Hey Guys,
Wonderful conversation. It encompassed a broad swath of the field and the passion for it is evident. However, there were many questions and few answers so looking forward to future installments.
The distinction you brought up between common sense ontology and ontic reality is an important one. I think we get caught up proclaiming the “Wisdom of the Ancients” instead of seeing things as they are. Frankly, if they’d solved it, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We obviously require a new paradigm.
With that said, I’ll make the case that progress with the Enlightenment Gap must conform to established science. Given its relative success compared to the persistent Problem(s) of Psychology, science has earned its authority. We need to couch the discussion in real terms or risk getting mired in Post-Modernist Theology, solipsism run amok.
As demonstrated by the Measurement Problem in QM, interpretations of reality must include the observer, and accounting for them both simultaneously is the problem before us. However, the beauty of the hard sciences is they’ve already established their own limitations, e.g. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems and Geodesic Incompleteness in Penrose-Hawking Singularities. This provides a hint how to proceed.
The intractability of Mind-Body Problem suggests we lack even the terminology to discuss the topic appropriately. In keeping with the incompleteness of reality itself, maybe its insolubility is the solution. If the separation acts as an event horizon, it implies the observer occupies a central position within a respective black hole, and this is exactly what’s observed (Schwarzschild-Hubble Equivalence):
This interpretation leads to other consequences, such that the CMB—leftover radiation from the Big Bang—is Hawking Radiation (both black body spectrums), and the Big Bang is black hole evaporation (inverse). This resolves the matter/antimatter discrepancy (Baryogenesis) while accounting for the Initial Singularity. It also addresses, as Cadell beautifully put it, a pathos for the Origin: Absolute Potential.
While advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, I suspect, have their version of science, the findings should be the same. Even in a relativistic universe, the laws themselves are identical for different observers, i.e. Lorentz Invariant. The fact we continue bashing our heads against the same problems suggests we simply need a new way of thinking. In the tradition of Einstein, the universe is subtle, not malicious.
Eric
P.S. The Schwarzschild-Hubble Equivalence is this mathematical identity:
Critical density (flat universe): p = 3H^2/8piG
H: Hubble’s Constant
G: Gravitational Constant
Age of Universe (uniform expansion): 1/H
R: Hubble Radius of Observable Universe: c/H
V: Volume (Sphere); 4piR^3/3
Mass: M = Vp = [4piR^3/3][3H^2/8piG] = c^3/2GH
Schwarzschild Radius (black hole): Rs = 2GM/c^2 = 2G[c^3/2GH]/c^2 = c/H
Rs = R
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