OCCAM'S RAZOR

     "Occam's Razor is best suited for sophomores to cut their own
throats while thinking in the morning." - Homer

     William of Occam was one of the greatest logicians of the Middle
Ages.

     He said:

     "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum."

     Translated this means:

     "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."

     or depending on your text book,

     "A plurality should not be asserted without necessity."

     Although it is not recorded in the history books, friar William
also said,

     "The final theory will never predict more facts than there are."

     In other words,

     "Given all the facts, the simplest theory is the correct one."

     The simplest theory is the theory that predicts all the facts
that there are and no more.

     The justification for this is easy, if a theory allows for
something to happen, given an infinite amount of time it probably will
happen.  Thus *GIVEN ALL THE FACTS ACROSS ALL SPACE AND TIME AND ALL
POSSIBLE UNIVERSES* one would not expect a theory to allow for
something that actually never ever occurred.

     But who has all the facts?

     The problem with theory balls is they can appear round and thus
complete merely because various observations have not been made.

     The PROBLEM is the theorist who rounds out the latest theory ball
gets his PhD thesis, or some prize for his work and thus has no
motivation to look further.

     What generally happens is the world suffers from complacent know
it alls, until someone accidentally discovers something that breaks
the extant theory balls in existence.

     Certainly very few are out LOOKING to break them.

     Many many more people are working on rounding out the latest
theory ball, than are trying to smash it to pieces and get on with the
next screen.

     It is much more comfortable to know that you have the grand
unified theory of everything, than to see your theory ball crushed to
pieces on the ground.

     Worse few will pay you to crush the existing theory ball, there
is much more money in being the first to perfect the existing one.

     For example the present Holy Grail of physics is to find the
Grand Unified Theory of Everything.

     Physics consists of the 4 great forces in nature.  Each force is
a 'source of cause'.

     These 4 forces are electromagnetism, gravity, the nuclear force
and the weak force.

     Physicists hope to find that each of these 4 very different
forces are in fact related to one underlying force, that they are
different manifestations of the same thing, and thus unify the field
of physics into one thing.

     Presently Quantum Mechanics explains the very small and sub
atomic.

     Weak and nuclear forces explain the atomic nucleus.

     Electromagnetism explains the intermediate scale phenomenon, of
light and radio waves.

     And special and general relativity explain the very big and very
fast.

     Electricity and Magnetism, that at first seemed to be two
different forces were unified early on when magnetism was shown to be
a by product of special relativity and moving past electric fields.
This single force is now called electromagnetism.

     Now we have Quantum Electromagnetism, which unifies the various
theories of light and radio waves with the super, sub atomic particles
of physics and the very very early moments of the big bang.

     Also in development is Quantum Gravity, which again extends
Einstein's theories of general relativity to the very small and very
early in time.

     But they still haven't a clue how to make the nuclear and weak
forces fit into this grand scheme of things.

     They hope and they pray on string theory, but it isn't a done
deal yet.

     So they have this slightly out of round theory ball that they are
desperately trying to round out.

     And once they do, there will be a Nobel Prize, and lots of
admiration and applause and this perfectly round theory ball will be
paraded up and down the halls of fame and academentia.

     But what about consciousness?

     Oh well, consciousness is just a process in the brain, we all
know that.

     No we don't.

     You see there aren't just 4 fundamental forces in nature, there
is also will and motivation, conscious agency and certainty, which at
least make for the 5th, as these things CAN'T be made from the other
4!

     Learning with Certainty across a distance is impossible.

     But by relegating consciousness to 'merely a process in the other
4' they can continue to round out there sadly lacking theory ball.

     And when they have rounded it out what will they have?

     They will have an explanation for everything in the universe
except for consciousness.

     Perfect certainty of existence, change, and agency.

     A space time machine can't do that.

     What respect can you give a science that defines you out of
existence?

     So the materialistic world will coast along for a while all smug
and warm that they now know it all, until one day someone either
accidentally or on purpose discovers that they can exteriorize from a
body and can see the physical universe from multiple viewpoints.

     How can that be explained by their round little theory ball?

     *IT CAN'T*

     That round little theory ball is a dead man walking.

     Thus the physicists that are working on the grand unified theory
of everything, who consider that everything is a function of the 4
forces of nature, are working on a theory ball that is ALREADY DEAD.

     Now maybe that's what the Nobel Prize is for, to give the dead
their due, but me thinks that Nobel would roll over in his grave if he
knew the state of soullessness of today's sciences.

     So what does one do with a perfectly round theory ball?

     Well why mess with it?  You are paid to have your certificate on
the wall that says you are the world's greatest physicist.

     This theory ball you devised explains everything you have
observed, and you have observed everything it predicts.

     In all fairness that is quite an accomplishment.

     Shouldn't we just get on with life, and go pick some flowers?

     So Goober says "but I exteriorized last night", and Prof.
Phudbrain says "That's impossible you are insane, you are a danger to
society, you need prozac!"

     Prof.  Phudbrain has lots of stock in Merck and Eli Lily.

     So that is the pattern of history, they get a complete theory
ball, and society just sits there, and sits there, and sits there,
until it breaks by hook or by crook.

