Moral Implications of MWI and QTI

Buddhism & MWI

Kant, Consciousness and Eastern Thought 

 Vic Stenger This is a good way to show the difference between Deutsch and me. I have all the Feynman diagrams actually occur in each event in out universe. For this you need time reversibility. The MWI alternative is to have each occur in a parallel universe, but time goes merrily along the way we are used to it going - in one direction. Which do you like better? Many worlds or time reversibility. They both do the job, we can't distinguish them empirically.

Ed Weinmann No, not in the narrow sense of experimental results in a laboratory. But one can broaden the sense of "empirical", to include the "practical", in Kant's sense... meaning, in terms of our moral reasoning. All this amounts to is the observation that such moral reasoning is going to depend, in many critical situations (the abortion issue is one example, but there are others one might find even more important) on which ontological interpretation of phenomena one uses. At the very least, one should be aware of the *implications* these interpretations hold for the validity of commonly employed moral reasoning. I will say, with John Henry Newman (and others) that professions of "belief" in one interpretation or other do *not* indicate anything like "real assent" to it, if one does not, in practical (moral) life, *act* as if it were true. The general problem is of the form that we say we believe, or admit that we are led to believe, "is the case", is not always the basis for the way we *act*. We continue to act- at least in those regions of this planet in which something resembling an advanced, liberal civilization exists- as if something pretty close to the cosmology of the Abrahamic religions were the case. This is the problem that good philosophers should be concerned with.

James Higgo Ed, how would a Bohmian be different to an MWI-er or "shut-up-and-calculator" in their moral view on abortion? I can't see that they would, except in that the Bohmian, being a mystic , would have a tendency to be more anti-abortion.

Ed Weinmann The MWI-er will pretty much shrug off abortion, because in some other world, these "precious souls" are not aborted. (I am not much exercised by abortion, either, although for different reasons.) The Copenhagen types are mostly not going to get too upset about abortions, either, for reasons closer to my own (a different model of what humans are, and how they come to be). But the hidden-variables crowd *could* include those who consider any interference with a human ovum, from the moment of fertilization onwards, to be homicide. This is because the hidden-variables interpretation is compatible with the model of human life in which the egg is "ensouled", with a soul specially created by a deity, at the instant of conception…which is the notion that *really* drives the most fervent pro-lifers...though some of them are a bit shy of admitting it, since this exposes the abortion issue as a fundamentally religious one, and religious wars are out of fashion nowadays. This is also why debates on abortion so resemble "a darkling plain, filled with alarm and flight / where ignorant armies clash by night". One side goes on about women's rights, the other about murder and the "culture of death". The debates are too polite... they skip right over the underlying issues, which are the ones that people have tradtionally killed each other for. So it is that I don't see interpretations of QM as arguments over "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". They literally *are* matters of life and death, properly understood. -Mr. Ed, ambassador from "the culture of death"

James Higgo Ed, an MWIer knows that if he holds your set of beliefs then there are far more universes where he hath slain his unborn childer than those in which he has not. So it's not a shrugging-off matter. If you changed your beliefs (which I pretty much share, by the way) then the 'subsequent branches' would have fewer dead babies. So you get back to the same moral outcome as the superluminal crowd.

Ed Weinmann Now how do you quantify it this way... "far more"? I don't think you can do this, because it introduces counterfactual conditionality... in this case, "if I believe in this religious dogma, and get more people to accept it, then there will be fewer aborted pregnancies". Such a statement cannot be made *across all the worlds*, because for all the worlds in which a particular pregnancy is aborted, there will be at least one in which it is not. So "that precious unborn baby" (using pro-lifers' characteristic lingo, again) *will* survive, to the greater glory of their God, or whatever, in at least *some* worlds. Bottom line for the MWI's preclusion of counterfactuality: you actually *cannot* destroy that fetus, for in *some* world or worlds, it *will* survive. This removes any real reason (meaning, any reason based on "what's really out there") for concern about abortion... or anything else, as well. Whatever you want, you will get, in some world. Whatever you don't like, is absent, in some world.

James Higgo If I have spin-watching device that observes two spin states in succession, and I start a religion in which 'up-up' is 'good', then I can say that there are three times as many universes which are not good. If I change my religion so that anything but 'up-up' is good, then I have *far more* good outcomes than before. I would be most unhappy if only one in a billion universes was good, because I want lots of good universes. It is the ratio of good to bad that concerns me, not the absolute number of good universes. Deutsch explains something like this rather more eloquently in 'Fabric of Reality', as I recall.

Ed Weimann But all you have done, here, is to change your religion, or decision-rule as to "good" and "bad", to conform to the possibilities... the possibilities themselves, across all the worlds, remain the same... counterfactuality is not revived, since no act on your part altered the sum of all the possibilities... you just changed your decision-rule so that more of what will happen, is judged "good". The pro-lifers surely won't settle for this! :) I did not get far enough in Deutsch's book to reach this part... I stopped when I got the impression that he had reified the "many worlds" to an unacceptable extent... Everett's original purpose for this interpretation was to resolve the apparent paradox introduced by the quantum measurement problem, of the dead/alive "Schrodinger's Cat", by putting the observer into two different "relative states" (the original title of this scheme), in one of which he saw the dead cat, in the other of which he saw the live one... thereby eliminating the need for the observer to see a dead/alive cat... but I cannot see the necessity hat a new *being* ("observer number 2") be created, with the distinction between the relative states of the observer, since we can never, as a matter not just of the limitations of our experimental techniques, but as a matter of *epistemological principle*, *detect* "observer number 2". If we are to believe that he exists, it will have to be as a matter of faith, in the "likely tale" we have told ourselves, to resolve the measurement problem paradox. Hence I remain an atheist with respect to the existence of a deity, but merely agnostic, with respect to the existence of the other worlds... and Deutsch was getting a little too "devotional" for me when I quit reading the book... but now I may take it up again, since this discussion has "got me going" on the subject.

