« Buddhism and quantum physics both point toward One | Main | The "many worlds" of quantum mechanics arguably is a "single world" »

July 10, 2023

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Very interesting!

Don’t know quite what to make of this, so I won’t rush into commenting on it, or indeed into formulating some opinion even privately to myself, until I understand it a bit better.

Looking forward to your further posts discussing this.

A quick knee-jerk, though: While Plato's idea works as a good metaphor for the movie playing on a screen, absolutely; but what little I've read here, of what Heinrich Pas is saying, seems better represented by the old Jain idea of the blind men milling around the elephant analogy. While superficially similar, but they're actually two very different ideas.

Sorry, like I said, just a knee-jerk that I couldn't stop myself thinking up (despite not wanting to rush to conclusions without understanding this better); and, having thought this, couldn't resist posting this comment. Don't mind me, I'll keep it zipped now until you've said more about this, and I've understood this a bit better.

When you look at a traditional printed photo, perhaps from a magazine or textbook, if you look closely, you will see the photo is merely an arrangement of different colored dots. The dots are all the same size. There are only four colors, red, green, yellow, black in different arrangements.

It is the same on a television screen. The dots are projected only when you turn it on, and the screen us entirely black and dark what you turn it off. Even the dots were just a passing projection.

You perceive movement, but these are a series of still pictures. There is zero actual movement.

Even Newton, in his Calculus, demonstrated that all reality and time could be described as an infinite series of entirely static events.

From a distance you see the landscape, with far more colors, different objects. You see the movie ad of there were actual movement. Maybe someone you know there.


' there' is really inside your own mind.

Now imagine a photo that is an infinite number of layers deep and all translucent. Simply altering your point of view changes the picture you see. Altering your point of focus, the depth of your focus, nstantly changes what you see.

The senses and mind have their part to play in what we see, even in the number of layers we can perceive. But there is indeed a reality there. Many actually.

"Your idea is crazy. But it isn't crazy enough to be real"

Niels Bohr

"In the Copenhagen interpretation, by opening the box containing Schrödinger’s cat, you cause the wave function to collapse into one of its possible states, either alive or dead.

" In the Many -Worlds interpretation, the wave function doesn't collapse. Instead, all probabilities are realized. In one universe, you see the cat alive, and in another universe the cat will be dead.

" Right or wrong decisions become right and wrong decisions

" Decisions are also events that trigger the separation of multiple universes. We make thousands of big and little choices every day. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like had you made different decisions over the years?


" According to the Many-Worlds interpretation, you and all those unrealized decisions exist in different universes because all possible outcomes exist in the universal wave function. For every decision you make, at least two of "you" evolve on the other side of that decision. One universe exists for the choice you make, and one universe for the choice you didn’t make.

"If the Many-Worlds Interpretation is correct, then right now, a near infinite versions of you are living different and independent lives in their own universes. Moreover, each of the universes overlay each other and occupy the same space and time.


" It is also likely that you are currently living in a branch universe spun off from a decision made by a previous version of yourself, perhaps millions or billions of previous iterations ago. You have all the old memories of your pre-decision self, but as you move forward in your own universe, you live independently and create your unique and new memories.

"A Reality Check

" Which interpretation is correct? Copenhagen or Many-Worlds? Maybe neither. But because quantum mechanics is so strange, perhaps both are correct. It is also possible that a valid interpretation is yet to be expressed. In the end, correct or not, quantum interpretations are just plain fun to think about."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2020/04/01/the-schizophrenic-world-of-quantum-interpretations/?sh=7b5cd51a6192

If your point of view changes, have you slipped across strings into another universe?

But if you do, won't you forget all past memory formed in that previous universe? And immediately pick up the memory from this universe as if it is all you ever knew?

Your world could change dramatically, but you will never know it. Do you change the world at all? Or simply move to the reality you chose? You can forget, even moment but moment, so memory won't help.

But to raise your consciousness so that you are now an observer of "you" opens the possibility of consciously moving from state to state, aware, and maybe even remembering. Indeed, slipping from one place to another may become merely a matter of focus.


Pointing to Plato, and monism, and so, imho, ineluctably pointing to God.

SantMat64, in his book Pas points out that monism is very different from monotheism. Monism says there is only one substance, the physical world, so this actually undercuts belief in God, since God would have to be identical with the physical universe. Monotheism says there is one God, which almost always is viewed as the creator of the universe, not the universe itself.

Monotheism can be monistic - such as the various forms of panentheism . Brian, you wrote a book on Plotinus - would you say that Neoplatonism is monistic ?

Neoplatonism is monistic in a certain sense. It speaks a lot about the One. But the idea is that while the One is in all things, the One is not identical to all of the things that have emanated from the One. So that leads Neoplatonism to have a dualistic sense as well as a monistic sense. It just depends on a point of view, and Plotinus often wasn't crystal clear in that regard.

One or many? Monism or monotheism?
"But to raise your consciousness so that you are now an observer of "you" opens the possibility of consciously moving from state to state, aware, and maybe even remembering. Indeed, slipping from one place to another may become merely a matter of focus."

I’ve always taken the view that the tradition of “ classical theism “ that extended into the Middle Ages was/is a kind of weak panentheism - monotheistic because it draws a definite line between Creator and creation and yet monistic because the world derives its being from the One at every moment in the present.

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