“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[peacegirl]

So I shouldn’t have tried to share this knowledge, according to you.

Pretty much. You should have recognised that it's not in a fit state for publication, if you want it to be taken seriously.

What do you mean by that? Who determines what a fit state for publication is?

Put yourself in my position for one second and you will have a little sympathy.

I have the greatest of sympathy for you. It's not easy being a Dunning-Kruger victim.

Nope. That's not me at all. You're way off-base.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: What It Is & Why It Matters

Everyone experiences the Dunning-Kruger effect at some point or another. Here we look at everyday examples and how to recognize it in your own life.

www.healthline.com

He never had a chance in his lifetime because he was not in academia.

No, he never had a chance because he didn't understand what academia is.

He was an outsider and at that time he had no internet and no way of really sharing his knowledge other than putting ads in the newspaper. He spent a fortune and got some responses, but it was not going to be enough for anyone of influence to confirm that what he had was valid and sound. He contacted a few universities and spoke at my alma mater, but the odds were stacked against him from the beginning.

It's not an old boy's club, it's a barely controlled brawl, in which only the strongest and best ideas have a hope of survival.

To tell you the truth, I really can't deal with snobs, arrogance, narcissists and people who think they are hot shit. There's got to be a better way. I won't bow down to anyone, not even academics.

Thus discovery is still not recognized not because it’s vapid but because I cannot reach true academicians who would take this book seriously and study it like other philosophers have been studied. That’s not asking too much

Yes, it is.

A soldier who has fought bravely against almost impossible odds gets awarded medals, and when other soldiers see those medals, they give that soldier deep respect. But it would be a terrible mistake to just buy some medals in a junkshop, and wear them expecting to get the same respect.

It's not the medals that are respectable; It's the battle that they represent.

In the same way, an academic might be called Doctor or Professor, or have a string of letters after his name, and you might see that he is deeply respected by other academics as a consequence.

But it's not the honorifics that get him the respect; It's the intellectual hardships, conflicts, criticisms, and attacks that they represent.

We can admire them for their efforts and appreciate the hard work that got them to where they are, but it doesn't mean they deserve more respect than someone else who didn't do those things.

Unknowingly, our choice of words has been responsible for artificially stratifying people into layers of value, giving some more privilege than others. This stratification has caused a systemic form of inequality that has formed the basis for discrimination and differential treatment. For example, a college graduate is considered of greater value and therefore is paid a higher income; besides, he receives greater respect and gets a title like professor or Ph.D. which again places him in a category apart from others. Although it is true that he may have read more books, may have learned more words, may have passed to a higher grade than other of his colleagues, yet a laborer may have shoveled more dirt, may have developed greater muscles, may have built buildings instead of read books. But for what reason is the one considered more educated? The fallacy lies in the fact that the word education, like beauty, has become associated only with certain differences and represents a judgment of one person in relation to another, but regardless of who is the judge, it is the word itself which compels him to see through this faulty lens what he is convinced is absolutely true — a very intelligent, educated person — while he sees someone who has a different background as an uneducated individual. Most of you know this but are unaware that it is absolutely impossible for an individual to see this person for who he really is because the word slide projects a value that does not exist externally, and only when these very symbols are removed will someone begin to get a glimpse of the real world.

If you turn up demanding respect, having never done the hard fighting needed to defend your ideas, and then, when challenged to prove your right to that respect, by defending the ideas you rode in on you try to hide behind demands for respect, instead of standing up and doing battle for your claims, reasoning, and ideas, then you are going to have a rough time of it.

I'm not demanding respect. I am asking people to contain their skepticism long enough to study the work, not skim over it or take excerpts completely out of context.

Asking to be taken seriously abd treated with respect in academia, without first fighting for your ideas and winning, is just like turning up at the veterans dinner wearing a Military Cross you found in a junkshop.

I am not looking for their respect. They probably wouldn't give it any way. I am looking for a think tank that will actually have some influence and scrutinize these concepts with a fine-tooth comb. Maybe then this book would get some well-deserved traction.

 

[peacegirl]

I'm not saying there is no relativity. But relativity does not necessarily cancel out real time vision.

Yes, it does. The whole reason relativity arises is precisely because of delayed seeing.

I think relativity can be correct and so can real time vision. They don't have to be mutually exclusive even though you think that's impossible. So much has been built around the idea of delayed vision that it would turn astronomy topsy turvy. That's why people are so astonished and think I'm a kook.

