"All possibilities are necessarily actualized"

[EduChris]

Consider the following hypothesis:

"Any and all possibilities are necessarily actualized in some or another universe(s) within an infinite omniverse"

Does this represent a parsimonious hypothesis, or a profligate one?

[Artie]

Why do the neurons in our brain that have the meaning they do have the meaning they do? Were they dictated to have the meaning they do by a fundamentally meaningless (I mean this only semantically, understand) process? That seems silly. Would a book that came together which happened to be a complete works of Shakespeare have meaning, if it didn't have an author?

Ah. You are doing the exact same mistake people in Scandinavia did a thousand years ago. The didn't have a natural explanation for thunder and lightning and therefore surely Thor the Thundergod must be responsible. If a person was struck several times by lightning, surely that must prove that Thor really had it in for him? What other meaning could there be? Perhaps by using logic, reason and common sense someone might have pointed out that it might have something to do with this person both times being in an open field far from any trees? So this person was hit twice by a meaningless process but it appeared to convey the meaning that Thor was after him. Nobody was after him. It wast just a completely logical natural process producing an effect we ascribed a creator of and therefore a meaning to.

[ThatGirlAgain]

...Your argument is based on assuming your conclusion...

I am formally challenging this claim. Please support or retract it.

Here is summary of my argument:

1) Epistemology presumes consciousness, reason, and volition. Without all three elements, epistemology fails.

Epistemology is the study of human knowledge. Human knowledge as opposed to the knowledge contained in a book clearly requires at least the illusion of consciousness. (One could study how a computer program that claims consciousness knows things, thereby inventing a branch of epistemology.) Reason is needed to make sense of data and turn it into knowledge. But it is unclear why volition is needed. A person who has had a massive frontal lobotomy might have no conscious volition left but might still know many things and answer questions lucidly and with insight.

2) CRV (consciousness, reason, and volition) is either instantiated or not in our universe.

This assumes that consciousness, reason and volition have a real existence and are not mere illusions of complicated brain processes. They might be barber pole stripes, seeming to rise forever but really only going round and round. Are rainbows instantiated in the universe? You can see them and even take pictures of them. But to call them real raises expectations that will not be met.

3) If CRV is not instantiated in our universe, then all of our thinking is subverted absolutely. Epistemology fails, and we cannot have an epistemically justified explanation for anything.

Thinking is not an absolute thing. That is an assumption. Explanations are approximations. Good explanations have testable ramifications. But they are like metaphors, ultimately they all limp. We can have epistemically justified explanations that have testable consequences. Is there an afterlife? One explanation may claim that there is, another that there is not. When we die we find out. But the ability to be right about major details does not require that an explanation be offered for every last fine detail. CRV can be a useful illusion, which is why there is such great survival value in that illusion. But making it a flat out either/or misses that point. Again, is a rainbow real? Depends on what you mean.

4) In order to maintain epistemology, we must grant that CRV is instantiated in our universe. This is not an assumption, but rather an unprovable axiom, a precondition for being able to justify anything epistemically.

Again, epistemology is the study of how we know things. And the answer there is that we know things approximately and/or by analogies. This is how our brains are set up to work. We can still have knowledge " a shorthand description of reality " in our heads without CRV being cosmically ordained.

5) Since CRV is epistemically necessary, it is epistemically justified (and it corresponds also to our direct understanding of our inner mental life).

As we have seen CRV is not epistemically necessary. And our inner mental life is a hodgepodge of constantly changing consciousness, reason and volition. And those things are the tip of a submerged iceberg of old brain processing that support it and helps maintain the illusion of a self. (See more discussion of this idea and references to books on it in another recent post of mine.) Out inner mental life corresponds to the real world only to the extent that it is (hopefully) useful. This is why we have the illusion of an inner mental life it. The ones who were better at it survived.

6) Under the omniverse hypothesis, if CRV is instantiated in our universe, then CRV is logically necessary--i.e., it is not possible that CRV not be instantiated.

CRV is found only in the inner mental life. It is not a characteristic of the real world. The world has no inner mental life. It just is.

