God and Aether

Og · 07-11-2007, 09:18 AM

So, since sound waves propagate through matter (air, water, whatever), people assumed that since light had the properties of a wave that it required a medium through which to propagate. The Aether was inferred based on what we knew about other types of waves. This was before the concept of the photon or of quantum mechanics and special relativity.

So Michelson and Morely devised an experiment that simply measured the way that light propagated in two different directions simultaneously using an interferometer. Since the earth is moving with respect to the aether, and since we know that a moving source in a medium will produce compressed waves (higher frequency in front of the motion and lower frequency behind them, doppler effect), they expected to see this represented in their interferometer.

They did not see this, the theory of aether was discarded and this one experiment opened up the discoveries of special and general relativity, a conclusive theory of electromagnetic radiation and opened the door for quantum mechanics. The fundamental notion that light requires no medium and has a constant speed regardless of your reference frame is central to the technology we have in the modern world. It allowed us to master electromagnetics.

Similarly, the theory of God in the west infers an entity that is responsible for causing the world and endowing us with free will. We are then sorted based on our relationship to this entity as expressed in the free choices we make. This theory has falsifiable claims much like the theory of the Aether has.

With the advent of modern engineering mathematics and neuroscience, we see the picture of a world where the notion of free will is just NOT the way that the universe works. Saying that we are, on some level, separate from causality, ignores the massive networks of information propagating and computation cells in the human brain. Saying that the behavior of these hundreds of billions of cells with hundreds of trillions of connections is somehow usurped by some ethereal (to use exactly the right word) entity that is ultimately in control goes against all of our understanding of the way the universe works.

Given the notion that we are neural machines that are expressions of all of our previous states and the current inputs we receive, we have conclusive evidence that the notion of the western god is falsified.

I wonder when this will be something that can be integrated into the modern human culture and I wonder what amazing advancements the human psyche can make given our freedom from this erroneous and monumental concept much akin to the ether.

Tango · 07-11-2007, 03:11 PM

my guess is not for some years. peoples minds are still too wrapped up in religion, and the idea of cosmic significance, to accept anything alternative. the very idea that "well, i can choose to wear red or blue today, so i must have free will" is a major stumbling block to mass acceptance of life with no ultimate meaning. and thats fine. if the religious masses feel content, so be it. if they dont harm anyone, i couldnt care less. problem is they dont just keep to themselves.

i see no immediate remedy for the problems of religion. time heals all wounds, they say. we shall see

Og · 07-11-2007, 06:19 PM

Also, don't take this as atheism. It's my stance that the God notion in the west is an impediment to the agnostic process. I also believe that it's fundamentally central to the agnostic/scientific process to spend our efforts determining what something is NOT in order to get us closer to what is true.

Just because Yaweh and Allah happen to be illusions and just because the notion of an individual god separate from the universe is an illusion there is no reason to say that we know wtf the mystery of existence is all about. But this process of elimination certainly moves us closer to it in all respects.

harleylove · 07-11-2007, 06:57 PM

Og, I am really interested in this free will argument. I believe I understand it to a certain degree but I have a question and if you can please respond as if you were talking to a 10 year old I'd appreciate it. This is something I really want to understand. I understand that our mind reacts to what we are familiar with. I also believe that I do not have a choice as far as being agnostic so I can relate to what you are saying about not having free will.

Now, my question. What about situations where you make decisions that you would not normally make, you know where you go against all instinct, logic and reason and do something that's well, just not you? How do you think this pertains to having or not having free will?

Thanks

Og · 07-11-2007, 07:22 PM

What is your reason for carrying out the action? Answer that and you will see where free will just doesn't make sense. Can you change your reason for acting? If so, what was your reason for changing your reason for acting? If you have that reason then you're back to asking if you can change that reason for acting... and then justifying why you did this... It just doesn't make sense.

Biochemistry and causality leave no room for free will in some cosmic sense. We are neural machines. Signals go in, get processed, produce outcomes, and we behave in certain ways and experience certain things.

That's not exactly for a 10 year old, but it's kind of the philosopher's description of why we don't have free will. You can go into the systems engineering of a brain of 100 billion analog components each with 10000 connections each to other cells and unique biochemical states. But that's a bunch of mathematics, engineering, physics, biology, and chemistry.

It basically boils down to us working like a PC does. Signals go in, are processed in a complex processor, and behavior comes out. Things like consciousness and emotion are behaviors of the hardware in the same way a spell checker is part of the hardware.