 

[pood]

I'm not saying there is no relativity. But relativity does not necessarily cancel out real time vision.

Yes, it does. The whole reason relativity arises is precisely because of delayed seeing.

I think relativity can be correct and so can real time vision. They don't have to be mutually exclusive even though you think that's impossible. So much has been built around the idea of delayed vision that it would turn astronomy topsy turvy. That's why people are so astonished and think I'm a kook.

They can’t be reconciled. Relativity theory DEPENDS ON seeing not being in real time, and the theory has survived every empirical check.

Testy and I have pointed out what we think are good things in the book. Those are the things you should be advancing.

 

[DBT]

One of the concepts that has influenced me greatly, that I probably got from Pirsig rather than J Krishnamurti although the latter did I think a good job of explaining it here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/about-dissolution-speech
Is that truth is a pathless land. Everyone gets a profound insight in their own way and there is no one single way to explain it.

If you haven't read the dissolution speech linked above, I highly recommend it.

I once saw Krishnamurti speak in San Francisco. At the end when everyone rose and applauded, he sprang to his feet, waved at the crowd, and snarled, “You’re just applauding yourselves!”

There was a scandal in his private life that was at odds with his public persona.

 

[peacegirl]

PeaceGirl, there are a couple of really relevant topics out there you might be interested in. General Semantics is one, Zen Buddhism is the other.

Your father's work was for a different time. Maybe you could update it.

The only book that I changed was my compilation. There's nothing really to update, although I did add some more recent examples using the conflict going on in the Middle East, which is very timely.

Do you know opr a fact that he was her father?

He was my father. I tried to hide it for years knowing people would use it against me. Now the cat is out of the bag.

She did say she was marketing the book.

I haven't marketed the book. I don't have a budget to speak of and this is a small niche. But it's so interesting, people are missing out.
No I don't. But she did the same thread many years ago somewhere else. Maybe ratskep or talkrational.org or Dawkins old forum. It went for a long time

I've been on a few forums. I remember talkrational.org but not Dawkins. It's been going on for years. I'm just hoping that when I'm no longer here someone will carry the ball. My kids will, I hope. I already have his books online, which took me a long time to type and format. This was not an easy task.

 

[pood]

One of the concepts that has influenced me greatly, that I probably got from Pirsig rather than J Krishnamurti although the latter did I think a good job of explaining it here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/about-dissolution-speech
Is that truth is a pathless land. Everyone gets a profound insight in their own way and there is no one single way to explain it.

If you haven't read the dissolution speech linked above, I highly recommend it.

I once saw Krishnamurti speak in San Francisco. At the end when everyone rose and applauded, he sprang to his feet, waved at the crowd, and snarled, “You’re just applauding yourselves!”

There was a scandal in his private life that was at odds with his public persona.

Maybe, I don’t actually know about that, but that wouldn’t discredit his ideas. That would be ad hom, as I’m sure you know.

 

[DBT]

One of the concepts that has influenced me greatly, that I probably got from Pirsig rather than J Krishnamurti although the latter did I think a good job of explaining it here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/about-dissolution-speech
Is that truth is a pathless land. Everyone gets a profound insight in their own way and there is no one single way to explain it.

If you haven't read the dissolution speech linked above, I highly recommend it.

I once saw Krishnamurti speak in San Francisco. At the end when everyone rose and applauded, he sprang to his feet, waved at the crowd, and snarled, “You’re just applauding yourselves!”

There was a scandal in his private life that was at odds with his public persona.

Maybe, I don’t actually know about that, but that wouldn’t discredit his ideas. That would be ad hom, as I’m sure you know.

I said it because he was seen as a Guru by some, especially in India. And of course what happened in his private life has no bearing on his ideas or work.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl

As to your author being dead, when interpreting dead authors who left a single work the author is not around to comment on how it is interpreted.

I lived with him long enough to be his interpreter. He was my mentor. In fact, because I learned how carelessness will be virtually eliminated, I wrote a children's book on safety dedicated to him.

He is not around to update thinking based on newer science.

Aristotle is a major historical figure, but as someone posted elsewhere today he is anhistrical footnote.

If something is an immutable law, it doesn't change. If we have no free will, we never had it and we never will have it. No scientific discoveries will ever change that fact. There are certain things that don't change with time.