James Higgo On your first point, can you think of a better way of choosing between 'good' and 'bad'? If so, just substitute that into my earlier posting and the matter is resolved. Do read Deutsch. As I said in the last posting - it's the only book I've ever read twice, and it hurt both times. I must confess I ended up as devoted to MWI as he is. Is it so bad to be devoted to an ontological interpretation? I fear it is lack of such an impetus that has held back discussion of these issues - which I consider the most important questions in life - for 70 years.

Peter Fimmell One of the several problems with this religious analysis is that in the case of 'good' spin 'up-up' universes is that we do not know what 'good' will turn out to be following an interaction in your universe. Good is a state in which *good for*, *good to*, *good with* and *good at* are all eigenvectors of the single superposed state. After the spin watching devise has made an observation you don't predict which eigenvalue appears in your universe because quantum statistics don't apply to single measurments, and therefore single universes! Since you are locked into yours you cannot even meaningfully conjecture about eigenvalues that don't happen in your universe. Therefore you might as well become a Copenhagenist - in your very own universe!

James Higgo Peter, you've sure as hell confused me. Substitute 'good' for 'Splendid' and substitute 'bad' for 'Spiffing' and run that by me again. By the way, I admit this is metaphysics, but I don't think that means I 'might as well' be a Copenhagenist.

Peter Fimmell James, I guess my reply was somewhat tongue in cheek. My point is exactly that of Dave Zachman. We have a major problem with QM because we don't know what's going on underneath. We don't have an adequate picture of reality at the small scale and trying to patch up that deficiency with he MWI is sidestepping the problem. Why shouldn't we have insoluble problems? The MWI is a distortion of Everett's multiple histories of the universe, which never proposed that the entities, whether they be universes or histories, were equally real. I don't see why quantum theory or quantum mechanics should explain microscopic reality. The theory was put together to deal with the way observations turn out, not to explain that which gives rise to what we observe. My reference to the superposition of "good" eigenvectors didn't imply that there are evil eigenvectors, but that there might be eigenvectors of the way that good might turn out. Until we get a theory, of which QM is an implication we will not get much closer to what's going on at the tiny end of town. When we do find a theory that requires quantum phenomena we might find that some of the elements of quantum theory do indeed operate at the big end of town too! That includes the superposition principle. What I'm implying is that QM might be giving us a glimpse of reality, but through a very narrow window. Peter

James Higgo Thanks, Peter. I re-read Vic's book last night and he certainly says that Everett proposed that the entities were equally real. Deutsch believes this, too. I must confess I never read the Everett thesis. What I was really saying in the earlier posting was that good and evil are arbitrary concepts.

Wei Dai I think there are two different issues here. The quantum suicide issue is whether the quantum suicide experiment can actually give evidence for MWI. I basically agree with Jacques here and think the answer is no. The quantum immortality issue is basically a matter of definition. Should someone consider himself immortal if every possible future version of himself exists but dwindles out in measure as subjective time passes? (And of course it has to dwindle out, otherwise the total would add up to infinity.) Does it really matter? If so, in what way?

James Higgo The quantum immortality idea is important, because it says that (1) there is never a branch which is a 'dead-end' and (2) you can always expect to end up in a branch in which you exist, so from your point of view you are actually immortal. I.e. you WILL be alive in a billion years. It is not that some other Wei Dai that is probably not 'you' will exist forever; it is YOU who will live forever. That matters; you'd better start investing for your retirement. May I recommend a Tontine?

Wei Dai The idea of quantum immortality matters if it is tied into a general decision theory, and by mentioning the retirement investment issue, you seem to agree with this. However the existing accepted decision theory is not compatible with the MWI or any version of the "everything" hypothesis, and no one has presented a new one. If you're not familiar with the idea of a decision theory, it's a set of rules on what an individual should do in any given situation (and typically also given the individual's goals). If you want to try to come up with a new decision theory that incorporates quantum immortality, think carefully about why I should save for retirement or do any other thing I should do, and see if you can distill a set of principles that I should follow.

James Higgo The word 'should' is pretty loaded. What you 'should' do is live in the present and be happy. But if you're an economist you might think that you should invest for the greatest happiness of you in the greatest number of branches in the multiverse, which is what Deutsch implies. In all events, you should invest for universes where you are alive, rather than dead, unless you care about other people.

Wai Dai But if I should live in the present and be happy, then whether or not I'm immortal doesn't really matter, does it? The "greatest happiness in the greatest number of branches" idea might be a start, but then I don't think you really get the immortality effect since you end up caring a lot about the "branches" where you die because they reduce the number of "branches" where you're happy. On the other hand, if what you mean is "greatest happiness in the greatest percentage of branches where you're live" then it seems everyone should commit suicide the moment they are unhappy in the slightest. In any case, all you have said is what my goals should be, not how I can reach them (which is really what decision theory is all about). That's why an economist wouldn't talk about happiness, because he doesn't know you want to be happy, and he doesn't care. He just tells you whatever you want, just apply decision theory, and he guarantees that your effort will be optimal.