Software on a computer is an illusion just like the soul is an illusion. Software doesn't actually exist as something apart from a collection of charges on a silicon based chip. Software is a bunch of physical charges in flash memory, it's not an abstract text file "somewhere" separate from the hard disk.. it IS the hard disk's current state.

We are decidedly different in many physical ways from a computer, but not in the general way that all systems in the universe behave.

Og · 07-12-2007, 04:34 PM

Bill Clinton Neuron

Finding individual neurons that fire action potentials in reference only to very specific high level concepts.

More illustrations of how the supernatural soul is null word and the brain is a neural machine. I just heard this guy (Krieman) give a talk. Very cool stuff.

I also have heard Christoph Koch give talks at the skeptic society "Brain, Mind, and Consciousness" seminar series (on video) about similar topics. This was one of francis crick's favorite topics... processing of visual information and how the brain is a highly complex computation unit. I highly recommend reading the work by these guys in books like "The Astonishing Hypothesis" about the nature of the brain as a neural computation unit.

harleylove · 07-12-2007, 06:29 PM

Ok, let me see if I get this. Let's say a woman is an alcoholic and wakes up one day and decides she doesn't want to drink anymore. She is changing her behavior but it's not free will because there is a deeper reason for changing her behavior, like a preconceived notion of what a mother should be. She came upon that preconceived notion in childhood because of her experiences with her own mother during childhood. So, she is not choosing to stop drinking because of free will, she's choosing to stop drinking because of what her mind's perception of how she should be is? Her perception of what a mother is......

I'm going to be honest and say I wasn't sure if I would reply and I ended up doing this circle again. I think I had a full debate inside my
head. On one hand, I'm really curious and I want to understand. So, do I continue to ask questions at the risk of looking like an idiot because it seems so simple and I feel like I'm making you go over the same thing over and over again or do I just not respond, save my dignity and continue not to understand. So, of course then I brought free will into it, I mean I have to do one of the two, right? In the end I decided that either way I will feel like an idiot and I guess trying to understand is better than just walking away not understanding. I guess I can conclude that my motivation to learn was outweighed by my fear of being an idiot. Am I even close or way off? LOL

Thnaks for replying.

Og · 07-12-2007, 07:01 PM

Harleylove, Teaching is one of my passions in life. I'm going to be working towards my teaching credentials for k-12 as I continue my education here in the near future funded by my first post PhD job. I think it's very important for people to ask questions and please don't feel like I will ever judge you on what you know about this topic.

I think it's infinitely important for people to ask these kinds of questions. I think that particularly where free will is concerned, there are TONS of non-self aware people out there. Being not self aware, they assume they have free will because they identify with their reasons for action since they are not aware of themselves or their own motivations.

If you get a chance, I recommend seeing spiderman 3. It is a horrible movie and does a wonderful job illustrating this fundamental misconception and the ignorance involved in the notion of free will.

For the whole movie, the son of the green goblin has been trying to kill spider man because (here's the REASON) he believed that spider man killed his father. For the whole movie, the son character played this role of mercilessly trying to get revenge on spiderman. At the end of the movie, the butler tells the son that his father really was evil and that it was his father's own fault that he was killed and that spiderman was innocent. At this point, the son's REASON dissolved and he changed his behavior and helped spiderman against their common enemies (venom and the sandman).

At the end of this terrible movie, spider man goes into a "moving" dialog about the moral of the story and about how when it really mattered, Harry made the right choice and exercised his will and that this somehow made him righteous (he died in the end saving spiderman).

But for the entire movie, the character was acting UTTERLY RATIONALLY. He had very specific reasons that had to do with the outside world, his illusions about his father, his missinformation, and his spoiled brat nature. All of these reasons produced reasonable behavior at every point. He didn't make a choice... he simply acted rationally like brains do most of the time (I say ALL of the time). If people seem to be behaving irrationally, there is some reason behind it (whether it's complex and multi-layered or whether it's just a chemical imbalance).

Free will just plain doesn't make sense in the world from a logical/philosophical stand point. On top of that there is a massive body of evidence and the results of all of engineering and physics mathematics that describe the world (the complex human brain included) as causal systems with output that correlates to input.

