We’ve all heard that general relativity and quantum theory are incompatible, but why? How could two useful theories not be fundamental properties of reality, and why are they so destructive and polluting? Maybe they are askew to the true nature of reality.
Simply put; as reductionism has examined smaller and smaller particles to find the building block of nature, the amount of energy at the Planck level begins to increase. It opens higher and higher levels of energy. And as Einstien noted, energy equals mass and mass equals energy. As we get to the smaller, the amount of energy increases, therefore the mass should be increasing. Things would get bigger as they get smaller. How to reconcile that? As a side note, reductionism has also postulated a mechanism (such as the microtubule) to identify the emergence of consciousness. That too, has failed.
The amount of energy used to dissect such quanta (as in the large hadron collider) at CERN, uses 1.3 terawatt hours of electricity annually to smash these particles. That’s enough power to fuel 300,000 homes for a year.
So we can’t go smaller without getting bigger. At 10/-33cm and 10/-34 seconds, things start getting bigger—as in black hole bigger. On the scale of energy our baseline is zero, which is a tremendous amount of energy where we fit comfortably in. What does that tell us?
A recurring theme is gaining traction and a new boss is slowly taking over. Space and time are no longer fundamental to the nature of reality, yet are themselves emergent properties. The only real thing left is the hard problem of consciousness, which is the one thing which is not a thing. But then again, neither are we.
The best theory of the universe would be the most useful theory; to release us from the quandary of the first three theories of modern science. Since nothing is true of our perceived reality, why not use our imagination to move us where we want to move? That is exactly what gravity, QM, and the religions of a god have done—yet the unforeseen variables of such theories have taken us to the brink of existence.
It appears quanta and space are emergent properties of consciousness. They are adaptive phenomenon of our space-time goggles and a likely construct of the current game module.
TheCommonAtheist 
I heard that the Chinese experimented with quantum entanglement and succeeded, partially.
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Perhaps quantum computing will be able to solve some of our energy problems—to produce a technology that flows with the course of energy, not one that consumes it?
Then there’s the unsupervised machine learning….
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Here I must admit my failing. I am not a scientist, and have no desire to be one. While science has done a lot of great things for humanity, it has not done many even good things for the world humanity exists in. The above discussion is totally meaningless to me. If I cannot experience some things in this world, they are useless to me. Call me a Luddite if you wish, though I am not one. But when it comes to unlocking the secrets of the cosmos (I would not know there is a cosmos without science, yes, I admit that) I will continue to explore the cosmos inside my mind. At least it has meaning to me. Science is just a human toy. (And whoever I piss off with that statement, save your time and energy for those things you find worth doing. You will never convince me otherwise. And so it goes.)
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All contradicts.
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So why not use our imagination to move us where we want to move? Seems instead our scientific approach is hamstringed with its own rigidity.
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I’m partial to Bernard Kastrup Analytic Idealism, where the ‘material’ is only a map of reality, which is the terrain inaccessible to us given our limited sense perception organs and powers of cognition. This map can get us somewhere and has predictive power, but as with any map, it’s important not to confuse it with the terrain.
Shameless plug: https://philosophicsblog.wordpress.com/2022/08/17/analytic-idealism/
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Is that implying the material, the terrain, or earth is a map of an official reality?
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The stuff we call material—particles, quarks, fields, and so on—are perceptual constructs—, and so are the things we construct from these foundational concepts. Analogically, we might think of a game of Minecraft, where there are fictional blocks with which we can construct fictional buildings. By fiction, I don’t mean make-believe or a figment, so much as it’s useful for a purpose, much like a shovel in Minecraft might be useful in its context.
There is ‘something’ there, but what we perceive is just a rendition subject to our limitations. Kastrup calls it ‘consciousness’ whilst Donald Hoffman might call it information (from IIT, Integrated Information Theory). This is not the same thing as those calling it a hologram (unless it becomes a semantic matter).