James Higgo Absolutely. It doesn't matter whether or not you're immortal. I certainly don't hanker after it. But I'm still curious to know. On your second point, I am an economist, for my sins, and I assure you we are interested in what the goals should be.

Jaques Mallah [On Wai Dai’s assertion that decision theory is inapplicable to MWI] On the contrary, it's the same. That is easy to prove: suppose the MWI was false but assume the universe is spacially infinite, so there are other people like you in distant galaxies. Clearly they have no bearing on what you do, so you should make the usual decisions, including of course any suicide decisions. It is no different in the MWI; the only difference is that the others are in different parts of wavefunction configuration space, rather than regular space.

Wai Dai Unfortunately because currently accepted decision theory makes some metaphysical assumptions, it can be compatible with a spacially infinite universe but not with MWI. Basicly decision theory depends on the idea of alternate realities and the notion that an individual chooses the actual reality among the alternatives as he makes decisions and acts upon them. But according to MWI, all alternatives are real and have predetermined measures. I can't figure out how to apply decision theory with the MWI. If you can, show us how, and please include an example.

James Higgo He chooses which reality he would like there to be a greater proportion of.

Gilles Henri Maybe the decision theory itself (I must confess that my only knowledge of it comes from what Wei writes here) is somewhat metaphysical because it assumes that an individual can actually change the evolution of the world ("acts upon it"). In any model (not only MWI) where human beings are nothing but rather complicated physical systems, free will is an illusion. They evolve simply (including in their "choices") following the physical laws. So you can theoretically determine what would be the "best" choice following some criteria, but you are never certain that a given physical system will follow this way. In MWI, you can also calculate a best way, but you are certain that other ways will be followed as well. In "one world interpretation", you can try to programm a system (or a brain") to maximise the probability of evolving along a "good" way, but I think it is also true in MWI (maximise the number of "worlds" where the "good" way is followed).

Wai Dai But in the MWI, you can't maximize anything since all of the measures are predetermined by boundary conditions. I agree the problem is with decision theory, and that's why I suggest we find a new decision theory rather than reject the MWI. I think this is serious and of interest to more than just economists, because decision theory appears to be the only justification we have for Bayesian probability theory. Probability theory was invented for gambling and its axioms are still justified by showing that they lead (via decision theory) to reasonable behavior. Without a viable decision theory, an MWIer would have to either give up probability theory or accept it as a given without justification. Then it won't even be clear what probabilities mean, since they'll just be useless numbers. … Let me amend this and say that at least with MWI the boundary conditions are a free parameter, so you can still preserve the old decision theory by saying alternative wavefunctions with different boundary conditions are available and that an individual can choose which one is real by his actions. But an "everything" hypothesis is supposed to have no free parameters, so even this wouldn't work.

 Buddhism & MWI

 Ed Weinmann JH wrote>However I will concede that the idea that you will *definitely* end up as that old Vic is bizarre. But in some other worlds, he was stillborn... or, never conceived at all... the "zero-year old Vic", and "the Vic that never was". So how is he now to feel about living out a pretty decent, normal lifespan, accomplishing a fair amount (if not quite becoming a "household word") in that life? was this better, worse, or indifferent? has he done well? is the notion of "doing well" even meaningful, at all, in the MWI? see the problems of moral evaluation you get into?

 James Higgo You've shown me your Kant so here goes: Vic, like all of us, 'should' be happy and live in the present. Sit under a tree with a big smile on his face because he can see the extraordinary richness of reality, and just marvel at it for hours, days, aeons on end. The question, 'what should I do' is meaningless. It arises from the illusion that there is such a thing as "I". In MWI you are 'doing' everything and you are part of everything. To be concerned for "I" is as ridiculous as a wave screaming with horror as it crashes onto the beach.

 Ed Weinmann I guess this is why the Buddha is always shown with such a peaceful grin. I am too much a man of the West for this. But I suppose it is a matter of personal taste, of which _non est disputandum_". The MWI certainly does have the merit of cutting off what Hume or Kant would have called "enthusiasms", in the pejorative sense. But as Disraeli once said, "the people have their passions, and they must have leaders". I don't think they will settle for Buddhism!

 James Higgo It may be a long time before the people's passions are aroused by what we're discussing here.

 Ed Weinmann I cannot foresee that anyone's passions will ever be aroused by MWI, TRI, hidden variables, or the like. These things do not make the kinds of promises that get people going, and start religions. They are just metaphysically interpretive models, based on physical theories that very few people are ever going to take the trouble to understand. But promise immortality in paradise, or release from suffering in Nirvana, and it could be the start of something big! :)

 James Higgo Sadly the immortality will not necessarily be Nirvana. But you may have a better chance of achieving Nirvana if you have a billion years to do it.

 Steve Price >When we ask the most general question, in ethics- "what should we do?" >we....[snip].... are simply asking a question in *economics* and the tools we use to answer the question are purely economic ones--decision theory, optimization theory, game theory and so on. Economics, working within the constraints set by evolutionary biology, both poses the questions and gives the answers. As I see it, a modern approach to "ethics" starts out with David Gauthier's "Morals By Agreement" and combines it with the ideas of Richard Alexander ("The Biology of Moral Systems") and such evolutionary psychologists as Tooby and Comsides. Kant's rather tortured speculations, MWI, claims about the ancient freewill vs. determinism argument--really, aren't all these entirely irrelevant to what is basically a set of optimization problems.

