Dave, Would you call the anxiety you experienced a "panic attack"? I've had a couple each of which was stimulated by a dream in which I was going to be trapped inside of something (claustrophobia). In each case it took medication to dissipate the intense anxiety. Also, I think I had a milder attack when I first smoked marijuana in 1966. Given my background it's tempting to understand the intense ones as unconscious memories of birth.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 4:38 PM Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > An experiential (400 mike trip): > > In the beginning there was Nothing — the Singularity. Then a quite > literally impossible differentiation occurred; setting of a chain reaction > of differentiation and hence Something(s). > > This experience parallels the Taoist dictum that from One came Two, from > Two Four, and from Four Everything. Of course I was aware of Taoism before > I had the experience, so maybe what I "observed" was merely a visualization > of a concept encountered decades ago. > > BTW, this was the closest I ever felt at mental risk. Part of the > experience was observing two "flawless diamond necklaces" then descending > into an infinite recursion of differentiation: e.g. one necklace had an > imperfect diamond, the diamond had a near invisible flaw, a single atom in > the lattice was misaligned, a quantum string was vibrating incorrectly, ... > . It was actually anxiety inducing as I watched my mind tripping out. > > davew > > > On Tue, Dec 28, 2021, at 12:50 PM, glen wrote: > > It's OK. I fixed your larding format. > > > > Just like with your challenge to what "possible" means, we have to also > > challenge the use of "random". You can't say "experience is random" > > without some kind of _set_ or _space_ of experiences from which to > > choose. E.g. it makes sense to say things like "There exist a black > > ball and a white ball. Choose one at random." It does not make sense to > > say "There exists nothing. Choose an experience at random." > > > > So we need some sense of a set of experiences from which to choose. We > > can conflate concepts like "choice", "select", and "random" together, I > > think. But we have to talk seriously about what *exists* ... the set of > > things from which the selection selects. This is where Lewis has an > > advantage. Anything that could exist, does exist. We don't have to > > worry about construction of nothing to something, from a little bit of > > stuff to a lot of stuff, etc. It's all already out there. > > > > But to toss in a little more grist just to help skip over all this to > > get to the question: > > > > Then we have to talk about what you're calling repetitions or > > regularities ... "laws", rules to which the extant things adhere (or > > would/will adhere if we ever got around to > > measuring/perceiving/experiencing them). As I've ranted, there are 2 > > features we probably want: consistency and completeness. Any 2 things > > from the set of extant things shouldn't contradict each other. And the > > set of extant things has to be complete. I.e. we can't dream up stuff > > that is NOT in the set. > > > > This is where counterfactuals play a role. When we talk about different > > things within a world versus different worlds, we're talking about > > contradictions/inconsistencies. But counterfactuals come in 2 senses, > > the (broader?) linguistic one (future [plu]perfect?) and the > > (specific?) logical one. > > > > I think we could derive a way of *counting* worlds based on the way we > > *count* things within a world. > > > > Without that minutiae out of the way, back to the question: Regardless > > of whether the choice of things from a world, or the choices of a world > > is *random* or not, when we talk about regularities/patters over > > collections of worlds, is that probabilistic? Or is it a clear case of > > sizes/measures of those collections? My guess at the answer is that > > every particular world will always be distinguishable (observability) > > from every other particular world. There are no equivalence classes > > unless we gloss/abstract some predicate/selector/choice. But maybe > > there *are* some inevitable equivalence classes ... like > > complementarity in quantum mechanics, where something is always > > unobservable, unreachable, behind the ontological wall. If that's the > > case, then our choice/selection methods must be probabilistic, a > > partial versus total ordering/sizing. > > > > Please remember that I don't *believe* any of this, personally. I'm > > simply building a defensible answer to the question "Why is there > > something, rather than nothing?" > > > > On 12/28/21 11:10, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote: > >> On 12/28/21 09:30, glen wrote: > >>> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds > >>> > >>> We see something like this in evolutionary justifications of various > phenotypic traits, the most egregious being evolutionary psychology, but > including Nick's hyena penis and the ontological status of epiphenomena. > Yes, I'm posting this in part because of EricC's kindasorta Voltaire-ish > response to what might seem like my Leibnizian defense of bureaucracy. But > I'm also hoping y'all could help with the question I ask later. > >>> > >>> Of course, I'm more on Spinoza's (or Lewis') side, here, something > closer to a commitment to the existence of all possible worlds. I'm in a > running argument at our pub salon about the metaphysical question "Why is > there something, rather than nothing?" My personal answer to that question, > unsatisfying to the philosopher who asked it, is that this is either a > nonsense question *or* it relies fundamentally on the ambiguity in the > concepts of "something" and "nothing". Every denial of the other proposed > answers (mostly cosmological) involves moving the goal posts or invoking > persnickety metaphysical assumptions that weren't laid out when the > question was asked. ... it's just a lot of hemming and hawing by those who > want to remain committed to their own romantic nonsense. > >>> > >> Ok, I don’t know whether my nonsense is romantic, but here it is. > Experience is essentially random. So, to answer the question, there is > mostly nothing. Indeed, experience seems often to repeat itself, but all > random processes repeat themselves, and so are still nothing. Every once > in a while, however, such repetitions are so persistent as to beyond our > capacity to shrug them off as random, and these experiences are somethings. > >> > >>> But a better answer might be something like: Because the size of the > set of possible worlds where there is something is *so much larger* than > the size of the set of worlds where there is nothing. And one might even > argue that all the possible worlds where there is nothing are degenerate, > resulting in only 1 possible world with nothing. [⛧] > >>> > >>> I don't think this is a probabilistic argument. But I'm too ignorant > to be confident in that. Can any of you argue one way or the other? Is this > argument from size swamping probabilistic, combinatorial? Or can I take a > Lewisian stance and assert that all the possible worlds do, already, exist > and this is just a numbers thing? > >> OOOOOPS! My always-slippery grasp on the word “possible” has failed. > What do we mean, in this context, by “possible”? > > > > -- > > glen > > Theorem 3. 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