7) If CRV is logically necessary, then CRV pertains to what I have termed Ultimate Reality (shorthand for the necessarily existing reality which provides the logical basis for all contingent reality).

CRV is not logically necessary. Ultimate Reality is simply what it is. And it is because it can be. We experience it every day to the extent that we are able " by our sense perceptions of the particular universe we find ourselves in.

8) Since CRV is logically necessary under the omniverse hypothesis, it follows that the omniverse hypothesis has VUR (volitional ultimate reality). And since the omniverse hypothesis was proposed for the very purpose of eliminating the need for VUR, it follows that the omniverse hypothesis is self-refuting. This is the first part of my argument. Now for the second part.

CRV is not logically necessary and is not found anywhere except as a persistent but not perfect illusion inside our heads. The Omniverse is Ultimate Reality and it is not volitional.

9) There are no other options logically available at this time: either the omniverse hypothesis is true, or else VUR is true. But if the omniverse hypothesis is true, then VUR is true. So the omniverse hypothesis is superfluous.

VUR is not true. The omniverse does not include VUR because CRV is only real in the way that a rainbow is real. It is detectable but in the end does not have the expected ramifications.

10) Given VUR, there is no need to postulate the profligacy of an infinity of infinity of universes just to account for the particular color/size/shape/composition of a single child's toy. Particularities can be explained more simply by volition, which is logically necessary under any available hypothesis and which does not require the profligacy of innumerable unobservable universes.

VUR is not given and does not exist. The real existence of all possible universes solves the problem of specificity and eliminates the need for convoluted theologies and all the assumptions they need to make them work. The omniverse is the ultimate in parsimony

Thus, VUR succeeds where the omniverse fails. If you disagree, then you have to demonstrate such; merely making an unsupported claim will not help your case.
See above.

You have assumed that CRV is a real thing that either is or is not. It is a rainbow, a barber pole. It is an illusion and not the basis for a sound argument. You have also assumed that thinking is a real thing. Same comments. It is no surprise that your argument based on these assumptions leads to a conclusion that supports those assumptions.

[EduChris]

...You have assumed that CRV is a real thing...It is an illusion...You have also assumed that thinking is a real thing. Same comments. It is no surprise that your argument based on these assumptions leads to a conclusion that supports those assumptions.

All of your objections stem from the fact that you deny the reality of our thoughts, our consciousness, our reason, and our volition. But if these things are illusion, then we cannot in principle trust the physical reality of any of the objects or concepts which we perceive by means of thoughts, consciousness, reason, and volition. You have not defended the omniverse hypothesis at all, nor have you undermined my argument. Instead, you have undermined everything except a bare chimera of solipcism.

Unless you grant the epistemically necessary reality of consciousness, reason, and volition (volition assents to attend to data and arguments rather than to various other forms of pleasures) then I doubt there is much to be gained from carrying on with this particular argument.

I submit that the real reason you do not want to ascend out of the solipcistic abyss is that you know that if you do, then VUR will be seen to provide the best and only epistemically justified explanation for our universe and our selves. And for whatever reason, you simply refuse to go there.

[AquinasD]

Ah. You are doing the exact same mistake people in Scandinavia did a thousand years ago.

Does meaning have a spatial location? You point to neurons in the brain, so fine, why does a neuron with its particular atomic structure and so on have the meaning that it does? How could we ever discover more than correlations between meaning and meaning-bearers?

Does finding the correlation between the experience of red and the particular wavelength of electromagnetic radiation explain why red appears as it does?

[Artie]

Does meaning have a spatial location? You point to neurons in the brain, so fine, why does a neuron with its particular atomic structure and so on have the meaning that it does?

Neurons connect with other neurons and the strength and number of connections and neurons provide the meaning together.

How could we ever discover more than correlations between meaning and meaning-bearers?

Not sure what you mean here.

Does finding the correlation between the experience of red and the particular wavelength of electromagnetic radiation explain why red appears as it does?

Red appears as it does because our eye detects the radiation and sends a signal through a nerve to the brain which interprets the signal in a certain way. We have been taught that this particular visual sensory experience is called red. It appears as it does because a brain that could differentiate between frequencies of electromagnetic radiation had an evolutionary advantage. All kinds of different connections were probably tried before our present one. Even today some people have their wires crossed and hear colors etc.