James Higgo We do 'really exist' but not as independent 'selfs' as we believe. You may agree, but you don't believe, really believe - hence you feel unhappy when things don't go 'your' way. This unhappiness is what Buddhism seeks to remove. It's worth looking into as a cursory inspection of Buddhism leaves most people confused or insulted.

Gilles Henri James I don't want to insult Buddhists (if they are all like you describe, they can't feel insulted!) I am just a little skeptic on the possibility (and the use) to remove completely the feeling of unhappiness with philosophical considerations. This is also a natural feeling that can lead us to a better way of life. I think the Dalai-Lama is not happy with what happens to his country and it's better so. To live like humans, we need some belief in our individuality and to distinguish between what makes us happy or not, even if it is an illusion. You can't eliminate totally that, even if you can take some distance with what happens to you. Rather than recommending to eliminate the feeling of unhappiness, I prefer to recommend to understand how and why unfortunate things happen, to be able to improve our life.

 James Higgo Yours is the western view, which makes sense. The eastern view simply notes that we cannot put everything right (into accordance with our wills) and it is perhaps better, and not easy but at least possible, to put our wills into accordance with reality.

Gilles Henri OK, I think that most philosophs (including western ones) would share this point of view. In practice I feel rather close to this attitude, but we (including eastern people) need also to engage for some goals. Again the Dalai-Lama himself does not accept the invasion of his country, and I can understand him. Finally I find that behind the differences of cultures, the problems are strikingly the same : unfortunately, you have wars, murders and rapes everywhere. So for me no philosophy or religion has succeeded up to now in improving significantly our way of life...I still wonder why it is that difficult.

James Higgo It's hard because it goes against the programming of our genetic masters. Buddhism acknowledges that emancipation from our selfish genes is for the very few, sadly.

Gilles Henri I agree, but it is not so easy to understand why our genes make happiness so difficult to reach. Animals in their natural environment don't seem to suffer (apparently) from the same problems. Is it inherent to consciousness and why? It would be most interesting to compare us to other intelligent species or to artificial computers. Could we conceive some machine able to think and being happy of its state?

James Higgo The animals I know seem to suffer ever greater bewilderment than we do. I don't see a great difference between the consciousness of advanced animals and that of humans. Enlightenment is hard to reach because the genes for enlightenment would die out because and enlightened being would not reproduce. I see no reason why a thinking machine created by us should be a slave to any overriding functions that will generally lead to conflict. We could build an enlightened AI machine more easily than one that is under the spell of 'Maya' . However my guess is that we will 'cheat' in building our AI machines and use a form of evolution, which will bring Maya into the picture.

 James Higgo Bruno, eastern philosophers have denied each of the following and gone on to greater things as a result: "Consciousness is private. This entails, by definition, an owner. >Consciousness is subjective. This entails, by definition, a subject. >Consciousness is personal. This entails, by definition, a person"

Bruno Marchal My feeling is that you make a confusion between the ego and the person. I know eastern philosophers who get higher state of consciousness through dissolution of ego. But it seems to me they remain living person through the process (Chinese even insist on that point) In the description of "cosmic consciousness", the "I" (ego) seems to disappear completely, but the person remains, even if it is in the form of the Big One or the True Emptyness, etc... (any word used here create confusion !) If you really belief it is possible to be conscious without being someone, I would be glad if you can give me an explanation, or an example, ... Of course I acknowledge that it is possible to be conscious without knowing you are some one (for example if you are conscious without being self-conscious), but being conscious without being some one seems to me a (pyscho)logical contradiction.

James Higgo The anaogue is the wave in the sea: The wave thinks itself conscious and a person, and screams with horror as it sees its fate is to be annihilated by crashing onto the rocks. It does not understand that it is a part of something bigger and more permanent.

Bruno Marchal Once upon a time there was a little wave, thinking itself conscious and a person, screaming (indeed) with horror as it sees its fate is to be annihilated by crashing onto the rocks. Fortunately the little wave was reading the everything list and learn, that some Everett & Co. discover there were actually an infinity of oceans and that thanks to some tunnelling effect she will survive crashing the rocks in some of theses oceans. She will survive ! With lots of his favorite memories (of love and chocolate for instance). ... And now, you (the same you who send a memorable mail on immortality through MWI), ask the little wave to be happy of the permanence of her apparent stuffy ocean ?!?!? ... Well, in any case, if "the" ocean is "conscious", I still don't see why he should not be considered as a (kind of) person.

James Higgo OK the ocean is a kind of person if you want to call it that. The wave won't get much comfort from thinking that *she* with her memories of chocolate, will survive - she won't: another being in the same subset of the universe temporally subsequent to the 'crash' will not see her any more. But of course she continues to exist in prior-time regions of the universe, and she continues to non-exist in theat her 'existence' in the first place was purely a subjective phenomenon. I'm thinking of Tegmark's and Schmidhuber's ideas that complexity is only apparent when you see a subset of the simple reality, like the Mandelbrot set. This ties in nicely with the Buddhist idea that it is only our ignorance that allows us to see the world at all. Once you see the whole - like the Mandelbrot equation - you no longer see the one little piece of the set that you once thought so interesting and complex. Note that, although I can't see why our consciousnesses are not 'immortal' under MWI, that doesn't mean that I think we exist as separate entities undergoing successive experiences in time. And it doesn't mean I think it's good or desirable to be immortal.

