Quantum experiments show the past isn’t set in stone until it’s observed in the present—raising profound questions about memory, free will, and our role in shaping reality.
If the present observations about humanity are correct, given the pre-ponderance of chronicle and historical evidence available pre-TFG cleansing, then the past behaviors (causes/actions/effects) of this species are verifying its own demise. The lack of exercising 'free will,' which is perhaps another way of say 'discretion,' is part and parcel of 'shaping reality,' is it not?
Yes, time appears to be a vortex that expands and contracts multi-dimensionally, so if some phenomenon occurs at some fixed point on the energetic 'line' of the never-ending spiral, and that spiral expands and contracts to and fro, the said fixed point passes multiple locations quantum entanglement style so that this event may have multiple 'presence' in time.
But where is the agency here? A deed first done, with consequences, can be observed later, and corrected to some extent in the 'new' time, but does that erase the consequences known to have existed between the cause/consequences/fix?
All biota, down to fungi and viruses, posses awareness, and from that awareness engage volition, action to respond to some causal agency. Even without memory, at least conscious memory, an organism will respond, almost always to protect itself in some way from corporal extinction. When did that agency, often repeated throughout any time period of any 'length,' first occur? We know, more or less, that huge extinctions of sentient lifeforms have occurred, and millions of species have thrived and died, never to occur in that nearly identical form again.
So, is time so flexible that it can completely convolute itself eternally? If that is so, then what Thom proposes could, at least graphically, exist. Then, memory would be uni-lateral, and no real 'time' would actually exist as either memory or history. All conscious biota, which is all biota, would be part of a smorgasbord of energetic soup ingredients, constantly brewing, being 'eaten' and then recycled into that pot again. We could also speculate that this would be the same for so-called physical reality that is not biotic, but energetic, photon, atomic, sub-atomic, phase, spatial (as in there is the void of space where everything goes to fill it).
Long ago, I attempted to write a Master's thesis on bioethics and the history of natural science. I relied heavily on de Chardin, Merton, Eisely, Nagel, Bergson and Bradley, and many others, to expand the question to 'where' does logic and proof take the human mind. And then, beyond that boundary, what pathway(s) might exist to access the altruism (ethic) that every individual biota enacts during its life/lives, to become at least self-reflective, let alone interdependent on all other biota to participate in the continued existence of Life?
This is the substance of survival, without which this, or any discussion, would never occur. Is survival selfish, existing only as singularity, or is this behavior THE example of ethics/altruism in action, the culmination of wills to survive, with survival being completely dependent on awareness of variety, change, evolution, entropy, chaos, uncertainty, and stability as the universal life force of reality?
Is 'will' actually free? Is memory static, or dynamic and massively interconnected with time and space and energies? Right now, it seems to me, 'survival' is the agency that demands an imperative, perhaps it always has. In 1979, my thesis went 'nowhere' with the faculty. Two out of six supported it, with one of them willing to speculate. I have never given up on that thesis, and maybe Thomas Nagel is still alive, now emeritus at Harvard, to still ponder this question.
Perhaps I need not worry about survival, if Thom's query of what constitutes 'reality' is tangible, if not potent.
If the present observations about humanity are correct, given the pre-ponderance of chronicle and historical evidence available pre-TFG cleansing, then the past behaviors (causes/actions/effects) of this species are verifying its own demise. The lack of exercising 'free will,' which is perhaps another way of say 'discretion,' is part and parcel of 'shaping reality,' is it not?
Yes, time appears to be a vortex that expands and contracts multi-dimensionally, so if some phenomenon occurs at some fixed point on the energetic 'line' of the never-ending spiral, and that spiral expands and contracts to and fro, the said fixed point passes multiple locations quantum entanglement style so that this event may have multiple 'presence' in time.
But where is the agency here? A deed first done, with consequences, can be observed later, and corrected to some extent in the 'new' time, but does that erase the consequences known to have existed between the cause/consequences/fix?
All biota, down to fungi and viruses, posses awareness, and from that awareness engage volition, action to respond to some causal agency. Even without memory, at least conscious memory, an organism will respond, almost always to protect itself in some way from corporal extinction. When did that agency, often repeated throughout any time period of any 'length,' first occur? We know, more or less, that huge extinctions of sentient lifeforms have occurred, and millions of species have thrived and died, never to occur in that nearly identical form again.
So, is time so flexible that it can completely convolute itself eternally? If that is so, then what Thom proposes could, at least graphically, exist. Then, memory would be uni-lateral, and no real 'time' would actually exist as either memory or history. All conscious biota, which is all biota, would be part of a smorgasbord of energetic soup ingredients, constantly brewing, being 'eaten' and then recycled into that pot again. We could also speculate that this would be the same for so-called physical reality that is not biotic, but energetic, photon, atomic, sub-atomic, phase, spatial (as in there is the void of space where everything goes to fill it).
Long ago, I attempted to write a Master's thesis on bioethics and the history of natural science. I relied heavily on de Chardin, Merton, Eisely, Nagel, Bergson and Bradley, and many others, to expand the question to 'where' does logic and proof take the human mind. And then, beyond that boundary, what pathway(s) might exist to access the altruism (ethic) that every individual biota enacts during its life/lives, to become at least self-reflective, let alone interdependent on all other biota to participate in the continued existence of Life?
This is the substance of survival, without which this, or any discussion, would never occur. Is survival selfish, existing only as singularity, or is this behavior THE example of ethics/altruism in action, the culmination of wills to survive, with survival being completely dependent on awareness of variety, change, evolution, entropy, chaos, uncertainty, and stability as the universal life force of reality?
Is 'will' actually free? Is memory static, or dynamic and massively interconnected with time and space and energies? Right now, it seems to me, 'survival' is the agency that demands an imperative, perhaps it always has. In 1979, my thesis went 'nowhere' with the faculty. Two out of six supported it, with one of them willing to speculate. I have never given up on that thesis, and maybe Thomas Nagel is still alive, now emeritus at Harvard, to still ponder this question.
Perhaps I need not worry about survival, if Thom's query of what constitutes 'reality' is tangible, if not potent.