What is Being?

[MagusYanam]

In the 'Strongest Arguments for Atheism' thread I came across an interesting piece of the discussion:

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.

What on earth does that mean? I think I understand what it is for number to exist outside of time--but it means they have no past, present, or future. For me, too, I seem only to be in the present at all times--at least all times I exist. I'm never in the past or future either, as it seems to me. (Actually, as I say, I'm a 4D-st, so despite appearances I think my current self is just a time-slice of what I am.) If the point is just that, unlike Yahweh, I don't exist at alltimes, then the point is just that I am not eternal (unlike Yahweh).

The question here seems to be whether or not time has any bearing on the nature of existence. Here I'll take the neo-naturalist tack: my belief is that time has an inherent bearing on the nature of existence. Who I am now might resemble in no way who I am two, twenty or fifty years from now. Am I then the same person? If person means body, then no - human beings age. If person means personality, likewise no - a person's beliefs and desires can change from time to time. So my question is to spetey: by saying that you are a 4D-ist, are you taking a neo-naturalist view (that is to say there is no person per se, rather that the person represented is constantly changing and each 'time-slice' constitutes its own personhood independent of the others), a neo-Platonist view (that is to say that while each 'time-slice' represents a different piece of one's person, the person exists per se and has a deeper nature independent of time) or a different view entirely? I ask, by the way, because while you seem to take a neo-naturalist stance on a lot of things, your concept of God (Yahwah) seems to be more neo-Platonist (God existing at all times as a single, unchanging person).

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

[harvey1]

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

Julian Barbour has done more than anyone in promoting a world without the passage of time by combining quantum mechanics with general relativity (i.e., quantum cosmology). In that world, "if X holds, then Y holds with probability P." If X is a "quantum nothingness," then everything that exists (Y) is a result of X. Since Y holds with probability P, there are many histories with each history representing a different probability of occurrence. Let me call this the original X, original Y, and original P.

However, if any history has a remote, remote probability, it still must exist since it has some value. The histories of a higher probability must have more representation (otherwise they would have the same probability as a low probable event), and therefore that would seem to imply that more probable histories are duplicated over and over. That is, the probability of occurrence means the number of times it occurs compared to a lower probable history.

Hence, there are many "you's" and many "me's," in all of these histories that are exactly like our history. And, there are many "slightly-you's" and many "slightly-me's," but each with a different set of events that set us apart from them (i.e., in those histories that are not exactly duplicates but are similar enough). And, then there are just different histories where "you" and "me" are so different as people, that it just wouldn't make sense to refer to either of us in those worlds.

The "equations" of Platonia are what determines what is probable. Thus, if those equations are only about the configuration of matter (i.e., a materialist view of quantum cosmology), then worlds are just configurations of matter. However, if the Platonia equations are determined based on what God's will has determined as "probable," then the worlds that exist are those that are allowed by God to exist. If God's will set the equations of Platonia not to allow WWIII, then no world would contain WWIII.

In addition, the world that we reside now would also be X, hence the future of X (now) would be Y with probability P. Again, if P is based on God's will, then we could affect our fate by choosing the state of (X+1), (X+2), and so on, and therefore we can have the power of choice even though all of these choices are still only part of the original Y with original probability P.

As you can see, persons are determined by us, but cannot exist outside of the original Y with original probability P. God sets bounds on the world, but God does not restrict the world. God interacts with the world, but God is not in time.

[ST88]

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

As personality is affected by time, but personhood is not, the nature of personality dictates that it is the sum of all events in a single consciousness' life overlaid upon the genetic and biological makeup of the consciousness' container. This helps explain how brain injuries affect personality but do not affect personhood. For me, it can all be explained using biology.