Steve Price Ed Weinmann's suggestion that some of Rand's basic theses could be supported more rigorously by ideas from Kant is a fascinating one. I'd like to hear more about this. I haven't read Kant very thoroughly, because from the bits and pieces I have read I found his prose to be tortured and his ideas mostly flaky (not only of essentially no value but actually laughable from a late 20th century perspective). But maybe there are some important things I've missed and I'd like to find out, if Ed has the time to tell us.

Ed Weinmann Kant's prose was described as "of frightful literary style, and unwelcome form" by one of his German contemporaries (I think it may have been Schilling). But one should not expect a struggle to break "out of the box" or the rut formed by the philosophizing tradition of two millennia be graceful, as well as edifying. For what it's worth, I never could understand why Rand singled out Kant as the archetypal philosophical bogeyman. Even if my impression of him so far, as a master of expressing vacuities in as many convoluted words as possible, is not too far off target, I can't see why Rand thought him so much worse than other "philosophers" who proclaimed essentially similar vacuities, or why she thought he had such vast influence. What Kant accomplished, in philosophy, was something of a Copernican revolution... he did for philosophy what Galileo did for the birth of modern science. But I think he had very little direct influence of his own... he never elaborated anything like a real system of ethics, or an ideology... his impact on the world was through other philosophers, and then primarily through his influence on the way in which they *approached* philosophy, rather than the *results* they came to. Rand probably hated him because his ethics are deontological ethics, oriented around duty, or obligation, as a first principle. I can excuse her attitude, because I do not consider her to have been a philosopher, or to have understood what Kant did, either in epistemology, *or* in ethics. But Kant's actual *ethics* are inconsequential, and don't even really amount to a true, fully developed ethics, in the traditional sense... again, it is his *approach* to ethics that is significant, and not any results, in any system of morality. Kant's ethics- his _Critique of Practical Reason_- his "second critique"- proceed by exactly the same means as his approach to epistemology, and thereby, to metaphysics, in the _Critique of Pure Reason_ (his "first critique"). Here he begins with the question "how is knowledge possible", _a priori_?". This represents a complete departure from the traditional approach of examining the process of knowing _a posteriori_, in how we actually come to know things in experience. The answer he finds enables him to resolve some traditional metaphysical "antinomies", and set down what he considers must be the "prolegomena to any future metaphysics". This approach he calls the "method of transcendentalism", by which he tries to take viewpoint transcending that of any actual human knowledge, encompassing the question of how knowledge is possible, in general and _a priori_. In the second critique, he also departs radically from the western tradition of attempting to define the good, whether as part of some theory of nature, human or otherwise, or scheme of religious ideas. No attempt is made to determine what could be the purpose of human existence, or the highest good for man. Rather, his aim is to establish the preconditions for moral reasoning in the answer to the question of "how may pure reason be practical, _a priori_?". Pure reason can be *practical*, _ a priori_, under only one circumstance: that of the autonomy of the will. Lacking such a free, autonomous will, any talk of good and evil, of better and worse, is meaningless. Now here is the genius of Kant's approach: it is in the precondition for morality, and moral reasoning, that he finds the contents of his ethics, itself. There is only one way a human will can be perfectly autonomous, and if it is *not* perfectly autonomous, then admonitions about doing good and avoiding evil are meaningless. This one condition, under which the will is autonomous, is "to act so that the maxim of your will may be universal law for every rational being"... and here you can see that in the very precondition for ethical behavior, Kant derives the *contents* of that behavior, as well. When we answer the question of how it may be possible to act morally ("how may pure reason be practical, _a priori_?") we have also answered the question of what moral behavior consists in... the famous categorical imperative, to "act so that the maxim of your will may be universal law for every rational being". And here is why I think Objectivists should be pleased with Kant... this approach to moral reasoning would have been inconceivable, prior to the Enlightenment, which Kant was very much a part of. From ancient times, till Kant's time, ethical discussion was of the relation of the human will to some concept of the good, or of human goods, that were logically quite independent of the conditions for the autonomy, or freedom, of the human will. So the first task in philosophical ethics was to establish the freedom of the will, which was done simply by assuming it as a matter of common sense, from the Greeks onwards. The discussions then turned to the examination of what might be "the good", and to the categorization of various goods, on the basis of whatever religious or metaphysical baggage the philosopher happened to carry with him. But for Kant, "the good" and human freedom were not only *practically* inseparable... they are logically connected in such a way that they are actually one and the same concept. If you know how statements concerning moral right, and wrong, may be meaningful, then you also know *what is* morally right, and wrong. Freedom is what is needed for men to live good lives, and not the conceptual baggage inherited from ages past. Kant was very much the champion of the autonomous self, that product of the Enlightenment so celebrated in romantic art and literature. For this modern, liberated, Promethean man, the ends of life are not found in any religious dogmas or metaphysical doctrines. They spring directly from man's autonomy, itself, the only means by which pure reason may become practical. It seems to me that this is exactly what is wanted for one of Rand's heroes. The idea that the only moral absolute would be the autonomy of one's own will should fit easily with what I know of Objectivism. So while it is true, as I mentioned above, that Kant's ethics are deontological, revolving around one's obligation to obey the categorical imperative,it is also true that this obligation is, firstly, to respect and preserve the autonomy of one's own will, as the will of a rational being. A Buddhist version of Kant's ethics might run: you are the sky, and all these particular notions of the good, of goods, of right and wrong, of better and worse, are the clouds. The clouds need *you*. You do *not* need the clouds. It is they, who need an autonomous will in which to be acted out, as clouds need the sky :)

Edmund Weinmann The unity of consciousness is the consciousness of unity... nothing more, nothing less.

