Living Reality

[constantinople]

Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of something that exhibits all or most of the following traits:[36][39][40]
Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells — the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.,[36]
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.[41][42] or "with an error rate below the sustainability threshold."[42]




So, now that we have established that parameters for what constitutes a living thing, do any of these apply to the stimulus of "reality".

Reality is static. Changes in the perception of reality are just that, a change in the viewers perception, not in reality. A pair of blue scissors will ALWAYS be blue, based on the science of reflected and absorbed light of various wavelengths.  Any other color perceived by a viewer signifies a change in their processing of the stimulus, not a change in the stimulus itself.

1. Homeostasis - no. reality does not have any control over itself, therefore it cannot have homeostasis. it does not seek to maintain any sort of biological balance of function.

2. Organization. Nope. It is not composed of cells, in fact, it has no concrete composition.

3. Metabolism.  Reality does not metabolize or create energy.

4. Growth. reality is static. it doesn't grow or shrink, only our perception of it and our awareness of it's individual components.

5.


I could go on to do all 7, but there's no point. If it fails to meet the criteria for one it fails them all. 


Reality is not alive. /thread.

I stated all this many posts ago and we have since moved on to discussing the relationship between ourselves, our minds, the universe, reality, and energy.

I hope you have some master's level or better Chemists and Physicists to help chime in on this discussion or we will be chasing our tails for a long time


Einstein couldn't even get those relationships right man.

PS - Free will doesn't exist. With sophisticated enough mathematics and computation technology you could quantify every factor at work on a person influencing their decision making process and pick their decision before they did. We are all at the mercy of ourselves.

[Obbe]

Constantinople, I don't think anyone here is claiming that reality is alive.  But I do think that life, individual behavior,  etc, can be seen as an activity that reality is performing.  What are your thoughts on that?

Also I would like to see how you define free will, and would like to see what you think of the definition I mentioned above.

Also you claim that reality is static.  What do you mean by that and why do you think that?  Consider this post:

One might say reality is more of a process than a static fact.

For instance, in the beginning stages of our universe physics was quite different and physical laws came into being one after another (I'm no expert here so someone correct me if I'm wrong) like gravity and electromagnetism and the strong & weak force...And as suns are born and die they create new elements within them that did not exist. This is pure speculation but is it totally naive to think that there might still be physical laws that don't exist yet that will?

[constantinople]

Reality encompasses the actions and individuals within it; the actions of the individuals are not a function of reality, they are an aspect of it. Reality doesn't do anything. It just is.


However, the phenomenon of sapience has allowed mankind to have a perception of itself on a per-individual basis as being "outside" of reality. 


Free will doesn't exist (for most people) because most people are not capable of objectively approaching every decision in their life entirely separate from the totality of their experience leading up to that point.

Free will would be the ability of an individual to approach every aspect of their life free from the bias of self or ego.

[Obbe]

Reality encompasses the actions and individuals within it; the actions of the individuals are not a function of reality, they are an aspect of it. Reality doesn't do anything. It just is.


However, the phenomenon of sapience has allowed mankind to have a perception of itself on a per-individual basis as being "outside" of reality.

That's a very good way of stating it, thank you for being so concise and putting it so eloquently.

Free will doesn't exist (for most people) because most people are not capable of objectively approaching every decision in their life entirely separate from the totality of their experience leading up to that point.

Free will would be the ability of an individual to approach every aspect of their life free from the bias of self or ego.

You say "most people".  What people do you believe can approach life free from self/ego bias?  How do you think a person accomplishes this?

[Montane]

Your actions can be quantified and measured, but it's because you perceive and choose which routes to take. We are always weighing our options. Change your perception, changes your choices, changes your action.

But

don't just change your structure of perception, that is mere substitution of one filter for another. Free your perception by seeing the falseness of your filters. Your beliefs, experience, and knowledge, all that conditioning, the past projecting into the present, it prevents seeing what is. Right here, right now, reality, that moment in which we are all co-creators.

[constantinople]

Reality encompasses the actions and individuals within it; the actions of the individuals are not a function of reality, they are an aspect of it. Reality doesn't do anything. It just is.


However, the phenomenon of sapience has allowed mankind to have a perception of itself on a per-individual basis as being "outside" of reality.

That's a very good way of stating it, thank you for being so concise and putting it so eloquently.

Free will doesn't exist (for most people) because most people are not capable of objectively approaching every decision in their life entirely separate from the totality of their experience leading up to that point.

Free will would be the ability of an individual to approach every aspect of their life free from the bias of self or ego.

You say "most people".  What people do you believe can approach life free from self/ego bias?  How do you think a person accomplishes this?

I don't know.

