TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

A place for discussion of ideas presented in the BothAndBlog, or relevant to the Enformationism thesis.
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TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:34 pm

The Fine-Tuning Argument as (Bad) an Argument for God
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/734259

So, why would God bother to create an intricately fine-tuned universe for the sake of souls who don’t need one? — Art48

I would guess that the universe was designed, not for free-floating souls, but for embodied souls. In this case, the word "soul" refers to sentient selves -- including some animals -- not to angelic beings inhabiting a non-space-time realm. Furthermore, the "design" is still being implemented after 14 billion years, and is still not completed. So, the "fine-tuning" was merely the preset limits (natural laws) within which the evolutionary process operates. Consequently, I imagine the Singularity as a program for the creation of a self-organizing world from scratch. Design criteria were programmed into the Singularity to guide the process from Big Bang beginning to Big Sigh ending.

Who the Programmer was, and why s/he choose to create an imperfect physical world with not-yet-perfect metaphysical Minds, is beyond my ken. The most common answers to "why" have been some variation on the theme of a power relationship, that : a> a Ruler requires some rulees ; b> an all-powerful Tyrant must have some powerless slaves/serfs to push around ; c> a perfect G*D needs an ego-boost from being worshiped by lesser beings ; or c> a loving Father/Mother necessarily wants to produce children to love & nurture. None of those bottom-up perspectives makes sense from the viewpoint of a Being with the power to create worlds from scratch. So, my answer to "why" would be "huh?". :confused: :chin: :brow:


The Anthropic Cosmological Principle :
I had heard of the Anthropic Argument -- that the world was designed specifically for human habitation -- but didn’t really scrutinize it until recently. The core concept was implicit in the Intelligent Design theories of Christian apologists. And I understood the general reasoning --- from an array of puzzling scientific “coincidences”, such as the unique “initial conditions” and “fine-tuned constants” that seemed arbitrarily selected to produce a world with living & thinking creatures --- they concluded that there must be a logical reason for our being.
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html

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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:45 pm

Please note, your argument is novel and interesting and as far as I'm concerned the only way to counter it was to replace a benevolent god with a malus deus. — Agent Smith

My own interpretation of an evolving world --- which has produced organisms that can wonder about how & why they exist --- is somewhere in between the All-Good & All-Bad theories of Ontology (the nature of being). It's more like the abstract LOGOS of Plato, which is neither good nor bad, but merely Logical, in the sense of Mr. Spock*1. Presumably, the First Cause -- of the effect we call "our world" -- had the creative Potential for Logos-Ethos-Pathos*2, since we find expressions of all those "forces" in our contingent reality.

Yet, since this world began in an unformed state, and is still working toward its final form, it is -- and always has been -- imperfect. Hence, we humans encounter both life-affirming and life-denying "forces". In our struggle to survive & thrive, we learn that evolution is neither all-bad nor all-good, but sometimes arduous & sometimes pleasant. So, the original cause of this heuristic experiment in gradual bottom-up construction necessarily included the possibility for ups & downs. But the net result is Neutral, some good, some bad. That's what I call BothAnd*3. Therefore, the mysterious Source of an expanding Singularity, which emerged from who-knows-where, was Creative, but not Malicious.

In that case, the current top-dogs of the sentient creature hierarchy -- half-formed homo sapiens -- are merely the beneficiaries of the evolutionary lottery, not the darlings of the deity. And we are not necessarily the ultimate inheritors of the world. Evolution seems to be only halfway to its final state. Consequently, whatever this experiment was "fine-tuned" for, is an Epistemological mystery. So, the Anthropic Argument*4 is a bit premature. But, it seems to be a good guess, based on incomplete evidence. :cool:


*1. "Logic is the beginning of wisdom ... not the end." - Spock,

*2. Logos-Ethos-Pathos :
Modes of rhetoric; persuasion.
But also modes of creation -- Reason, Intention, Emotion -- logical structure, ultimate goal, & bonding inter-relationships. The mathematical & logical structure of the world is obvious. But the end state can only be guessed from minimal evidence. Yet, what holds the evolving system together during trials & tribulations is unifying cohesion.