The notion of a god that judges people for their choices is absolutely ridiculous. I don't expect creationists to change their minds because I present evidence of evolution.. they have a REASON for believing what they do that is completely separate from evidence.. they need purpose and companionship and inclusion in their religious culture (which is all they know) and a variety of other things. I do not think that creationists are irrational people at all! I just know that it's clear that their facts are wrong.

This is an important distinction when you want to make a drug or understand how the mosquito's feeding reflex works to help combat malaria or a variety of other things.

The facts of creation versus evolution are NOT relevant when it comes to social networking and continuing a culture that is already in place in order to stay connected to people that are important to you. In fact, it's very rational to hold to your views of creationism given this context.

There are ALWAYS reasons.. this is the way the world works... it's the way EVERYTHING works on all levels.. It's the only way we can relate with anything. There would be absolutely no way to understand or relate to some utterly irrational concept.. it's even hard to label something truly uncaused as an object because the term "object" implies something that has an effect on things and interacts with things (rationally).

Free will is an illusion. This is the central part of the garden of eden story to me. The illusion of good and evil... The illusion of choice and of distinctions between you and me (male female) and life/death. Entering into this illusion (as most people do) is what the eating of the fruit of the tree is about to me. And the true nature of the universe (as I'm trying to describe it) is REALLY the center of the teachings of the buddha and of christ and of a variety of other religious stances.

This realization is the fruit of the tree of eternal life. It returns us to the garden of eden. What keeps us out are the guardians that YAWEH placed there (see the story in the bible). YAWEH is the god of judgment.. yaweh is the illusion and perpetuates our exile from the garden... it's so fundamentally blasphemous in the west, but this is really the way that it must be.

Jesus saw this and they crucified him for it. He realized the arbitrary nature of distinctions and said "hate your friends/family/life" and "love thy enemy" and "I and the Father are one." Free your mind from the notion that pairs of opposites and categories of thought can speak to the mystery of existence.

Og · 07-12-2007, 07:11 PM

Furthermore, this is NOT materialistic.

Engineering math says the following:

1) There is a system (this is anything). Draw an imaginary bubble and you have a system (put it around anything). This bubble can be your skin or your brain or your arm or around a TV remote control or a television itself or whatever.

2) There are inputs to this system. In the case of your body, it's your senses and your food intake and your chemical environment that your breathe in or drugs you take or concepts you are taught. In the case of a TV, it is electromagnetic waves into the antenna or the cable tv plug or the composite video cable.

3) The system creates outputs. In the case of the body, this is movement, speech, waste, exhaling, whatever actions the humans do. In the case of a TV, the outputs are light and sound and heat and such.

ALL of mathematics for engineering and physics are based around the above three statements. All of the tools that engineers use give us means to connect the system outputs with the inputs to develop an expression of the system that is complete.

It's not materialist because it DOES NOT MATTER WHAT IS IN THE BUBBLE! It can be matter or magic or god or anything. Anything. Any concept. Any object. Any idea. The universe is expressed in this way.

Outputs correlate with inputs. Imagine that bubble following the boundary of your skin from the moment that your first cells are differentiated in the womb. The bubble follows you for all your life and every bit of information that passes into the bubble modifies you in some way whether it's a complex idea or a chemical signal or whatever. Your entire life. You are defined by these inputs over time. You are the sum of all effects before you.

If you start to reject some inputs (such as religion) it's because some previous inputs had driven your brain (formed by the inputs of your parents genetics and your mother's chemical environment) into this decision. If you stop liking broccoli, it's because of specific neural pathways in response to the chemical molecules in broccoli and the "tastes" you have developed over your life experience. You don't choose any of this.

Og · 07-12-2007, 07:16 PM

Then realize that the bubble's boundary is ARBITRARY. What's the difference between you and me? I'm now an input to your bubble, but what if you extended the bubble around you to include me? What if you shrunk the bubble to include just your brain and not the rest of you? What is the difference? It's all arbitrary.. They're all linked. What if you shrunk the bubble to include one cell in your brain?

So your eye sends signals to your visual cortex in your brain. So I send signals into your eye.. So your visual cortex sends signals into your prefrontal cortex. So what?

This is what I mean by Tat Tvam Asi (Thou art that) and when I say "You and me, no distinction"... This is what I mean when I say "self is myth"... It's because the boundary between you and me is arbitrary.

The universe is truly "A UNIFIED STATEMENT" (uni-verse).. Everything interacts in a massively complex and interconnected net of causality. It's glorious and amazing and science describes this with a language designed specifically for it (mathematics).