Is it possible, for example, to switch some sort of non-substantive entity we might call personality into a physically different brain? Even if such a thing could be possible, I don't think it would work. The physical neural pathways are completely different in every individual -- memory patterns are different, identifications and contexts are different, procedural memories are different. All are expressed in terms of the connections of axons to other neurons in the overall network. Many physical expressions of brain behavior are similar in humans -- the occipital lobe handles vision in everyone, for example. And there are brain structures that have defined roles. But in terms of personality -- memory and the reactions to it -- the conections are made virtually on an ad hoc basis through processes based on things like "relevance" and sometimes sheer accident. As time moves forward, these connections build upon themselves and decay as the brain changes and decomposes -- different patterns in every individual, as every individual has different experiences.

I agree that time is essential to explaining existence. But I don't think it's quite as simple as saying time affects existence. Physical forces that act on objects such as ourselves are time dependent. If there can be such a thing as a slice of time we can look at and identify, no force would be acting in that slice -- not even light quanta would be able to reach our eyes becuse they would not be moving. But existence does not require such observations. BeHereNow and I were talking about something similar in another thread: Can objective truth be incomplete? . The language we use to identify a tree, for example, encompasses the entire life of a tree -- its entire existence through time. Caught up in the definition of a tree is its transient and changing nature. Does this mean that a tree caught in a slice of time in which the tree cannot be said to be changing is still a tree? I'm not sure there's a valid answer to that question. It is most definitely an object shaped like a tree, but for all intents and purposes, it is dead, and not in the sense that we understand the death of a tree -- no movement of water is taking place, no growth, no hormone delivery, no root osmosis. In other words, no tree-like processes are taking place despite the fact that everything required for the processes to happen are in place. Despite this, we can be reasonably sure that in successive slices of time, such processes are happening, but we require the slide show in order to know this for sure. Similarly, for the brain, if it is possible for us to view the actions that lead to the pattern-building behavior of neurons, we would need that study in order to understand the personality as a whole. I'm not sure that a snapshot of a neural network in a slice of time would help a whole lot with dissecting a personality.

[spetey]

Hi MagusYanam and everyone...

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

I'm glad this topic interests you. In the literature it's known as the problem of personal identity. There are many complicated proposed solutions. For this forum, perhaps the most interesting question debated in personal identity is whether and in what sense an afterlife is possible. There are two going types of theories of personal identity: the "body theory" and the "memory theory". On both theories, the afterlife seems impossible or at least problematic.


spetey

[BeHereNow]

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

All things are transient.
Being is nothingness.
Self (ego!, personality?) is an illusion.
The Eternal is no more contained or constrained by time than the infinite is contained or constrained by space.

This shell I call a body is composed of eternal material. If the mind is able to experience the eternalism of one's body, the error of dualism has been avoided, and oneness has been experienced. This Oneness connects us to the Eternal, we become one with the Eternal.

[Corvus]

In the 'Strongest Arguments for Atheism' thread I came across an interesting piece of the discussion:

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.

What on earth does that mean? I think I understand what it is for number to exist outside of time--but it means they have no past, present, or future. For me, too, I seem only to be in the present at all times--at least all times I exist. I'm never in the past or future either, as it seems to me. (Actually, as I say, I'm a 4D-st, so despite appearances I think my current self is just a time-slice of what I am.) If the point is just that, unlike Yahweh, I don't exist at alltimes, then the point is just that I am not eternal (unlike Yahweh).

The question here seems to be whether or not time has any bearing on the nature of existence.

It took multiple reads of this thread before I discovered why I could make no sense of statements like these - though I must admit, having very little sleep also impeded progress. What do you mean by "time having a bearing on existence"? Perhaps because I am cheerfully unfamiliar with whatever explanations physics offers for the phenomenon of time, classifying time as a substance is as alien to me as doing likewise with size or length. To me, time is about motion, action and progress; A way things happen, not something that makes things happen.

At this moment, I began to write some thoughts about personhood and personality, only to find that I was only reiterating what had already been stated by ST88. For that reason, I will simply make clear that I concur almost entirely with his assessment.

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.