[AquinasD]

Neurons connect with other neurons and the strength and number of connections and neurons provide the meaning together.

Words are written next to other words. Yet we still don't point to this fact in explaining where the meaning of words is.

Red appears as it does because our eye detects the radiation and sends a signal through a nerve to the brain which interprets the signal in a certain way. We have been taught that this particular visual sensory experience is called red. It appears as it does because a brain that could differentiate between frequencies of electromagnetic radiation had an evolutionary advantage. All kinds of different connections were probably tried before our present one. Even today some people have their wires crossed and hear colors etc.

*sigh*

This still doesn't serve to answer why red appears redly. You've just told me exactly what I already pointed out doesn't serve as an explanation; the fact of a correlation. Yes, there is a correlation. But why does red appear redly?

[Artie]

Neurons connect with other neurons and the strength and number of connections and neurons provide the meaning together.

Words are written next to other words. Yet we still don't point to this fact in explaining where the meaning of words is.

I have no idea what you are talking about. The meaning of words are written in dictionaries. Please try to explain in a different way.

This still doesn't serve to answer why red appears redly. You've just told me exactly what I already pointed out doesn't serve as an explanation; the fact of a correlation. Yes, there is a correlation. But why does red appear redly?

For me the answer is obvious. It appears redly because evolution selected for those organisms for whom this particular electromagnetic frequency appears redly and not any other color or sound or whatever. Please rephrase the question.

[ThatGirlAgain]

...You have assumed that CRV is a real thing...It is an illusion...You have also assumed that thinking is a real thing. Same comments. It is no surprise that your argument based on these assumptions leads to a conclusion that supports those assumptions.

All of your objections stem from the fact that you deny the reality of our thoughts, our consciousness, our reason, and our volition. But if these things are illusion, then we cannot in principle trust the physical reality of any of the objects or concepts which we perceive by means of thoughts, consciousness, reason, and volition. You have not defended the omniverse hypothesis at all, nor have you undermined my argument. Instead, you have undermined everything except a bare chimera of solipsism.

Unless you grant the epistemically necessary reality of consciousness, reason, and volition (volition assents to attend to data and arguments rather than to various other forms of pleasures) then I doubt there is much to be gained from carrying on with this particular argument.

I submit that the real reason you do not want to ascend out of the solipsistic abyss is that you know that if you do, then VUR will be seen to provide the best and only epistemically justified explanation for our universe and our selves. And for whatever reason, you simply refuse to go there.

You want absolutes. They are not there. I am just following my nose through the evidence and the reasoning. The Omniverse is where I ended up, much to my surprise. But I suspect you were not at all surprised at your conclusions.

And solipsism? I see nothing in any of my posts leading that direction. And if it did....why would I bother posting?

Let's call it quits. I do not really have the time to continue. It's FINALS! time.

[AquinasD]

I have no idea what you are talking about. The meaning of words are written in dictionaries. Please try to explain in a different way.

These words mean something, do they not? If they have a meaning, then where is that meaning?

The sentences "It is snowing" and "Il neige" mean the same thing. Yet they are represented through different symbols. How then can they mean the same thing?

And don't tell me because "neurons in the head were associated with those utterances to the phenomena," because that doesn't tell me why neurons in the head can mean the same thing. Why can two different things share the same identity?

For me the answer is obvious. It appears redly because evolution selected for those organisms for whom this particular electromagnetic frequency appears redly and not any other color or sound or whatever. Please rephrase the question.

Why did red ever have the particular quality of appearing redly for any organism at any point in time?

[Artie]

For me the answer is obvious. It appears redly because evolution selected for those organisms for whom this particular electromagnetic frequency appears redly and not any other color or sound or whatever. Please rephrase the question.

Why did red ever have the particular quality of appearing redly for any organism at any point in time?

Red is just a human name for our visual perception of just that limited range of electromagnetic radiation frequency.

I still have no idea what you mean and we're not getting anywhere. Maybe someone else understands and can explain it differently?