*3. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

*4. Anthropic Argument :
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html

BALANCE OF GOOD & EVIL
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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:38 pm

Your weltanschauung is impressive mon ami! It touches a chord in me - it's not just the rhetorical flourish in your posts, there's depth & breadth in it which I can sense but as of yet don't fully grasp.
I think the expression "hunting with the hounds and running with the hares" very nearly approximates but still fails to pin down your views regarding my comment on a malus deus.
— Agent Smith

My weltanshauung is broad in application, but narrow in focus. It's based on the single simple inference*1 that everything in this world is a form of Generic Information (EnFormAction = causal energy + directional intention). It assumes that the pin-point singularity of the Big Bang contained no matter or energy, but only omni-potential Information, in the form of a computer-like program code. Everything else resulted from the "fine-tuning" and execution (running) of that program of gradual-but-progressive-evolution. Tegmark calls that cosmic code "Mathematics". But the more comprehensive term "information" includes the possibility for all of the above : Logic, Math, Mind, Mass, Matter, Energy, etc. For me it's the abstract-primordial-fundamental Substance*2.

The First Law of Thermodynamics says that Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but is continuously recycled. Yet, that description makes more sense with shape-shifting Information as the fundamental substance. Generic Information is the creative Potential for everything in the universe. For example : EnFormAction transforms into Energy, then into Mass, then into Matter, then into Life, then into Mind, then into Entropy (death), and the cycle begins again. That's an oversimplification, but you get the idea.

Probably the reason such a portmanteau concept (causation + information) is "hard to grasp" is that it's not yet part of the lexicon of Science or Philosophy. Like the non-classical theory of Quantum non-mechanics, it seems weird at first glance. But, when you get comfortable with the monistic notion that everything in the world is a form of Generic Information, it makes sense of some vexing physical & philosophical quandaries. One might even exclaim in relief, "mon Deiu!" :halo:


*1. How I arrived at that inference, based on cutting-edge Quantum & Information theories, is explained in the Enformationism Thesis. I'm not a practicing scientist or philosopher, so I don't concern myself with practical applications of this emerging understanding of reality. I merely use it as the basis of my personal philosophy as a retired layman.
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

*2. Substance : "The most distinctive aspect of Spinoza's system is his substance monism; that is, his claim that one infinite substance—God or Nature—is the only substance that exists."
https://iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/
"Aristotle analyses substance in terms of form and matter. The form is what kind of thing the object is, and the matter is what it is made of."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/
"In Aristotle it is the tension between essence, which makes the individual intelligible, and existence, which gives individuation to the entity,. . ."
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/being-essen ... aristotle/
Note -- Plato tended to emphasize the Essence (intelligibility), and Aristotle the Existence (material being), but both are included in the modern understanding of Information as the ability to Enform (to give meaningful-material Form to something).

Matter-Energy and Information :
Statistical entropy is a probabilistic measure of uncertainty or ignorance; information is a measure
of a reduction in that uncertainty

http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/cont ... mation.pdf

SHAPE-SHIFTING INFORMATION
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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:50 pm

Your theory, I realize, is reminiscent of how Thales thought of water as the arche & how Heraclitus declared fire was the arche. A monistic stance alright but what I don't get is why? Is it just our natural instinct to simplify despite the cost which is internal contradiction (how can light & dark be one?). Even you, an information monist, had to posit a yin-yang duality. — Agent Smith

Thales may have been motivated by confusion, to simplify the profusion of things down to a single amorphous substance : Water, which conforms to its container. But also by the philosophical urge to generalize : to trace the plethora of specific instances back to some ultimate Source. Likewise, Plato reasoned that the manifold & various instances of reasoning beings evolved from a monistic Potential : LOGOS. In any case, there is no "internal contradiction" between the pluralistic parts, and the monistic Whole. So, I am both a Monist and a Holist, who doesn't deny the Duality of Reality. Monism is inclusive, not exclusive.