I’ve shared a 2-minute video presentation of Kastrup summarising this concept in a short clip at the end of a longer piece that happens to be part I in a series of 6. I think it does a decent job articulating abstractly his point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDbCTxm6_Ps&t=1350s
I’d like to read your impressions.
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I think Hoffman is on to something important, but in his frequent interviews he does tend to extrapolate beyond his theory. He (and John Vervaeke too) do reason out to a lot of Buddhic principles, which seems to be where everything ends up if you carry it beyond the comfortable norms. Even though Vervaeke disagrees with Donald it is only on philosophical ground not falsifiable testing.
Pick any topic of discussion, IIT, reincarnation, quantum field, whatever, what is being discovered is data. What is being reincarnated is data. What is biology but forms of energy encoded with data. It is energy. We even calculate our food using calories. A particle is “an excitation of a field”. It’s bits or packets of data that is likely entangled to the projector.
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Right, and the notion of ‘data’ itself is a human construct—as is language—, so we are at risk of stepping into a tautology. I am fine calling it ‘data’, ‘information’, ‘consciousness’, or whatever else. Each of these suffers from the same source weakness. They are figments of language and cognition. Metaphorically, I can just call it ‘stuff’ or ‘basics’ or ‘simples’, but that doesn’t get us any further.
In the end, we cannot directly interact this data or stuff becaue it’s all black boxed. All we can do is perceive it and interpret it.
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There is a common theme among the Jnanis, the shaman, and all those who experience consciousness contrary to our normal perceptions. I am not so quick to discount those experiences when I match the common themes the cross cultures and time.
Considering what we are truly made of, are we not apparitions as well?
I know this opens up a lot of quandaries, but I tend to follow the path of least contradictions.
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I agree that we are ‘apparitions’. In the end, I suppose I defer to a theory of fitness, instrumentation, or utility in an evolutionary framework. Could any or all of this be wrong? Indeed, but a human cognitive bias is to believe our current mode of perception is always correct—until it’s not. This is why I prefer to think of it as a Bayesian difference engine—employing a Hegalian dialectic approach. As new inputs enter the system, we evaluate then and persist, pivot, perish, or synthesise, which is to say that it (1) reinforces our belief, (2) alters our belief in a manner that causes a paradigm switch, (3) exintguishes a belief, or (4) can be incorporated into our current paradigm, enhancing or extending it in some manner or another.
I tend to think of these shamanic perspective (as well as ours) to be metaphoric rather than specific. Adopting the language of McGilchrist (whose ideas I feel you might really connect with), the shamans are operating from the right hemisphere whilst science operates from the left, so we’d be talking apples and oranges.
Here’s a perspectival interview with Iain that gives a decent overview of his worldview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U99dQrZdVTg
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I would agree that much of the shamanic experience is metaphorical, but not all. There is core shamanism spread across the globe that developed because of its utility. It is the commonalities that really interest me. We tend to think of it as primitive, but if you compare the Native American medicine wheel or the Toltec philosophies, and the Babaylan of the Philippines, they rival Buddhism, Hinduism, mystical Christianity, Kabbalism, quantum physics, and every other advanced philosophy or theory—these people weren’t as primitive as we’d like to think. Look at the structures their ancestors built and the cave art they left in their wake. Granted most of them are extinct, so maybe they knew too much.
If Donald Hoffman is correct, exposing reality would lead to our doom—so far so good. 😁
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Agree. The notion of reality is itself a construct. It’s not implausible that we’ve constructed an empty notion—like unicorns.
I just happened upon your blog. I’ll need to spend some time absorbing more of your thoughts and material. Cheers.
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My blog has evolved from pure atheism to this adventure. True there are no deities, but is there nothing at all? My mind combines everything naturally into one. Thanks for the follow.
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but is there nothing at all?
The question of the centuries.
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I used to have one one one conversations with Professor David Bohm… and if they take Bohmian Mechanics more seriously, the two theories would be way more compatible.
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