 

[pood]

I said it because he was seen as a Guru by some, especially in India. And of course what happened in his private life has no bearing on his ideas or work.

Like all good gurus, he did ot want to be a guru. That was the point of his repudiating applause.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

One of the concepts that has influenced me greatly, that I probably got from Pirsig rather than J Krishnamurti although the latter did I think a good job of explaining it here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/about-dissolution-speech
Is that truth is a pathless land. Everyone gets a profound insight in their own way and there is no one single way to explain it.

If you haven't read the dissolution speech linked above, I highly recommend it.

I once saw Krishnamurti speak in San Francisco. At the end when everyone rose and applauded, he sprang to his feet, waved at the crowd, and snarled, “You’re just applauding yourselves!”

There was a scandal in his private life that was at odds with his public persona.

Maybe, I don’t actually know about that, but that wouldn’t discredit his ideas. That would be ad hom, as I’m sure you know.

I said it because he was seen as a Guru by some, especially in India. And of course what happened in his private life has no bearing on his ideas or work.

He had some things to say about people who saw him as a guru.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl

Gray's Anatomy may shed some light on how the eye works, pun very much intended.

Grays Anatomy 41 E ( 2015) [ PDF] : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Grays AnatomyMedical book

archive.org

Thanks, but this will not show how light works in conjunction with the brain. It's still interesting. I'll look at it.

In technology I would call eyes and ears traducers or sensors. They convert a phenomena to an electrical signal.

A digital thermometer is a temperature transducer that converts heat to an electrical signal. A microphone is a transducer that converts sound pressure to an electrical signal.

The five senses are sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Each sense has a biomechanial function that converts or interfaces sensing the external world to nerve endings that run to the brain .

Peacegirl are you familiar with persistence of the eye?

When you watch TV it looks lie continuous motion. In reality it is a series of fast static pictures. The video frame rate is faster than the eye can keep with so it looks like continuous motion to us.

Persistence of vision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Persistence of vision is the optical illusion that occurs when the visual perception of an object does not cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye.[1] The illusion has also been described as "retinal persistence",[2] "persistence of impressions",[3] simply "persistence" and other variations. A very commonly given example of the phenomenon is the apparent fiery trail of a glowing coal or burning stick while it is whirled around in the dark.[1]

Many explanations of the illusion actually seem to describe positive afterimages[4] and the neurological effect can be compared to the technological effect of motion blur in photography (or in film and video).

"Persistence of vision" can also be understood to mean the same as "flicker fusion",[5] the effect that vision seems to persist continuously when the light that enters the eyes is interrupted with short and regular intervals. When the frequency is too high for the visual system to discern differences between moments, light and dark impressions fuse together into a continuous impression of the scene with intermediate brightness (as defined by the Talbot-Plateau law).

Since its introduction, the term "persistence of vision" has often been mistaken to be the explanation for motion perception in optical toys like the phenakistiscope and the zoetrope, and later in cinema. This theory has been disputed since long before cinematography's breakthrough in 1895. The illusion of motion as a result of fast intermittent presentations of sequential images is a stroboscopic effect, as explained in 1833 by Simon Stampfer (one of the inventors of the stroboscopic disc, a.k.a. phenakistiscope).[6]

Early descriptions of the illusion often attributed the effect purely to the physiology of the eye, particularly of the retina. Nerves and parts of the brain later became accepted as important factors.

Sensory memory has been cited as a cause.[7]

You are staring at a rock. The rock suddenly moves. How fast does your barn recognize a change has occurred?

This is very interesting but I'm not sure where it negates real time vision. The brain, looking through the eyes, can have optical illusions or see still images as moving because of how the brain works.

 

[steve_bank]

Peacegirl

How would you use the principles in the book to deal with us who argue with you camping our views?

Also keep in ind the vast majority of people even those with a college degree have no understanding of the word determinism, or think philosophically in daily life.

I took four classes in philosophy. Phil 101. comparative religion, ethics, and logic. The classes were uesful. None of it covered determinism.

Note that an independent scholar created General Semantics which does have a following.

I am sure in his day Leessans was read, but it never rose to a serious level of credibility.

With the rise of modern experimental science, psychiatry, and psychology which a has an experimental part philosophy has fell by the wayside.

Look at current topics in psychology. I took a course in cognitive psychology. I also took a psych class Alternator States Of Awareness. A reflection of the culture of the day.

