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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 24, 2018 - 10:19pm PT
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If I am open-minded about it, I can’t see why it is necessary or favorable to “find” symmetry in reality. I appreciate the elegance of it (somehow wanting closure), but I do not see the necessity of it. I’m trying to be open about it. I think I can be protestant and still be an astute participant. I guess what I’m saying is that symmetry might have a mythical component to it.
I think that we find the symmetry in nature rather than look for it. Symmetries exist whether or not you "see the necessity," or even because of a particular aesthetic you might hold.
Once found, the symmetries can be a powerful tool for predicting reality.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 24, 2018 - 10:50pm PT
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Both symmetry and symmetry are true. All the Japanese nature arts emphasize asymmetry because according to them, nature is not perfectly symmetrical. Everything from flowers in a bouquet to sets of dishes are done in uneven numbers as a result.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 24, 2018 - 10:53pm PT
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And Jim, how you make your living is a big factor in whether you have time to ponder philosophical questions or not. Mike was a professor most of his life and was paid to ponder among other things as am I. Retirement is just a continuation of that.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 24, 2018 - 10:53pm PT
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broken symmetries are also important in physics
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 25, 2018 - 01:11am PT
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Symmetry is often boring...
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Apr 25, 2018 - 04:36am PT
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Symmetry that fascinated Euclid, summed up in five figures
Some speculate that the desire to understand these figures was the root for Euclid's development of the axiomatic method.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 25, 2018 - 07:18am PT
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The torii gates of Japan are beautiful examples of a kind of symmetry. I remember reading once about a gate which intentionally included a small flaw so that higher powers in the Universe would not be offended by a human attempt to match their perfection.
https://2hpencil.com/tag/torii-gate/
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 25, 2018 - 09:25am PT
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another gate, the western entrance to Fermilab,
"Broken Symmetry"
Raymond Boyd photo
sculpture by Robert. R. Wilson
not because the universe is perfect, but because the universe is a result of imperfect symmetry.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 25, 2018 - 10:31am PT
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That sounds like an interesting idea. Could you extrapolate?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 25, 2018 - 12:50pm PT
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Arising as it does as an idea in the human mind, perfection itself is probably not perfect.
Maybe the pre, and very briefly post, Universe was symmetrical, in some regard to the 4 fundamental forces that physics recognizes, but it couldn't bear the strain of perfection, and symmetry broke.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2018 - 12:56pm PT
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If physics made any claim that couldn’t be squared with the fact that our conscious experience is brain activity, then I believe that claim would be false.
That's identity theory.
What has a stand alone existence, some essence which exists separate from everything else?
Consciousness does not exist (in my my view) separate from matter.
But some - including common sense and inferences relating to time- say matter exists separate from consciousness.
That's physicalism.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 25, 2018 - 01:51pm PT
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Consciousness is what created matter and aminates it.
Matter is the inferior energy of consciousness ......
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Apr 25, 2018 - 02:30pm PT
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not because the universe is perfect, but because the universe is a result of imperfect symmetry. Once again Ed comes up with something that resonates with me that I hadn't thought about so much. The fact that there are galaxies attests to the imperfection. Another example; imperfections in the copying process of DNA is ultimately responsible for biological evolution. Perfect fidelity would make evolution grind to a halt.
I'm seeing my flaws in a new light. It's evolution, MAN!
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 25, 2018 - 04:54pm PT
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The universe IS perfect and is run by perfect intelligence .......
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Apr 25, 2018 - 05:00pm PT
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Consciousness is what created matter and aminates it.
Matter is the inferior energy of consciousness ......
I gotta say, WB, this is as a succinct statement of your position as you could possibly make, IMO. Science would say that matter creates consciousness. That is the divide, in a nutshell.
I side with the latter position mainly because I see no evidence that consciousness existed 2 or 3 billion years ago when life consisted only of single celled organisms. Please tell us if you have any evidence to the contrary. The fact that consciousness does not appear to have existed 2 to 3 billion years ago, but now exists, suggests to me that it has been created during that period of time. This is just logic.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 25, 2018 - 05:47pm PT
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Jim, then Jan: How I make decisions are different from someone who has already gone on to where they have successful peace of mind to contemplate other versions of reality. . . . Mike was a professor most of his life and was paid to ponder among other things as am I.
Did we become so by our training, or were we led to our training from innate interests? Every time we try to establish causality, we find a conflagration of supposed influences that we cannot completely establish. Where do our avocations come from? How did we, for example, come to climbing? Where did the creative urge come from?
We seek neat and orderly explanations, but we cannot find them other than by premature closure. I think we jump at neat and tidy packages. They are easier to remember and implement than an infinite and complex list of forces and elements.
(As for aesthetics, I thought odd numbers are ALWAYS preferred.)
If symmetries are intellectually favored, then so might “balance.”
To continue with Saivism, masters and scholars refer to “Spanda”—the back-and-forth vibration of the Absolute in the universe. The notion is like breathing: the Absolute emanates down into materialities (many steps), and then materialities immanate back into the Absolute. The Absolute / universe is forever becoming into instantiations, and then devolving back into pure Awareness. Here, Saivism presents a model of balance (in-breath and then out-breadth)—but never instantiated in the same way. Instantiations by consciousness discover Itself as spirit. Being expresses Itself (emanates) in creative ways and then comes to recognize Itself as the One Self.
If you hold some regard for self-reflection, then you can probably see what’s being pointed at here. We create or are a part of creation, and then we consider the creation and ourselves. What we apparently observe is ourselves observing creation, and what we observe ultimately is the utter extent of consciousness / awareness.
Although complicated, Saivism is a neat philosophy / religious narrative / metaphysical system because it presents a sense of balance that I think even a physicist might appreciate. Things show up through evolution, and then they devolve back into potential energies. That’s the cycle. (Multiply infinitely, and allow specific instantiations and emanations to be infinitely variegated.)
My point is simply that we seem to be attracted to models of balance and symmetry because then we think we understand. We need to understand. We cannot seem to live in the midst of radical ambiguity. (Well, maybe Camus and Sartre could.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 25, 2018 - 08:58pm PT
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What we apparently observe is ourselves observing creation, and what we observe ultimately is the utter extent of consciousness / awareness.
And we hope that supper is a part of the utter extent of consciousness/awareness.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 25, 2018 - 09:54pm PT
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^^^supper and a warm bed to sleep in afterwards!
the look: "really? you're taking this for SuperTopoForum aren't you?"
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 25, 2018 - 09:55pm PT
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Could you extrapolate?
not sure what you mean here...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2018 - 09:59pm PT
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I side with the latter position mainly because I see no evidence that consciousness existed 2 or 3 billion years ago when life consisted only of single celled organisms. Please tell us if you have any evidence to the contrary.
This is the "time inference" I mentioned earlier.
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