John Mazetier This statement is fog to me.

Edmund Weinmann This is a corollary of the doctrine above, and illustrates it. Can *you* be sure if I have a "unity of consciousness" akin to the one you experience? No... for such a unity of consciousness can only be the consciousness of unity, and only *I* may have that consciousness, of my own unity. Examples: the old conversation-piece about "everyone else might be just a zombie", and the Church-Turing thesis on strong AI (which is also a corollary of this doctrine). But note how this rules out a major pieces of Christian theology... no wonder Christians despise Kant... Ayn Rand simply did not "get" Kant... now I dimly recall her discussion of him... or was it Leonard Peikoff's? anyway, they did not grasp the purpose of what Kant was trying to do... I remember that I just felt *sad*, reading it... if you want philosophy, then do philosophy, but I wince at hearing Objectivism called "philosophy".

James Higgo Well, I don't perceive any unity in my consciousness. It's got a million minds of its own, running off here and there - unwanted thoughts pop up in my head and scuttle off. I may even have to meditate to reduce this feeling of disunity. All this and I'm told I'm one of the less skittish people on the planet. And if I wanted to believe there was unity, I would have to identify some unitary thing - which, ironically, means I would have to be a dualist.

Ed Weinmann The crunch here comes at "a belief in their unity". When I say that my consciousness of unity *is* my unity of consciousness, I make no ontological claim thereby. On the contrary, I strictly limit any real unity I may have- any right to the title of "unity" that the physical system now commonly known as "Edmund Weinmann" may have, or ever have- to the consciousness of the subject of that unity. The object Edmund Weinmann is surely no unity, as a scientific analysis of the physical systems composing him will show. I only seem, to myself the subject, more or less unified for varying periods over each 24-hour cycle... this *is* a seeming, but that's the "consciousness of unity", which is the only "unity of consciousness" there is, or needs to be, for the purpose of survival, which is the only real purpose, for which one may be quite certain, that I am here. "Seeming" is all that's needed, and why would there be any more?

James Higgo Yeah but it is an illusion of unity. In fact you're cobbled together from various warring camps of neurones all trying to break out of the audience and onto the stage of the 'cartesian theatre'.

Edmund Weinmann Now, "illusion" in what sense? My "consciousness of unity" cannot, by definition, be an illusion.

James Higgo I'm tempted to refer you to the postmodernist thesis generator. Please define unity.

Ed Weinmann Now, wait a minute... this request cannot legitimately be made of *me*, because it was *you* I was responding to here. You wrote that "it is an illusion of unity". Now why would you have used this word, "unity", if you did not know what it means? Obviously *you* knew what you meant, here, and my answer is that my definition of "unity" is the same as yours, employed in your post, above, to which I was responding. I cannot imagine that you want to admit referring to the consciousness of unity as an "illusion of unity", when you, yourself, did not know what you meant by "unity".

John Mazetier I know James is quite capable of responding for himself, but... Perhaps James' words could indicate something like the following: > Several people are indicating that experience Z has a property called "unity" or U. James believes that by "unity" these people mean Q. JJames believes he has had Z. James believes Z has property W, James believes W is easily mistaken for U. James believes U is not Q. James?

James Higgo Thanks, John. I agree. But we can even go onto the fuzzy level of our shared concept of the meaning of the word 'unity' - perhaps the Concise Oxford definition: "oneness, being one or single or individual". This is a property that I deny anything, except the universe as a whole, (or perhaps Vic's atoms if I believed in them) possesses. In particular, I can think of nothing further from the above definition of unity than our consciousnesses.

Edmund Weinmann To use Dan Dennett's slightly ironic turn of phrase, you have a "real seeming". It is as "real" a "seeming" as *anyone* can have, about anything. Challenge the reality of *this* "seeming", and you become a solipsist... so I will gladly take it. Of course, it disappears when I am studied, as an object, for others. This is why they are "others", and I am "I". All this consideration involves is the clarification of the basic concepts we all use. As a good Kantian, I neither make, nor imply, any ontological claim, hereby. 

John Mazetier I can pretty much agree. Niggling objections dependent upon how essentialist you are about your seemings. But overall, IMO, the shoe seems to fit.

James Higgo And yet people make the leap of faith from a perception of 'unity' (still undefined) to a belief in their unity. The shoe seems to fit, yet your feet are an illusion. Exasperating!

James Higgo All eastern philosophy, over the past 3000 years, is based on the premise that your 'real seeming' is an illusion. This sounds like a generalisation, but it's not. If you accept that feeling is not believing, so many other things fall into place.  Your perception of unity is just that: a perception. Nobody has given any reason why a perception should be correlated with reality. But I can give you a good reason why it should not; why we are blinkered. That is because manipulating our perceptions is our genes' only way of controlling their rationalish and intelligent machine. Intelligence is a useful weapon in the genetic arms race but only if it can be controlled. If we all suddenly saw things for what they were, we would not reproduce, for example. Hence it is vital to the selfish gene that we do not see things as they really are.