Today psychology appears to be where it is at for perception and cognition. I watched a number of shows on exerimnets in cognition and perception on people and animals.

Experimental psychology is well developed.

To make your case you would have to set up an experiment subject to peer review.

Shoving a book in somebody's face claiming it is true will not get you anywhere,.

There are tens of thousands papers written globally across many areas every year with authors looking for a peer review in a mian publcation. Thee is a selection and winnowing process and only a few make it.

Authors are often fiercely competing for grant money to pursue an idea.

 

[steve_bank]

He was my father. I tried to hide it for years knowing people would use it against me. Now the cat is out of the bag.

You seem to have one hell of a persecution complex.

 

[peacegirl]

The eyes don't have nerve endings like the other senses.

Yes, they do.

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/rods-and-cones

You can call them what you will but what Lessans was saying is that if a baby had no sensory stimulation, he would never be able to focus the eyes. You may not think this is true and of course this is hypothetical because we can't actually test this in this way, but if he is right, then what? Are you dismissing him outright?

Did you ever wonder why the eyes of a newborn baby cannot focus the eyes to see what exists around him, although the other four senses are in full working order?

“I understand from a doctor that the muscles of the eyes have not yet developed sufficiently to allow this focusing.”

“And he believes this because this is what he was taught, but it is not the truth. In fact, if a newborn infant was placed in a soundproof room that would eliminate the possibility of sense experience which is a prerequisite of sight — even though his eyes were wide open — he could never have the desire to see. Furthermore, and quite revealing, if this infant was kept alive for fifty years or longer on a steady flow of intravenous glucose, if possible, without allowing any stimuli to strike the other four organs of sense, this baby, child, young, and middle aged person would never be able to focus the eyes to see any objects existing in that room no matter how much light was present or how colorful they might be because the conditions necessary for sight have been removed, and there is absolutely nothing in the external world that travels from an object and impinges on the optic nerve to cause it.

 

[peacegirl]

He was my father. I tried to hide it for years knowing people would use it against me. Now the cat is out of the bag.

You seem to have one hell of a persecution complex.

Steve, people think immediately that I love my daddy so much and that's why I'm so enamored, not because he actually has something of value. Why would anyone tell people who they are if they know how they're going to respond? Pood has done it in this thread.

 

[peacegirl]

You didn't read the book either Pood.

You appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that anyone who doesn't agree with the book must not have read the book. This is absolutely false, for any book.

But it widely believed by religionists, of their own favourite book(s).

No one has read the book, bilby, not even Pood. I will bet my right arm that he hasn't read it because he doesn't own it, he never did. All these years he just grabbed excerpts and made fun of the author when it was taken out of context. The author also created some humor as comic relief. But as time went on, the aggression got worse and worse. I'll never go through that again.

You took all the humor out, the best stuff in the book, about the “juicy, juicy C’s,” the ur-Penis etc.

And yes, I have read all of the relevant stuff about light and sight, and it’s wrong, for reasons indicated.

So what was his demonstration that explained what he believed was going on? You don't know Pood. Just say it, is it that hard? I DON'T KNOW.

No, I don’t know, because he didn’t given any demonstration! I’ve told you this a million times. Asserting that seeing is efferent (false), that dogs can’t recognize their masters by sight alone (false), and that “words are projected onto an undeniable screen of substance” (incomprehensible) are a “demonstration” of exactly nothing.

Bilby explained what a demonstration would be. So, demonstrate.

I did. I posted part of the chapter again. I hope he read it.

 

[peacegirl]

If there is a different frame of reference, we would see the object differently by the difference in the frame. But it doesn't change that regardless of the frame, we would still see the object in real time.

I don’t believe you even know what a frame of reference is, in relativity. Regardless, if we saw in real time, everyone would agree when the lights were visible. They don’t, so real-time seeing is shown to be false.

Does the Moon Look the Same Everywhere?

Find out the ways your location changes how you see the Moon.

www.timeanddate.com

 

[DBT]

If light is simply 'at the eye,' what is the point of the lense, iris, pupil, etc, as means to regulate and focus light?

 

[peacegirl]

I'm still curious as to how instant vision, 'light at the eye,' is supposed to work. Because if Lessan also argued for determinism, and he is not contradicting himself, his 'light at the eye' proposition must have a physical, determinist explanation.