The Yin/Yang worldview acknowledges contrasting Black & White, or Good & Evil, but the enclosing circle represents the Whole, containing & organizing disparate parts into a single functioning system. Even modern Physical scientists assume that our current complex world of manifold things is the emergent offspring of an original "Singularity". And most admit that they have no idea where that Cosmic Seed came from. Plato proposed that our complex-but-orderly real world originated from primordial ideal Chaos. Which was not chaotic in the modern sense, but merely amorphous (formless), yet pregnant with the potential for all the profusion of forms in the world today.

Therefore, even I, "an information monist", was forced by innate logic to "posit a yin-yang duality" within a Holistic Monism. You can call it The One, or the Monad, or The Singularity, or G*D, or The Enformer. Whatever makes sense to you. But it all comes down to a unique concept : the Potential to Enform -- to create novel Actual forms from amorphous Omni-Potency. In the beginning there was One, and One became two, and two became four, and so-on until the world was populated by countless things, but all bearing the genetic code of the original One. :nerd:


Arche = first, beginning, origin, source, primary, primordial

Thales was the founder of the philosophy that all of Nature had developed from one source. According to Heraclitus Homericus (540–480 BCE), Thales drew this conclusion from the observation that most things turn into air, slime, and earth. Thales thus proposed that things change from one form to another.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en ... of-miletus

Potential of Chaos :
"The modern idea of chaos—something totally without order and seemingly disruptive by nature—was formed during Roman times.
Before that, the Greek Chaos (Khaos) was understood as a gap filled with fertile potential from which everything and anything could come."

https://wciw.org/creativity-general/cha ... potential/

Potential & Actual :
"Actuality and Potentiality are constrasting terms for that which has form, in Aristotle‘s sense, and that which has merely the possibility of having form.
Actuality (energeia in Greek) is that mode of being in which a thing can bring other things about or be brought about by them, the realm of events and facts.
By contrast, potentiality (dynamis in Greek) is not a mode in which a thing exists, but rather the power to effect change, the capacity of a thing to make transitions into different states."

https://www.the-philosophy.com/actualit ... -aristotle

EnFormAction
= the natural power to effect change of form ; causation ; energy


"The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being, the Monad or The Absolute"
238px-Monad.svg.png

"Yin and yang is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes interconnected opposite forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives"
1200px-Yin_and_Yang_symbol.svg.png
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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:35 pm

I'm still not clear about the rationale for monism. If eventually one has to resort to some form of dualism/pluralism, monism feels more like wishful thinking/optional than fact/necessity. Do you have anti-information (noise) as the opposite of information (signal) in your theory? — Agent Smith

You seem to be thinking in terms of scientific Reductionism, as opposed to philosophical Holism. Apparently, you are not familiar with the philosophical concept of Integrated Systems (Wholes)*1, which is essentially the same as Monism (unified parts). Part & Whole coexist simultaneously. But the Parts may be real & physical (Quanta), while the Whole is entirely ideal & metaphysical (Qualia)*2. The parts may be in opposition to each other, like electrons (negative) and protons (positive), that working together, form the neutral Whole we call an "atom". The modern atom is not the singular (uncuttable) thing imagined by Democritus. It is an identifiable system of smaller components that are bonded & inter-related in order to serve a physical function in a larger material system. If you are interested in where the modern (pre-New Age) scientific notion of Holism came from, I suggest you get a copy of the book : Holism and Evolution*3.

Regarding "anti-information", I suppose that would be what we call "False" or "Negative", while "information" is presumed to be "Truth" or "Positive". Or, in a computer analogy, Information would be a "1" (something) and anti-information would be "0" (nothing). Those ones & zeros are like matter & antimatter : when they merge, they annihilate each other into a neutral value. But, when they are linked together by logic -- analogous to the weak & strong forces in an atom -- they can work together to absorb & transmit holistic meaning from one place to another, even though they retain their original separate values. The Whole is more than the sum of the parts (Quanta); and the "more-than" is Meaning (Qualia). That immaterial Meaning may be what you are calling "wishful thinking", because it literally doesn't matter.


*1. Holism ; Holon :
Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts. For example, when atoms of hydrogen & oxygen gases combine in a specific ratio, the molecule has properties of water, such as wetness, that are not found in the gases. A Holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part — A system of entangled things that has a function in a hierarchy of systems. . . .
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

*2. Part/Whole : I am a physical citizen of the United States (quanta - countable in a census). But the US is a complex system, composed of over 300 million parts, bound together -- in principle -- by loyalty to the ideas engraved in the Constitution. Yet, the "United States" is merely an immaterial idea (qualia) in human minds. It's not even a single place on a map, but could be a ship on the ocean flying the US flag.

