Yes, but likewise without time motion and change cannot exist. It seems to me that either we must say that time, motion and change all exist inherently or that none of them do.
I prefer to think that metaphysics is concerned with first principles, not with supernatural phenomena, even if there are such things. Thus metaphysics would be before physics and not just beyond it, whereas the supernatural would be beyond physics but not before it. (Where 'before' means...
If you find anything good please let me know. I read through half a dozen or more papers on evolutionary psychology a while back and there was not one mention of consiousness/awareness. I get the impression it is bad form to suggest that human consciousness has any effect on our behaviour, since...
Sorry but I don't have a link to a peer reviewed paper. Stenger's new book 'The Comprehensible Cosmos' (not yet available) introduces the ideas in depth but I've just picked up the main points from reviews etc. (one in New Scientist).
He's suggesting that everything can be reduced to minimal...
"If time depends on an entity,
Then without an entity how can time exist?
There is no existent entity.
So how can time exist?"
This comes from Nagarjuna's 'Mulamadhyamakakarika' (Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way). In this view time would depend on the existence of entities, as has been...
That was my thought as well. Chess is sometimes used as an example of a formal axiomatic system, and it seems to me a stalemate equates to an undecidable theorem. Don't know if this analogy really holds up though.
Victor Stenger has proposed a model of the universe consisting only of atoms, void and time reversability. I like this idea, partly because it's almost simple enough for me to understand. But I have a problem with it.
He suggests that the universe can be explained as atoms and void, as per...
Thanks. Good point about energy. It appears that the net energy contained in the universe is zero, so score one to the mystics again.
I expect the moderators are getting restless so I'm going to drop out of this one before they strike. When I get around to it I'm going to request a new...
Psykostx - I also am more musician than physicist, and think I see what you're getting at. I wonder if the connection between the energy levels of random quantum drums and the harmonic properties of Riemann's non-trivial zeros is relevant here. I don't understand much about either, but to me it...
Ah. Now I have a much better idea of what you're suggesting. I agree that words like omnipresent, eternal etc. would refer only to aspects of the absolute and so would be misleading. It would be more accurate to say, and I think Blavatsky would have agreed, that the Absolute has all aspects...
I'm not qualified to answer this but can say a couple of things. First, it is said that what passes from one life to another is not our self or ego. That would die along with our body or, rather, it never existed in the first place. Second, what is at work here are purely deterministic forces or...
Does anybody here use listserve? I'm having trouble getting my command lines right and can't find the relevant instructions.
Specifically, I want to switch to 'digest' mode but the instruction "digest" doesn't do it, nor does "listname digest", and nor does "digest listname". What am I missing?
PIT2 - Yes, you're right about the esoteric view of functional consciousness. It is this form of consciousness which by analysis and meditative practice is shown to have only a dependent existence, much as neuroscientists conclude. In this view the world has three aspects, the physical, the...