I can make neither heads nor tails of this. Without time, nothing at all can happen. Omnipresence suggests infinite time, not an absence of it, but I think the suggestion God is bound by some sort of rule will be immediately dismissed by people who want their God to be as much of an absolute ruler of the universe as they can conceive. I also cannot understand how temporal omnipresence can even function. How could something that exists only in infinity ever create anything with a beginning? Even if this were possible, the progress of time and the awareness of the present which we are all feeling right now, as I type this, as you reading this and when I read this back to myself, would be an illusion. How can the immediacy of the present really exist if, at the very same time I write this, God is regarding the immediacy of the present that I was pondering about and feeling when writing, at the beginning of this sentence, "How can the immediacy of the present exist"? - And also the illusion of immediacy before that and before that and before that and before that and ...

I likewise pose this question to everyone: what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent? Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

Julian Barbour has done more than anyone in promoting a world without the passage of time by combining quantum mechanics with general relativity (i.e., quantum cosmology). In that world, "if X holds, then Y holds with probability P." If X is a "quantum nothingness," then everything that exists (Y) is a result of X. Since Y holds with probability P, there are many histories with each history representing a different probability of occurrence. Let me call this the original X, original Y, and original P.

However, if any history has a remote, remote probability, it still must exist since it has some value. The histories of a higher probability must have more representation (otherwise they would have the same probability as a low probable event), and therefore that would seem to imply that more probable histories are duplicated over and over. That is, the probability of occurrence means the number of times it occurs compared to a lower probable history.

Hence, there are many "you's" and many "me's," in all of these histories that are exactly like our history. And, there are many "slightly-you's" and many "slightly-me's," but each with a different set of events that set us apart from them (i.e., in those histories that are not exactly duplicates but are similar enough). And, then there are just different histories where "you" and "me" are so different as people, that it just wouldn't make sense to refer to either of us in those worlds.

The "equations" of Platonia are what determines what is probable. Thus, if those equations are only about the configuration of matter (i.e., a materialist view of quantum cosmology), then worlds are just configurations of matter. However, if the Platonia equations are determined based on what God's will has determined as "probable," then the worlds that exist are those that are allowed by God to exist. If God's will set the equations of Platonia not to allow WWIII, then no world would contain WWIII.

In addition, the world that we reside now would also be X, hence the future of X (now) would be Y with probability P. Again, if P is based on God's will, then we could affect our fate by choosing the state of (X+1), (X+2), and so on, and therefore we can have the power of choice even though all of these choices are still only part of the original Y with original probability P.

As you can see, persons are determined by us, but cannot exist outside of the original Y with original probability P. God sets bounds on the world, but God does not restrict the world. God interacts with the world, but God is not in time.

I'm afraid your philosophical equations are quite beyond me, so you may have to explain in simple English exactly how free will and choice of fate could be intact. By my understanding, all probabilities would be peopled by automatons, each assigned to playing out their assigned probabilities within their assigned restrictions, making entirely unfair any sort of punishment or reward for the behaviour of each.

[bernee51]

Is God affected by time or is God completely unmoved by its effects?

Do you mean a JCI version of god? Such an entity does not exist. So such a god is obviously not affected by time.

Do you mean a specific creator entity? Again I have problems conceptualising such a being.

Do you mean god as being the fundamental 'ground of being' of which we are all part, but has no specific control of or input into existience? That is getting a bit closer. A 'ground of being' is eternal because 'being' always has and always will be.

what are your insights on the nature of being or personhood? Is personality transient or more substantive and time-independent?

Personality - as in the pattern of collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person are a construct of the ego. The ego seeks to protect itself from its own impermanence so it builds a wall of personality around itself.

Being is made up of the physical (the geosphere) the nuts and bolts, atoms and molecules of our existence. These are permanent in the way that matter is permanent. It can be changed but it cannot be destroyed. We also have a link to the biosphere - that which makes us move, the engine, if you like, of our existence. It cannot exist without the geosphere. Next in this 'nest of being' is the noosphere - the domain of the mind. It. like the biosphere, is dependent for its existence of the 'levels' on which it is built.

Beyond that, for me at least, the position blurs a little. I also have, for want of a better word, a sense of spirit. The values which I possess which guide my life and the decisions or conclusions which a primarily carried out in the noosphere. These are not part of my mind but obviously affect all that I am and the way the rest of 'me' relates and interacts with the phenomenal world.