*3. Holism (from Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos) 'all, whole, entire', and -ism) is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism

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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:44 pm

Pardon my obtuseness, but I still don't get monism. Lemme try and explain my bewilderment. Light means not dark and vice versa. So, my brain tells me, that light and dark can't be unified as one. My intuition is probably flawed but, in my defense, I offer an example: Both good & evil can't originate - they're contradictory i.e. if one is the other isn't and if the other is, the one isn't - from the same source and hence God & Satan. Contradictions/opposites are destructive to monist philosophies in my humble opinion. — Agent Smith

I can pardon obtuseness of ignorance, but not the bias of Materialism.

You don't "get" Monism, because you don't "grok" Holism. It's a general statistical concept, not a specific sensory physical observation ; probabilities, not actualities. For example, upon close examination, your computer screen is composed of black & white pixels. But, when you zoom-out, you no longer see individual pixels, but an average of blacks & whites, that you perceive as gray. The black & white pixels are still there, and they are still opposites in degree of light reflection (100% vs 0%). But, your brain merges & interprets those zillions of points of light & dark, as a shade of gray. The key piece of information here is "interpretation". Your senses perceive (actual) physical values, but your mind conceives (probable) metaphysical meanings.

Most of us naively assume that what we perceive is what's real. But our physical perceptions only detect abstract patterns of energy inputs of various values, light & dark. Which our brains interpret into a few common patterns we recognize as forms. Then, our rational minds interpret those forms into significance for Self. So, patterns are physical (material), but meanings are meta-physical (mental). That's why Kant concluded that we never directly see the ding an sich (ultimate Reality), but only the images of reality constructed by our sense-making minds (personal Ideality).

In terms of my personal Enformationism thesis, the basic substance of reality is the same everywhere (Potential). But it changes form in different contexts (Actual). For example, the individual pixels on your screen are physical phosphors or doped silicon, that convert electric inputs into photons of light. When those massless photons impact the retina of your eye, they transform into chemical energy, which then transforms into electrical energy, and so forth, until finally those individual inputs are merged into patterns, which the mind mysteriously transforms into non-physical meaning relative to the observer. It's all Information, all the way down. But the original isolated pixels are ignored, and only their statistical average is converted into merged holistic images that remind us of something we are already generally familiar with (meaning). So, your things are statistics and your Reality is Imaginary.


Philosophy of Statistics :
A statistical hypothesis is a general statement that can be expressed by a probability distribution over sample space, i.e., it determines a probability for each of the possible samples.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/statistics/

Why Our Brains Do Not Intuitively Grasp Probabilities :
We are not equipped to perceive atoms and germs, on one end of the scale, or galaxies and expanding universes, on the other end.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... abilities/

Note : Our language is based on physical Percepts not metaphysical Concepts. Which is why such words as "observation", "pattern", & "substance" can be confusing, unless we are careful to define what we mean in each case. In this context, "substance" does not mean material stuff, but mental ideas about stuff.

HOLISM IS STATISTICAL UNITY OF ACTUAL PLURALITY
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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:51 pm

So you're asking me to "zoom out" to get an idea of what Holism is all about. That maketh sense!, I wonder though whether this conforms to the standard interpretation of monism (don't you havta zoom in?) — Agent Smith

Ha! This is what I was referring to in the note about language. One way to understand the term "Monism" is as a huge Atom, with no internal parts -- just one big thing. But, as 180 pointed out, philosophers had to clear-up the confusion by creating the concept of Dialectical Monism*1. Yet, for some, it may only confuse them further, because it adds the scary notion of "transcendence". My substitute for that baggage-laden word is the equally fraught "Meta-Physics", referring to the aspects of our world that are not physical -- such as Mathematics, Logic, & Mind. They have no space-time dimensions, and are holistic (general) in their function, as immaterial connectors or links between otherwise isolated things or ideas.