     It is just so tempting to believe that there is nothing more to
know, that everything of import is known, that there are no more
mysteries of significance, so no one tries to rock the boat.

     So what is the correct thing to do?

     Take your theory ball and hit it with a sledge hammer.

     Reverse every assumption and explanation and see if you can make
a prediction that NO ONE would believe in.  Then go test it.

     For example, you have a perfectly round theory ball that says the
world is made of space and time, and consciousness is a process in the
brain.

     Thus of course consciousness can not exteriorize or exist between
bodies, let alone for trillions of universes.

     As long as consciousness is MADE of dust in the wind, then
consciousness will become dust in the wind.

     But now let's just be ridiculous for a moment, we have lots of
time on our hands, no more research to do, you know, as we already know
it all.

     Let's assume just for one ridiculous insane crazy, we ain't NEVER
going to tell ANYONE about this, moment that perhaps consciousness is
not a process in the physical universe, but that the physical universe
is a process in consciousness.

     Whoa dude, gimme that toke back for a moment will ya?

     Maybe consciousness IS that underlying thing that gave rise to
the other 4 forces of nature.  Wouldn't that be a hoot.

     You know very well that as long as Prof.  Phudbrain believes that
consciousness is made of meat, he ain't never going to find his
unification.  He's got his unification right there under his nose,
perfect certainty of *AGENCY*, the great *I AM*, and he has already
dismissed it as nothing but a process in existing physical garbage.

     But say the toke is good that night, and you start thinking about
this really politically incorrect idea that the physical universe is a
process in consciousness.

     Well then if consciousness CREATED the physical universe, then
surely it existed prior to and will exist after the physical universe
is long gone.

     That means that the conscious unit had to enter the physical
universe and the body in order to be in the state it finds itself in
now.

     All of a sudden an idea hits you like a thunderbolt out of hell,

     "THE WAY IN IS THE WAY OUT!"

     That means perhaps if you hunt around for the moment of coming
into the body as a conscious unit, you might be able to exteriorize
and get out, or at least remember coming in.

     You never thought of that before.

     That's because you never had the context in which to conceive it
before.  Your prior existing theory ball acted as a black bowling ball
inside your consciousness preventing you from thinking outside the
ball.

     Suddenly with your new theory ball, the black bowling ball forms
searing cracks of white light all over its surface and it starts to
fall apart.

     Whoa, better go out for a walk dude.  And leave the toke behind.

     Homer

     ADDENDUM

     A perfect example of this is how long people had to wait for
special relativity to come along after understanding what light was and
that it had a finite speed.

     At the time they were working with Newtonian mechanics, and
velocities added properly were not limited to c.

     So somewhere in the 1800's everyone started to feel very smug,
about knowing it all.  One idiot, er I mean scientist went so far as to
say that almost everything was known now, and pretty soon physics would
have it all wrapped up, their pretty round theory ball that is.

     At that point someone really bright could have simply said, ok what
happens if we ASSUME that the speed of light is not only finite but also
constant.

     Well that would immediately have led to the postulates of special
relativity and would have been pretty easy to test, breaking apart
EVERYTHING they knew to that time.

     But no, everyone was happy with knowing it all, why rock the boat
let along create a earthquake in knowledge.

     So the whole world had to wait until Michaelson and Morely did
their theory ball shattering experiments that indicated that there was
something very wrong with their ideas about the normalcy of the speed
of light.  It wasn't normal at all.

     THEN they spent months if not years fighting over how to explain
this.

     FINALLY Einstein comes up with the lasting interpretation called
special relativity as describe by the Minkowski space time diagram.

     Now you my claim this is unfair, no one could have possibly thought
the idea that light was weird before the experiments that showed it was,
it was just unthinkable that the world wasn't just as simply plain and
easy as it looked like.

     Besides Occam's razor said that the simplest theory was the true
one right?

     Wrong.  The true theory is the simplest one that explains ALL THE
FACTS, not all the facts that the idiots, er I mean scientists know or
have the balls to see at the time.

     Sorry to be so rough on them, between religion and science it is
sometimes hard to tell which has been the most suppressive to truth and
new discovery over the ages.

     Both religion and science march to the tune of money, glory and
greed for power and acclaim.

     So right now ahead of time we have a theory that says that
consciousness is a process in matter.

     Just to piss off teacher, why don't you go and toke up, and just
consider the idea that matter is a process in consciousness.

     If you discover immortality and it scares the hell out of you, just
continue your research until you find eternality and the warm fire of
home.

     BREAK THE THEORY BALL NOW BEFORE the evidence comes in that it is
not only incomplete but 100 percent ass backwards.

     You might then even predict that you should be able to
exteriorize and then find out how, long before anyone actually does.

     Then you can go to the NSA and show them what a REAL weapon of war
is.

     All because you weren't smug about being right when you couldn't
have been more wrong like all the other losers is academentia.

     Homer

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith     The Paths of Lovers    Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 KC2ITF        Cross            Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com    In the Line of Duty    http://www.lightlink.com

Tue Feb 27 01:34:00 EST 2007