At the very top and the very centre, i.e. pervading it all is the Self, the Witness. That which can describe all I have described but is, in and off itself indescribable. The 'ground of being'?

[harvey1]

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.

I can make neither heads nor tails of this. Without time, nothing at all can happen. Omnipresence suggests infinite time, not an absence of it, but I think the suggestion God is bound by some sort of rule will be immediately dismissed by people who want their God to be as much of an absolute ruler of the universe as they can conceive. I also cannot understand how temporal omnipresence can even function. How could something that exists only in infinity ever create anything with a beginning?

Think of it as if there are quantum laws. First you have a state of "nothing." Second you have an evaluation of that state. This evaluation determines that the "nothing" state is not acceptable. Then the quantum laws "kick in," and then you have wham bam, thank you Mam.

Now, it might seem like I have invoked the passage of time, but have I really? Not necessarily. I could represent everything as a tree that just "exists." That is, the Universe is still partially represented as "nothing" that is "prior" to our universe. That branch represents a different modal outcome of our world that doesn't have any child to it (since nothing produces nothing). The branch of the tree that has siblings is the one in which God's action would have, should have, and has brought about an entire universe. The possibilities are actualities. Non-possibilities have no representation. Possibilities are determined by God's will. What is not God's will do not, cannot, and never will exist.

All the whole Universe is just "BE." There is no passage of time. The reality of our world is that we are a picture hanging on the wall. Frozen like one of the best frozen margaritas that you've ever tasted.

Evolutionary theory is just a subset of this whole process. Whereas evolution branches off "in time," reality simply is just branched without there actually being any time at all. Just God existing over the whole of everything. Just existing. Just BE.

Even if this were possible, the progress of time and the awareness of the present which we are all feeling right now, as I type this, as you reading this and when I read this back to myself, would be an illusion.

Exactly. You're "now" when you wrote that is still "now," except that you are now looking at that "now" from a different "location." Think of where you are now as a farm field in Kansas, and where you were yesterday as a farm field in Nebraska. When you were in Nebraska you had the sense that you were on a flat area of the globe where the sun was shining, etc. However, today in Kansas the world looks pretty much the same (except for seeing Kansas instead of Nebraska). However, you don't say, "the similarity of being in this field on earth is so compelling how can this be an illusion that I am not in the same field except for a change in time from yesterday to today? How can I be in Kansas if it is exactly like Nebraska in everyway except a difference in today and yesterday?" That would be preposterous. No, you know that Nebraska and Kansas both exist, from where you stand they both look the same overall, but the thing that has changed isn't the place itself, the thing that has changed is your position on the globe. If you stay in the same room for two nights, the second night might look the same with everything the same as the night before, but like your trip to Kansas, you are no longer in the same place. The Corvus in Kansas and the Corvus in Nebraska both think they haven't moved on the face of earth, but indeed they have.

How can the immediacy of the present really exist if, at the very same time I write this, God is regarding the immediacy of the present that I was pondering about and feeling when writing, at the beginning of this sentence, "How can the immediacy of the present exist"? - And also the illusion of immediacy before that and before that and before that and before that and ...

Well, you're just all over the place, aren't you?

In addition, the world that we reside now would also be X, hence the future of X (now) would be Y with probability P. Again, if P is based on God's will, then we could affect our fate by choosing the state of (X+1), (X+2), and so on, and therefore we can have the power of choice even though all of these choices are still only part of the original Y with original probability P. As you can see, persons are determined by us, but cannot exist outside of the original Y with original probability P. God sets bounds on the world, but God does not restrict the world. God interacts with the world, but God is not in time.

I'm afraid your philosophical equations are quite beyond me, so you may have to explain in simple English exactly how free will and choice of fate could be intact. By my understanding, all probabilities would be peopled by automatons, each assigned to playing out their assigned probabilities within their assigned restrictions, making entirely unfair any sort of punishment or reward for the behaviour of each.

How do you define free will? In my book, free will is what we decide without being forced or required by biology, other people, education, etc. to do something.

