[yossarian]

Ok, Steve won't mind, I don't think.

These emails were written exactly one year ago, April 12-14 2006.

This was before Steve introduced Subjective Reality as "Subjective Reality" and before he posted about Power vs. Force. ("Levels of Consiousness")

You can see how he was mulling over how he wanted to display LOC to people I didn't have any insights on his question so that was the end of the conversation.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Yup, the ultimate measure is basically effectiveness.

The challenge with using the scientific method to study consciousness is how you define the observer. If the results have to be repeatable from one person to the next, then you can't really investigate subjective phenomena except from the individual perspective. Even as an individual though, it's hard to know when you're perceiving vs. when you're creating. It's like we need a Heisenberg uncertainty principle of consciousness. I don't think you can really separate perception from creation when it comes to consciousness.

I haven't read the Feynman lecture, but I did read Genius by James Gleick, which was a biography on Feynman. I loved it.

--
Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People

Originally Posted by Yossarian

I would say that all phenomenon is observed from the subjective individual perspective.

I would say that while an electron is a lot easier to observe, fundamentally it is equally as arbitrary as a spiritual mental model. Let's say you have two experiments: one is the famous Millikan oil drop experiment where Millikan tested the existence of the electron, and one is much more difficult to describe, but it tests the "singular consciousness" theory. We could call it "Buddhism theory."

In both cases you do your best to assemble some data, and then you use a process to evaluate whether or not the the data supports the model. In one case, you're using a very fuzzy judgment about whether or not a Buddhism model is beneficial to you, and in the other case you're using some previously discovered math models.

You may look at the data for the oil drops, measure everything out, and say "Yes! Electrons exist!" But then your friend may come along, take a look, and say "No! You're wrong, they don't."

This is a difference of subjective opinion, and it happens all the time.

How do you solve the discrepancy? Conventional science simply uses peer review, and when the majority of parties are satisfied, most individuals will take that to indicate validity and declare that electrons exist. There is no better way! That's it! That's all we have. There is no mechanical, mathematical, whatever way to better determine the validity of something. A whole bunch of subjective opinions make scientifically valid theories.

And so, the subjectivity of the test on a "Buddhism theory" does not mean that it can't be proved scientifically. You can do the test for yourself, write out your experiment, and then your peers can review it and try the experiment for themselves and see what they get. This is the essence of the scientific method. And while pragmatically it might be beyond human scope to get a concrete feel for something that is so spiritual, it is not theoretically impossible to do so.

There is nothing that precludes religion from being a scientifically studied and peer reviewed topic. In practice we might find that people are so different from one another that we can't come to a consensus, but there are scientific theories and fields out there that suffer from the same problem! And even something as rigorous as fundamental physics is not exempt from this. Feynman's famous "sum-over-histories" theory itself is a theory that a notable amount of professional physicists don't "believe" in despite it's accuracy. It is not uncommon to hear, "It gets correct results, but that doesn't make it true." Einstein said a similar thing about quantum mechanics - "God does not play dice!"

There is another similar thing that deals with reductionism in math. Godel's incompleteness theorem in 1932 (and later Turing's Turing machine in 1936) showed that there will always exist mathematical theorems which cannot be proven either true or false. This is a death sentence for the classical formal view of mathematics where everything is laid out and proved mechanically. Godel proved that it just doesn't work for all math. There will always be theories where we can't say whether or not they can be proved, and yet those theories may be highly useful.

One theory that has been nominated for this status is the Riemann hypothesis. The useful result of Godel's incompleteness theorem is that it gives mathematicians the right to start using the scientific method in their work. They can't prove that the Riemann hypothesis is true based on the axioms of predicate logic, but they've tested it up to like a zillion numbers, so they just take the Riemann hypothesis itself to be an axiom! And from there they can advance formal math. This is actually extremely useful because there are many theories that can be proved if the Riemann hypothesis is true.

Right now we are in a very exciting time for science and math. The modern computer, and results such as Godel's incompleteness theorem are making people revisit fundamental existential questions, and they are getting good answers. Two of the premier people doing this right now are Gregory Chaitin and Stephen Wolfram. Chaitin is taking the mathematical approach and Wolfram is taking a very scientific approach (Reflecting their backgrounds: Chaitin has a doctorate in math, Wolfram in physics).

Anyway hopefully this was fairly coherent, but my point overall is that with these new methods of looking at knowledge pioneered by Godel, Turing, Feynman, Chaitin, Wolfram and others it's actually quite possible to scientifically prove theologically oriented questions, and you yourself seem to be doing that.

As far as perceiving vs. creating goes, it sounds like an interesting problem. But I wonder if the same exact thing would apply to typical scientific theories, since they are still part of our concsiousness. They may simply have the advantage of lots of feedback whereas with something theology-oriented you have pretty limited feedback. Like astronomy except worse. It's hard to conduct astronomical experiments, but that doesn't make it impossible to figure it all out. It just makes it very hard and very slow-going. I wonder if the same can be said of consciousness.

If you're interested in digging deeper Chaitin and Feynman confront the issue head on. Chaitin in "The Limits of Mathematics" (as well as his other books) and Feynman in his 1963 lectures that I already told you about. They don't apply it to theology, they just talk about science and knowledge, but I think it extends very nicely into some of the stuff you are doing. Before finding your site I was exploring this intersection between spirituality and rationality, but it was always hard for me to make it clear. Your site has really fleshed it out well and given me lots to think about.

Thanks again,
Yossarian

Originally Posted by Steve

One of the benefits of math and science is that there are common and accessible tools we can use. A physical apparatus build by one scientist can (usually) be duplicated by another. Rules of logic used by one person can be taught to another. I can write a computer program on my PC, and you can run it on yours if you have compatible hardware.

But what evidence do we have of the compatibility of one human consciousness with another?

If I have a subjective experience within my own thoughts, what tools can I use to convey that experience to another person? Normal human communication seem inadequate to the task. We can also study the brain itself, but still the actual subjective experience is not conveyed.

Another issue is that different people seem to be at different levels of consciousness. Some people are more or less aware than others. As we mature our awareness usually expands, but not to an equal degree in everyone. Even in science and mathematics it is not always easy to identify someone as a genius vs. a crackpot -- history sometimes changes the answer. And yet we do seem to use something of a peer review model to identify the "gurus" in terms of the development of consciousness, but perhaps that's because of some outward manifestation we can observe through the senses: a particular lifestyle, service to others, certain daily practices, etc. How do we measure and communicate what actually occurs inside another person's consciousness?

This is one of the key challenges of Buddhism. The true experience of enlightenment cannot be described in human language. At best the words are only a pointer. Human language can describe repeatable experiences in math and science. Given sufficient plans, similar raw materials, and adequate skill, I can build whatever you can communicate to me. But with experiences of consciousness, this pattern doesn't seem to hold. Buddha can explain enlightenment, but even those who follow his instructions in earnest may not reach the destination he described. The instructions do not translate well into language.

What would be a "scientific" test to determine whether or not a particular person was enlightened... perhaps to the same degree Buddha claimed to be? Do we have no choice but to fall back on a vote by people who seem qualified to judge such a thing?

I can look at a baby and say, "I am more aware than this baby." But what would such a comparative test between adults look like? We can measure a person's height, weight, speed, etc. How can we measure someone's level of awareness?

--
Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People