. We still await a definition for love, but we don't wait for the feeling.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
Okay, but the worm may not be in there somewhere. It may have vanished through a worm hole in space and be in another galaxy now.
jonesr999 3 years ago
this being a metaphor, are you saying that love may have disappeared within you into another universe? iow, we still see the worm in there, we are just not sure exactly where.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
Using a worm as a metaphor for love doesn't work for me, because a worm is a thing and love is not. I don't view love as a component of our chemistry any more than I consider wind as a component of an electric fan. It exists as a product of the operation of the mechanism, but is not a component of the mechanism. However, without a definition of love, we may be talking about two entirely different things.
jonesr999 3 years ago
have you ever felt love? if so then the question is only "what did you feel" and "what did it mean" and "where does it come from" and the like, not "does it exist".
The first definitions are always indicative, a finger is pointed at a thing and it is given a name. Have you felt love?
pyrrho314 3 years ago
No, I've never felt love. Almost felt it once, but as soon as it started up in me, I stopped and said "Whoa! What is this thing I feel? What does it mean? Where does it come from?" By the time I had completed my analysis, I didn't feel it any more. Too bad, in a way.
jonesr999 3 years ago
what about for your family?
pyrrho314 3 years ago
My chemicals have some regard for their chemicals, but I don't consider anything to be true love unless it gives me a boner. By the way, I stole your image for use in my last video and talked about you in the video, too. No offense intended, though.
jonesr999 3 years ago
This is amazing. :) Powerfully illustrative, and fascinating considering what I was about to make.
Loreleila 3 years ago
thanks, and thanks about the kind words in your five vloggers video... I'm thinking about doing one as well.
pyrrho314 3 years ago
You're welcome. The way it's being done this time I rather enjoyed the process, and hopefully was of value to others who were looking for channels of interest. I'd certainly want to take a look at those you recommended.
Loreleila 3 years ago