Ed Weinmann But then, were this true, on just what basis can *you* assert that a perception is illusory, and does not display "things for what they were"? You, too, would be fooled by your perceptions. So this argument defeats itself. Now, I can easily agree that there is a genetically selfish (survival-adaptation) interest in not seeing our existences, globally, quite as they are... this is the way in which the universal persistence of religion, throughout our species' history (and, probably, its prehistory, too) may be accounted for... it keeps us reproducing... I will never forget the little "epiphany" I had, the first time I considered God's promise to Abraham, that his seed would be as numerous as grains of sand (or was it, stars in the sky?) in connection with the Darwinian explanatory model... "oh, so *that's* what the big deal was with God, for them!" The promise from God may well have been a mass hallucination, or self-delusion, but it was also a very helpful one, for survival of the _genes_ of Israel... keep believing in God and your reproductive efforts will not be in vain, God favors you over the other species because he made you in his image, etc., so you will own the planet and it will all have been worthwhile. It made sense, out of nonsense.

John Mazetier Over the centuries, there certainly has been debate, at least among Buddhist scholars within the Buddhist tradition, about all the fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine.  But it would be a safe bet to say that one front of attack upon the preconceptions said to block our (Buddhist style) liberation is to devalue perception.  The ideology motivating this tack complains that empericism is over impressed with the senses.  However, certainly the Mahayana tradition espouses a quaint pre-scientific understanding of how our senses work.

James Higgo By 'quant pre-scientific understanding' I assume you refer to the analysis of 5 khandas. They are a different way of disaggregating the senses but I would not call them pre-scientific.

John H. Mazetier, Jr. One notion underlying part of the 5 khandas exposition has something emitted from the eye to generate sight. I cannot reference this right now, as I do not have the relevant texts at hand. For those who are not distracted by the facts of perception now known, the 5 khandas analysis may work in the service of teaching one to take one's inner realm less seriously. I would like to see them revised and updated.

James Higgo Buddhism does not claim to be a supernatural fount of knowledge and therefore its tenets are subject to continual refinement in the same way as any scientific theory. Perhaps nobody has refined this theory because it is simply making the point that we are not a unity, and getting things 100% accurate, beside being impossible in abstraction, would provide no further benefit.

John Mazetier That rather depends upon how you define Buddhism. I lived in a Buddhist community for a couple of years. Some Buddhists certainly do make supernatural claims--as a central aspect of the traditions of thought. These traditions are just as packed with miraculous claims as the Christian tradition. And there may be many reasons, coherent or not, helpful to the projects of Buddhist practice or not, for absence of refinement. Getting things 100% percent accurate is not a requirement, just a good goal to attempt if one wishes to salvage what is practical about Buddhism.

James Higgo Yup - Buddhism has more variants than Christianity, and there is just as much, perhaps more, mystical mumbo-jumbo layered over the core doctrine. Nevertheless, 'supernatural' is, as Arthrur C. Clarke might say, indistinguishable from any sufficiently advanced technology.  

John Mazetier Regarding the second point above: Think on this for a moment. First, by "reality" I assume you are referring to our environment.  I think you should note that it would more properly be called, "the rest of reality", unless you contend that we are not real.  Second, if our perception were not correlated with our environment we would not be able to survive.  Intake of accurate information is essential for our functioning on multiple levels. Surely, any motivation for ceasing to reproduce would be contingent upon the existence of the apparatus of desire constructed by our selfish genes. WE, as emergent beings, may extend the use of that aparatus beyond what may loosely be called its "original purpose."  But when we disobey the command to reproduce, we still use it.  And the fact that our genetic heritage can skew our perception has not stopped you or I from noticing and acting upon our larger situation.  I, for one will have no offspring.

James Higgo By 'reality' am specifically *not* referring to our environment. I am referring to the universe, multiverse, whatever is the most all-encompassing thing you can think of. Our environment is a small part of that reality as a nice fern-leaf is a small but complex part of the simple reality of the Mandelbrot set, as per Tegmark. Of course our perception is correlated with our environment, but only well enough so as to allow us to survive. By environment I also meant not simply the local niche, but the universe (or multiverse if you like). If our perception was correlated with our environment only well enough so as to allow us to survive, we would not be discussing philosophy or physics. Do not assume that the competencies cobbled together by Mother Nature that allow us to survive are thereby limited to only issues of survival. The local environment is all that matters to survival. That's why we're not born with an innate understanding of what's beyond our environment. But the ability to do philosophy and science has survival value.

John Matezier Innate knowledge can miss very significant parts of the local environment. And what was once part of the distant environment can suddenly have...ah...great impact. Just ask the dinosaurs. Whatever matters to survival is, well, whatever matters to survival. While the competencies we are born with are a product of survival in specific niches, they may be co-opted for new uses. This is the story of our minds. I was trying to point out that we can justifiably praise (or blame) our genes for the raw capacities we have adapted to our novel uses. In other words, our legacy is a mixture of myopia and farsightedness.

James Higgo By 'environment' I include everything which can affect us, no matter how distant in space.

 James Higgo 3. The fact that we have noticed and will have no offspring simply shows that we have reached beyond the bounds of what genes would consider the permissible use of our intelligence (obviously genes don't think) and we are therefore defective gene machines. So what?