When a Whole System is defined as "more than the sum of its parts", the extra piece of the puzzle is metaphysical (i.e. transcendental). It transcends Physics in the sense that it has no physical properties, except a geometric relationship. That holistic binding "force" can only be measured by its observed effects (form changes) on physical objects. [unlike the Tractor Beam in Star Trek, which is a visible ray of something like narrowly focused gravity]. The Holistic Force is more like an invisible intangible ghost that pulls heavy books off a shelf. But you can understand it metaphorically, as-if some new hypothetical physical Force appears to bond independent things into a single object. For this discussion, we can call that imaginary glue : the Systematizing Force. (Physicists also have an imaginary or metaphorical force that holds sub-atomic particles together : Gluons)*2.

Another way to "zoom out" is to first zoom in. Your desk or table appears to you as a single solid object (a whole system) with a special function : to hold your laptop off the floor. But, if you zoom-in to take a closer look, you see molecules of cellulose, held together by lignin. And their function is not to hold up laptops. Zoom-in even further, and you see various carbon & hydrogen atoms swirling around, yet again, those parts of the whole have nothing directly to do with supporting laptops. Go deeper into the queer quantum level of reality, and you find parts of your desk that are invisible to the naked eye. In fact, the atom itself is 90% empty space. And what little Matter is there, consists of mathematical Mass, that can only be defined in terms of Einstein's equation of weightless Energy with inertial Mass, multiplied by a dimensionless number "C". Energy itself is statistical potential, and its function is only to cause change in material objects by clipping-apart-or-together the bonding forces of Mass.

So yes, you have to 'zoom-in" toward the metaphysical Essence*3 of particular things, before you can appreciate the Whole, by "zooming-out" to see combined form of all those tiny-tings, bound together by the transcendental Substance of systems. And in my own thesis, both essence and substance are the same stuff : EnFormAction -- the power to cause change of form.



*1. Dialectical Monism :
Dialectical monism, also known as dualistic monism or monistic dualism, is an ontological position that holds that reality is ultimately a unified whole, distinguishing itself from monism by asserting that this whole necessarily expresses itself in dualistic terms. For the dialectical monist, the essential unity is that of complementary polarities, which, while opposed in the realm of experience and perception, are co-substantial in a transcendent sense.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_monism

*2. Gluon :
a. The meaning of GLUON is a hypothetical neutral massless particle held to bind together quarks to form hadrons.
b. an unobserved massless particle with spin 1 that is believed to transmit the strong force between quarks,


*3. Aristotle : A substantial form is the essence of a substance

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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:59 pm

Gimme time to process all that. Ciao! — Agent Smith

"There's no time like the present".

I'm currently reading a book by theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. In a chapter entitled, Is Math All There Is, she interviewed physicist Tim Palmer, who studies the chaos of climate using AI. They made a comment that has an indirect bearing on this thread. We "independently arrived at similar conclusions about the lack of progress in the foundations of physics. We both pointed the finger at physicist's overreliance on reductionism" [bold in text] . Hence, the need for a judicious use of holistic methods to understand the mushy quantum foundations of physics. And that also applies to understanding the foggy initial conditions of the Big Bang, upon which the inference of "fine tuning" is based.

Referring to both the Big Bang and to religious creation myths, she asked "What do we mean by this word creation anyway?" She then discusses the meta-physical [my word] mathematical methods of physics. "Is an atom just mathematics? Is mathematics all that is? Or is there something, a substance or something, that makes stuff real and is not part of the modern scientific canon?" [my bold]. To that, my answer is yes : Generic Information. Just as Einstein equated insubstantial Energy with substantial Matter, I equate ideal EnFormAction with all the physical stuff of Reality. From a Reductive approach, that does not make sense. But from a Holistic perspective, it not only makes sense, it makes substance.

PS___Take your time. With patience, a meaningful image may appear from within the noise of nonsense.