[FON]

Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of something that exhibits all or most of the following traits:[36][39][40]
Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells — the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.,[36]
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.[41][42] or "with an error rate below the sustainability threshold."[42]




So, now that we have established that parameters for what constitutes a living thing, do any of these apply to the stimulus of "reality".

Reality is static. Changes in the perception of reality are just that, a change in the viewers perception, not in reality. A pair of blue scissors will ALWAYS be blue, based on the science of reflected and absorbed light of various wavelengths.  Any other color perceived by a viewer signifies a change in their processing of the stimulus, not a change in the stimulus itself.

1. Homeostasis - no. reality does not have any control over itself, therefore it cannot have homeostasis. it does not seek to maintain any sort of biological balance of function.

2. Organization. Nope. It is not composed of cells, in fact, it has no concrete composition.

3. Metabolism.  Reality does not metabolize or create energy.

4. Growth. reality is static. it doesn't grow or shrink, only our perception of it and our awareness of it's individual components.

5.


I could go on to do all 7, but there's no point. If it fails to meet the criteria for one it fails them all. 


Reality is not alive. /thread.

I stated all this many posts ago and we have since moved on to discussing the relationship between ourselves, our minds, the universe, reality, and energy.

I hope you have some master's level or better Chemists and Physicists to help chime in on this discussion or we will be chasing our tails for a long time


Einstein couldn't even get those relationships right man.

PS - Free will doesn't exist. With sophisticated enough mathematics and computation technology you could quantify every factor at work on a person influencing their decision making process and pick their decision before they did. We are all at the mercy of ourselves.

How do you explain away quantum randomness in a deterministic universe? Some argue that it has no effect at the macro level but I seem to recall reading numerous articles that refuted this claim.

[constantinople]

How do you explain away quantum randomness in a deterministic universe? Some argue that it has no effect at the macro level but I seem to recall reading numerous articles that refuted this claim.

I don't know. At the macro level there's enough observers that The Great Quantum Soup is becoming reality at some speed which is faster than light or our perception? So I guess if you could move faster than that you could predict the future IDK, but it wouldn't matter anyway because the future would be just a mess of quantum probabilities and things that hadn't even became a thing yet. Would you even exist at that point? What the fuck am I talking about


When I made that addendum, I was thinking more along the lines of being able to quantify personal experience via memory into a way to judge how someone will react to a given situation. Just much, much more sophisticated than what I understand is possible now.

[FON]

Ah, gotcha...i think

[constantinople]

I've been chain smoking fat joints.

[FON]

And I'm starved for marijuana. Will read again later when I get baked.

[Lanny]

How do you explain away quantum randomness in a deterministic universe? Some argue that it has no effect at the macro level but I seem to recall reading numerous articles that refuted this claim.

I'd be interested to read those articles if you have links.

Regardless though, indeterminism doesn't allow for libertarian free will any more than determinism does. I posted about this better somewhere but fuck if I'm going to look it up. Basically the logic is this: Accepting physical indeterminism means rejecting a hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics. Naturalism holds that everything we are is emergent from physical parts. If there is no hidden variable then the source of determinism is non-physical (if it wasn't it'd just be a hidden variable). Thus the source of indeterminism is non-us (since we're physical), thus we have no free will because we can no more alter the future in this proposed indeterministic world than a deterministic one.

[RestStop]

I don't know about reality being a living thing per say. I do believe there is some type of veil or mirrored reality and only a select few of us can see the world the way it really is.
Ever feel like everyone else is delusional and your the only one seeing anything how true reality is?

[Lanny]

I don't know about reality being a living thing per say. I do believe there is some type of veil or mirrored reality and only a select few of us can see the world the way it really is.
Ever feel like everyone else is delusional and your the only one seeing anything how true reality is?

Hey, it's like a poorly paraphrased version of the cave. Gratz or rehashing 3000 year old egomania.

[FON]

How do you explain away quantum randomness in a deterministic universe? Some argue that it has no effect at the macro level but I seem to recall reading numerous articles that refuted this claim.

I'd be interested to read those articles if you have links.

I don't, but I found them through a pretty basic google search.

Regardless though, indeterminism doesn't allow for libertarian free will any more than determinism does. I posted about this better somewhere but fuck if I'm going to look it up. Basically the logic is this: Accepting physical indeterminism means rejecting a hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics. Naturalism holds that everything we are is emergent from physical parts. If there is no hidden variable then the source of determinism is non-physical (if it wasn't it'd just be a hidden variable). Thus the source of indeterminism is non-us (since we're physical), thus we have no free will because we can no more alter the future in this proposed indeterministic world than a deterministic one.

Did you mean "the source of indeterminism is non-physical"? I'm not quite sure I follow this part. Thought I did but smoked a cone and read it again, now I don't.