John Matezier It shows that we can range farther in the vast space of all possible action than other animals can. Like doing physics, philosophy and constructing ethincal claims against our more obvious genetic predispositions. But I was also making the point that mind and culture are phenotypic expressions of our genetic heritage. Working against some one thrust of our genes and for others does not make us defective gene machines.

James Higgo In fact there is only one thrust of our genes and that is for them to survive.

John Matezier Hmmm...One thrust, yes, but penumbral effects abound. Aren't you taking the agentry aspect of genetic processes a bit too literally? I applaud the use of teleological thinking when speaking of biological processes. It provides a wonderfully pragmatic short-hand account, and grounds our own fully fledged agentry. But surely, genes are just mindlessly doing what they do, which includes a degree of straying outside the lines.

James Higgo Yes of course genes are mindlessly doing what they do. Animating them is a misleading shorthand which even Dawkins can't help using, to make his books readable. Obviously you or I are just accretions onto a few replicator molecules which arose by chance in the first place and happened to have the property that they nudge other molecules into their own shape.

James Higgo 4. Yes, we can see the billiard ball as a unity, but it is not. Only a conscious observer can see things as unities; in reality nothing is separate from anything else.

John Matezier So there is one big unity, but no small ones? Short version: Only a conscious observer can see things as unities. But that does not mean unities cannot exist without conscious observers. Long version: It seems to me that beneath your assertion lies a presumption that perceived reality must be distorted reality. While you did not say this, it logically follows from what you did say. If unity (of the sort I mean) only exists in the eye of the beholder, and nowhere else in reality, then we must have a skewed grasp upon what is going on. But, the filtering nature of our perception is no in principle barrier to knowing what is going on "out there," despite the claims of centuries of Eastern thought. (Oh dear, am I arguing with a Buddhist again?) The selectivity of our representations does not necessarily lead to error at all times. It will inevitably lead to error sooner or later. That is the lot of conscious beings. We have only to guard against this, and science is our formal way of doing so.

James Higgo Yes, reality must be a distorted reality. We cannot render our complex environment with perfect accuracy, as that would require a Turing machine with more Kolmogorov complexity than the environmnt being rendered. Hence perceived reality must indeed be distorted reality. Unless, that is, our universe's complexity is, like a picture from the Mandelbrot set, part of a much simpler overall reality, i.e. a simple equation with very little Kolmogorov complexity which can be understood. As per Tegmark.

John Matezier This is a jumble for me. How distorted? How would we know if some of it were not parsed well enough to notice the distortion?

James Higgo If we can't notice the distortion, that is a lack of accuracy in itself. If I'm blind, and you show me a low-resolution movie, you can't claim that it is a perfect rendering of reality, just because I can't tell the difference! (And no, you are not arguing with a Buddhist. I just respect a lot of their thought.)

John Mazetier On the other hand, "unity being only in the mind of the beholder" can also mean that regularities exist only within the minds of conscious entities. I do not think this is a warranted proposition. It is not a very economical construction, considering the amount of harmony between our representations, especially in the field of science. Nor does it explain the independently arrived at theories which meet resistance and are eventually enfolded into science.

James Higgo The concept of unity does not imply that there is some physical representation of unity 'within a mind'. You are showing your dualist colours again.

John Mazetier Dualist? My friend, where do you get that? I take it in the chin all the time for proclaiming subjectivity to be a subset of objectivity. You claimed that unity can exist only for an observer. I was just claiming that unity can exist without observers. (How about a little discussion about what "unity" can mean, so we can at least be on the same page?)

James Higgo See these posts from the everything-list

John Mazetier As to the interconnectedness of all things, what can connect with anything outside its light cone?

James Higgo Your obsession with the speed of light relies on the concept of time, which is itself a feature of our environment (in my view it is a function of the way we string snapshot-universes together subjectively, a la Deutsch) and not the uber-reality.

John Mazetier I am not obsessed by the speed of light. I was just mystified by your offering of a new age cliché. Now, upon reading the rest of your response, I am afraid you have only mystified me more.

James Higgo See these posts from the everything-list

John Mazetier As to the aspects of our universe that are interconnected within a lightcone, what is the nature of those interconnections except the very > regularities I was referring to, those regularities parsed by science? And among those, do we not find unity and discreteness? A billiard ball is taken as a unity because it's discrete bits act in some form of unified manner. Just pick the ball up and drop it. Of course this unity is perishable. Drop the ball from a high enough altitude and you will find out. What to remove the observer? Rocks are hurled from volcanoes and demonstrate the same principles when no one is around.

James Higgo See these posts from the everything-list

John Mazetier I will have to pass on this one and plead ignorance. While there is much could say, your quoted posting was too sketchy and provisional for me to respond. The points I made above were rather conservative. And, I do not see why this discussion should hang on one extrapolation of a controversial model of the universe. To do so would beg too many questions. The beauty of atomism is that it succinctly describes and predicts both the evanescence and the stability we can see around us. Don't fall prey to the misconception of popular and new age thinking which says a banana is just a collection of atoms and space and therefore does not really exist as a banana (the banana illusion!). This is just misuse of a partial understanding of physics. (No ultra eliminative materialists need respond.)

James Higgo Just don't mistake the map for the territory.

John Mazetier I have yet to discover how I have made the above "mistake".