You had the choice to go from Nebraska to Kansas, that's why you are in Kansas. If there is no real passage of time, then the primitives to you being in Kansas is not the passage of time, the primitives are whatever factors force change in your life. By primitives I mean those elements which are true, and because they are true, a situation just "exists." In every conceivable universe that is possible, you choose to go to Kansas or you choose not to. Each of those universes it is your choice. The universes where you choose not to go to Kansas become part of the primitives in that universe where going to Kansas does not exist.

Now, let's say that going to Kansas is symbolic for doing those things that you find yourself in God's grace (i.e., only because you went to Kansas). If you stay in Nebraska, let's say, you are not in God's grace, and henceforth you are judged negatively by God at the end of your life during the Judgement. In such a case, you better go to Kansas. However, there's a problem since in some worlds you choose to go to Kansas and in some worlds you choose not to. Which "you" does God judge negatively and which "you" does God judge you positively?

The answer is not all that complicated. We are what we decide in life. The person who is "you" who did not go to Kansas is not really "you" anymore. Their identity was "you" up until their primitive took a different route in life. There was a slight difference in your identity that had to do with whatever it is that separates one human being from another. So, God is not judging one Corvus as good, and one as evil. God is simply judging two different people--who happen to have shared a common history up until the time they had to choose to go to Kansas or not.

The issue of free will enters because of this question, "which Corvus are you? Are you the Corvus who goes to Kansas, or are you the Corvus that stays in Nebraska?" If you stay in Nebraska, then you become the other Corvus--the one judged negatively by God. If you choose to go to Kansas, then you are the Corvus that God says, "well done, come and enter my Kingdom prepared for you and the saints."

It's entirely your free will decision. Up until yesterday you had no other reason to be the Corvus of Kansas (versus the Corvus of Nebraska) other than the decision you made yesterday when you went to Kansas. Or, if you want to look at as present-tense, you have no reason not to go to Kansas other than the decision you have to make right now. The only reason that there is a Corvus in Kansas from the perspective of time (or could be a Corvus in Kansas) is because one Corvus did go to Kansas (i.e., had to go since it is a possible universe that must be actualized). That Corvus could be you--ought to be you. You can be the Corvus that actualizes that outcome. It may not be you since you could be the Corvus that stayed in Nebraska. It's your choice.

So, I encourage everyone to go to Kansas...

[Corvus]

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.

I can make neither heads nor tails of this. Without time, nothing at all can happen. Omnipresence suggests infinite time, not an absence of it, but I think the suggestion God is bound by some sort of rule will be immediately dismissed by people who want their God to be as much of an absolute ruler of the universe as they can conceive. I also cannot understand how temporal omnipresence can even function. How could something that exists only in infinity ever create anything with a beginning?

Think of it as if there are quantum laws. First you have a state of "nothing." Second you have an evaluation of that state. This evaluation determines that the "nothing" state is not acceptable. Then the quantum laws "kick in," and then you have wham bam, thank you Mam.

Now, it might seem like I have invoked the passage of time, but have I really? Not necessarily. I could represent everything as a tree that just "exists." That is, the Universe is still partially represented as "nothing" that is "prior" to our universe. That branch represents a different modal outcome of our world that doesn't have any child to it (since nothing produces nothing). The branch of the tree that has siblings is the one in which God's action would have, should have, and has brought about an entire universe. The possibilities are actualities. Non-possibilities have no representation. Possibilities are determined by God's will. What is not God's will do not, cannot, and never will exist.

All the whole Universe is just "BE." There is no passage of time. The reality of our world is that we are a picture hanging on the wall. Frozen like one of the best frozen margaritas that you've ever tasted.

Evolutionary theory is just a subset of this whole process. Whereas evolution branches off "in time," reality simply is just branched without there actually being any time at all. Just God existing over the whole of everything. Just existing. Just BE.

My mind is ill-equiped to deal with the concept of eternity, but do you mean to say that the universe has always existed? From what I understand, if the universe is a picture hung on the infinite present-ness that is God, then there can be no possible way to measure how high or how far along this wall it was placed.