He shows that we see in the present. How does this relate to determinism? His demonstration regarding determinism showed that antecedent events are what we use to help us make decisions. But these antecedents that already happened don't cause the present. They are contained in our memories that are then remembered to help us make the best possible decisions based on the information we have. This is what separates Lessans' definition from the standard definition because nothing from the past causes us to do anything since the past doesn't exist. How can something that doesn't exist cause an effect? He was clarifying terms to make them more accurate.

It is true that nothing in the past can cause what occurs in the present, for all we ever have is the present; the past and future are only words that describe a deceptive relation. Consequently, determinism was faced with an almost impossible task because it assumed that heredity and environment caused man to choose evil, and the proponents of free will believed the opposite, that man was not caused or compelled; he did it of his own accord; he wanted to do it; he didn’t have to. The term ‘free will’ contains an assumption or fallacy, for it implies that if man is not caused or compelled to do anything against his will, it must be preferred of his own free will. This is one of those logical, not mathematical, conclusions. The expression, ‘I did it of my own free will’ is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean ‘I did it because I wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I could have acted otherwise had I desired.’ This expression was necessarily misinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed, for although it is correct in the sense that a person did something because he wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free. In fact, I shall use the expression ‘of my own free will’ frequently myself, which only means ‘of my own desire.’ Are you beginning to see how words have deceived everyone?

That doesn't make sense, because if determinism is true, the past shapes the present and the present shapes the future, where past states become the present state of the world, where information in the form of light (or anything else) must have antecedents and behave according to the laws of physics.

I didn't say the past doesn't shape the present. I said the past doesn't exist except as a part of our memory, which we use to make decisions every time we contemplate. Memory is a large part of our identity and why people are so afraid of losing it.

Light simply being 'at the eye' contradicts determinism and the laws of physics.

I don't think it does and I'm not quite sure if it even contradicts Einstein's relativity because the author never said light is not finite and it is obvious that if there is a different frame of reference, we might see the light at different times because it would arrive at a different interval,

Light has to be there for anything to be seen. If light hasn't arrived, we would not be able to see what is around us but the confusion is that light is a requirement, not a cause. It is very hard to see this truth when you are talking about light arriving and seeing what exists around us. It is obvious that without light, we could not see, but you are concluding that travel time of light proves that we see the past. This is false, sorry. Again, I'm so tired of defending him. If you feel he's wrong, then so be it. You can move on to another thread. Who would stay at a thread they feel is totally wrong? What a waste of time that would be.

Yes peacegirl, that’s the point! There is a difference in detecting the light because of relative motion. If we saw instantly, it would make NO DIFFERENCE what the relative motion was, or how far away we are from the light source.

It would make a difference because of our perception due to different frames, not because of delayed light.

Everyone would see the same thing, because we would be seeing events INSTANTLY. Like the moons of Jupiter example, special relativity conclusively rules out real-time seeing.

I know special relativity rules it out, but you cannot understand his perspective coming from the present theory of delayed time and sight. You will easily throw his claim out if you do it this way.

It's more than 'a present theory.' It is observed and tested fact. The speed of light has been measured.

A scientific theory is not arbitrary, but a narrative that explains a set of facts.

The narrative may be altered if new information comes along, yet the facts remain: light does in fact have a speed,

Correct.

and what we see is in fact delayed by the distance travelled.

No. The speed of light is what they say it is. Asserting the thing that is being refuted is wasted bandwidth.

But that's the point of my question.....that if light travels at the given speed and therefore takes time to arrive, how are distant events, supernova, etc, instanty visible with 'light at the eye?'

You need to think in terms of the eyes looking at the object before thinking about light. If you see the object, then the light is at the eye instantly or you wouldn't see the object, without any distance or time being involved.

Turn off the light and we see nothing. In the absence of light there is absolute darkness. The eye evolved to detect light and the brain to generate vision.

That is true. The brain and eyes work together in unison. The eyes are the window of the brain. The retina detects light, but it still doesn't explain whether light is reflected off of objects where it travels through long distances (this is assumed) or whether we see the object due to the wavelength being at our eye as we gaze in that direction.

 

[peacegirl]

If light is simply 'at the eye,' what is the point of the lense, iris, pupil, etc, as means to regulate and focus light?

All of the workings of the eye work as described. Every part of the eye is perfectly created for us to see the world.