Thread: Triality

Probably not a real word but it'll make sense in a sec.

Okay, basically I read about this in The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose and it seemed very sensible, although I had a few disagreements with it.

You often have very staunch supporters of science who'll say that physical reality is the only reality. This is not correct. Look at the Mandelbrot set below, a famous fractal based on a very simple mathematical process; square a complex number and then add the complex number to it, then square your result and add the complex number again, then square that result and add the complex number again; if the number stays low, it's part of the Mandelbrot set, but if it shoots off to infinity, it is not. For example, -1: square it and -1, you get 0. Square that and -1, you're back to -1. Therefore -1 is part of the set. When you plot the results, you get this (shading is based upon how quickly a value shoots off to infinity, if it does):



This thing is not only very beautiful, it is also remarkable. It is in fact infinitely complex. Here's an example of a zoom into it:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...elbrot_set.jpg

You could go forever and still find new things. The relevant questions are these:

1. Is it real?

Most certainly it is, it is not something that was invented but rather something that was discovered. Physical reality can be seen to be an approximation of this set in many places, not vice versa (the set being a product of reality).

2. Is it a part of physical reality?

Definitely not, physical reality cannot contain this in all its detail because it is infinitely complex. That would require infinite matter. All of the images on computers and print outs are mere approximations. Neither is it, by the way, a part of mental reality, for no mind can hold infinite quantities of information.

The conclusion that we must make is that physical reality is not the only reality. There is also platonic reality. This is just as real as what is tactile to our senses. Other evidence for this is how physical reality seems to be an approximation of mathematical laws, such as the law of attraction being inversely proportional to the square of distance. I would personally suggest that this shows that science cannot hold all the answers; certainly if you define science as the study of empirical, measurable reality, because mathematics is not tangible. The study of such things is left to philosophy and mathematics.

I'll take a moment here to address spiritual reality; there is no such thing. God is the product of primitive man's attempts to explain a reality which seemed designed for him. We now know that that wasn't the case but rather a delusion brought about by ignorance of the anthropic principle; man came to be made for that physical reality through natural selection, and really we should abandon God. The promise of eternal life stops people from doing that unfortunately, but just to make it clear: religious reality has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. There is no consciousness which designed the universe; there is no evidence for such a consciousness.

There was another reality which Penrose suggested though, distinct from platonic and tangible:



It seems reasonable, definitely. Qualia... by definition they have no lodging in physical reality, nor can they be put down to mathematics I do not think; can do you describe a quale with equations? I don't think so.

The major problem I have with Penrose's diagram is the arrows. They imply causality, in a way, and that definitely cannot be true because you get a cycle of causality and a chicken and egg paradox.

My belief in the nature of mental reality is that it is actually the product of a curious mash of both the platonic and the physical worlds. One of the most fascinating aspects of consciousness is how it makes causality a real, solid thing. Previously causality has been thought of as a mere abstract way of showing how one thing leads to another; when a man pushes his wife out of a hot air balloon as often happens in real life, we don't see that as

man applies force to wife --> causality --> wife accelerates out of balloon basket

but just as

man applies force to wife --> wife accelerates out of balloon basket

However causality becomes tangible when talking about neurons. The fact that one neuron causes another to fire is integral to the system developing 'purpose' and hence consciousness.

Such pure yeses and nos, such as the yesses and nos of neurons or absolute of consciousness which is either an existent or non existent property, is a stark contrast to physical reality, but feels more like mathematics in which absolutes are everywhere; physical reality is, according to quantum physics, actually very blurry. Things are not either there or not there; they are actually, for example, 80% maybe there 20% not there. However causality itself seems to be instrinsic to time, and we only find real time in physical reality, not eternal mathematics which is simply there. It is for that reason I think that mental reality may actually be more like a subset of phsyical and platonic reality:



What are people's thoughts on this? I thought it'd be nice to hear some metaphysical speculation in the philosophy board for once instead of the usual bitching about evolution with brainwashed goons.