Even if this were possible, the progress of time and the awareness of the present which we are all feeling right now, as I type this, as you reading this and when I read this back to myself, would be an illusion.

Exactly. You're "now" when you wrote that is still "now," except that you are now looking at that "now" from a different "location." Think of where you are now as a farm field in Kansas, and where you were yesterday as a farm field in Nebraska. When you were in Nebraska you had the sense that you were on a flat area of the globe where the sun was shining, etc. However, today in Kansas the world looks pretty much the same (except for seeing Kansas instead of Nebraska). However, you don't say, "the similarity of being in this field on earth is so compelling how can this be an illusion that I am not in the same field except for a change in time from yesterday to today? How can I be in Kansas if it is exactly like Nebraska in everyway except a difference in today and yesterday?" That would be preposterous. No, you know that Nebraska and Kansas both exist, from where you stand they both look the same overall, but the thing that has changed isn't the place itself, the thing that has changed is your position on the globe. If you stay in the same room for two nights, the second night might look the same with everything the same as the night before, but like your trip to Kansas, you are no longer in the same place. The Corvus in Kansas and the Corvus in Nebraska both think they haven't moved on the face of earth, but indeed they have.

How can the immediacy of the present really exist if, at the very same time I write this, God is regarding the immediacy of the present that I was pondering about and feeling when writing, at the beginning of this sentence, "How can the immediacy of the present exist"? - And also the illusion of immediacy before that and before that and before that and before that and ...

Well, you're just all over the place, aren't you?

I think my question is, if it is an illusion, why bother with it? After all, everything has already happened, so why should I still be seeing this extremely artificial progression of events?

In addition, the world that we reside now would also be X, hence the future of X (now) would be Y with probability P. Again, if P is based on God's will, then we could affect our fate by choosing the state of (X+1), (X+2), and so on, and therefore we can have the power of choice even though all of these choices are still only part of the original Y with original probability P. As you can see, persons are determined by us, but cannot exist outside of the original Y with original probability P. God sets bounds on the world, but God does not restrict the world. God interacts with the world, but God is not in time.

I'm afraid your philosophical equations are quite beyond me, so you may have to explain in simple English exactly how free will and choice of fate could be intact. By my understanding, all probabilities would be peopled by automatons, each assigned to playing out their assigned probabilities within their assigned restrictions, making entirely unfair any sort of punishment or reward for the behaviour of each.

How do you define free will? In my book, free will is what we decide without being forced or required by biology, other people, education, etc. to do something.

Education? I would think we do almost everything as a result of education or past experience. I would say free will is the capacity to make choices without being forced by external factors, and I would classify compulsory representation of possibilities to be such an external factor as would limit free will.

<snip>

The issue of free will enters because of this question, "which Corvus are you? Are you the Corvus who goes to Kansas, or are you the Corvus that stays in Nebraska?" If you stay in Nebraska, then you become the other Corvus--the one judged negatively by God. If you choose to go to Kansas, then you are the Corvus that God says, "well done, come and enter my Kingdom prepared for you and the saints."

It's entirely your free will decision. Up until yesterday you had no other reason to be the Corvus of Kansas (versus the Corvus of Nebraska) other than the decision you made yesterday when you went to Kansas. Or, if you want to look at as present-tense, you have no reason not to go to Kansas other than the decision you have to make right now. The only reason that there is a Corvus in Kansas from the perspective of time (or could be a Corvus in Kansas) is because one Corvus did go to Kansas (i.e., had to go since it is a possible universe that must be actualized)

That last part is where my problem lies. One Corvus had to stay in Nebraska. It is unavoidable, since, as you say, if any event has a possibility of existing, then it will exist. Thus there is no way for one Corvus to avoid eternal damnation simply because that Corvus was the one meant to represent the eternally damned Corvus. I could also very easily ruin the lives of thousands of your potential selves by simply offering you some drugs. If it is 99% likely that you will not take the drugs, the remaing 1% likelihood should result in several thousand drug-addicted harveys, no?