"I am not trying to advocate this . . . but you could say God created the universe as a piece of mathematics" ___mathematical physicist Tim Palmer

Information
:
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those mathematical ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict" or "Co-operation".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Information is
:
Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness, that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.

http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

What is EnFormAction?
:
4. Like DNA, Information shapes things via internal rather than external constraints. Like the Laws of Physics, Information is the motivating & constraining force of physical reality. Like Energy, Information is the universal active agent of the cosmos. Like Spinoza's God, Information appears to be the single substance of the whole World.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

Is This a Designer Universe? :
However, another path of Logic assumes that the most important aspect of reality to non-scientists is personal Consciousness — the essence of humanity — which can't be adequately explained as the output of material mechanisms. So the most reasonable candidate for the source of such noumenal Qualia would be a creative mind of some kind : Mind makes minds. That's why most thinkers, until recently, have imagined their hypothetical uber-mind in allegorical terms of a bigger & better human awareness. Unfortunately, that reasonable supposition included some extra baggage in the form of human emotions that are inherent functions of the physical human body, and may not apply to discarnate spiritual entities. Which is why most philosophers, not concerned with religious myth-making, have portrayed the transcendent ultimate Mind in terms of abstract principles with no physical form, as exemplified in Brahman, Tao, Dharma, Logos, and Spinoza's Pantheistic “substance”.
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page49.html

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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Tue Sep 06, 2022 5:57 pm

Let's discuss the binary yin-yang aspect of your theory if you don't mind. According to skepticism, pragmata (issues, topics, etc.) are adiaphora (logically undifferentiated) and for that reason both thesis & antithesis exist as part of our lives, which is true is anepikrita (undecidable). In other words in the ideaverse at least the yin-yang state of affairs is not because we possess information but because we lack information to help us determine the truth. What sayest thou? — Agent Smith

The binary-within-unity Yin-Yang philosophy is neither Pollyanna nor Candide. It admits that "bad sh*t happens", but on-the-whole the good-vs-evil struggle averages-out to good-enough. Otherwise, life would be intolerable, and homo sapiens would never have survived long enough to infer generalities (wholes) from specifics (parts). So yes, Yin-Yang, and my own BothAnd worldview, are acknowledgements of the evolutionary Hegelian Dialectic : the world progresses despite conflicts & contradictions.

Our limited experience of the world, and our limited imagination of possibilities, sometimes causes us to see only the trees, and to remain ignorant of the forest. Holism -- the unifying circle around the dualistic Yin/Yang -- is not an observation, but an inference. So, it requires both factual information and counter-factual imagination. When Yin & Yang are equal, the result is harmony. But such a balanced win-win system is also "undecidable", in that there is no clear winner. In that case, win-lose Black vs White thinking is frustrated. Is that blockage due to "lack of information" or to deliberate ignorance of the other side of the equation?

Thou Art That (Tat Tvam Asi) : relation between individual & absolute ; between part & whole


YIN + YANG = PROGRESS (please ignore the Marxist propaganda)
main-qimg-871a2b17efec6230f9bc8b9524ed5937.webp
TRANSFORMATION = INFORMATION
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Re: TPF : Fine Tuning Argument

Post by Gnomon » Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:03 pm

To me, reality is the computation of probability. In this way one would eventually be living. I have no idea what probability has to do with a creator. Does anyone else? — Josh Alfred

One way to look at that question is to think of the physics of the Big Bang. The theory implies that a pre-existing dimensionless Singularity began in a highly improbable state of low Entropy. If you bisect a Bell Curve graph, call the left side "The Past" and the right side "The Future". Now, place the BB Singularity at the peak of the curve, where Potential Order is maximum and Entropy is minimum. Then ask the question : how did the universe get that head-start? How did the roller-coaster get to the top of the hill? Statistically, that highly-improbable initial condition is almost impossible.

There are two ways to explain such an unlikely state of Nature. 1> An infinite Multiverse (maximum space-time-matter-energy) spawned a mini-verse by donating a bit of organizational potential. Or, 2> an eternal Mathematician imagined a game that begins in crystalline order, then proceeds to roll the dice "chanting seven-come-eleven". As luck would have it, the result was more wins (order) than losses (disorder). Thus a randomized process increased in organization and complexity, despite the thermodynamic law of Entropy. So, we can infer a counter-force that I like to call "Enformy", to convert vague possibility to likely probability, then to real actuality.

Enformy :
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

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5 hours ago

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