The Good Place

Thank you for replying. But I must admit I didn't understand much of what you wrote.

I understand that what I'm trying to communicate is not mainstream.  I would hope - although a new viewpoint - that when it clicks it will be seen as pretty simple stuff.

To put it in context - the dichotomy you referenced is materialism and immaterialism.  It would be my understanding that in Philosophy that immaterialism is synonymous with Idealism.

Definition of immaterialism. : a philosophical theory that material things have no reality except as mental perceptions.

IR (informational realism) is far from Idealism. I embrace methodological Physicalism!  If you have a broken computer and the problem is physical - then the methods of understanding the issues are closed within matter & energy science.  (like it is unplugged so no current flows)  Copper wire and electron flow are very real for me as an Informational Realist.  I give no priority to either physical or information reality, just advise not conflating the two.

However, if the problem is the computer's software - then methodological Physicalism is not useful.  The answers will come from methodological investigation of the information processing.  Two environments - two methods.  Likewise, code and real-world logical meanings are real in IR, as much as copper wire and electron activity.

Ideas have a modern cultural flavor as "airy nothing" in reality.  On the other hand, I see an evolving informational reality that explains a whole lotta of real-world activity.  This is the information age, we might as well get to the bottom of how we can think a design or plan - and then actualize the the design as an information object in the future.

so - Physicalism is only part of the story.  The counter-part to it -- is not "no physical stuff", but a universe full of probabilistic information structures that can be rediscovered in the past and be projected forward in time and change the future.  

Am I a dualist, merely replacing Idealism with IR?  No - I would be pretty confident that there are more levels to reality than just physical and informational.  But that kind of ethical metaphysics is not going to help sort the issue at hand, where the problem is neural circuits are reified by some magical property to directly interact with real-world information.

Remote viewing, gut intuition and other paranormal understandings of reality may be a natural outcome of mind detecting possible new configurations in reality.

In a poetic format  the following quote says far better.  In terms of information processing, I think that this is literally true.  Real-world probabilities are changed and a design emerges.

 A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

I understand that what I'm trying to communicate is not mainstream.  I would hope - although a new viewpoint - that when it clicks it will be seen as pretty simple stuff.

To put it in context - the dichotomy you referenced is materialism and immaterialism.  It would be my understanding that in Philosophy that immaterialism is synonymous with Idealism.

IR (informational realism) is far from Idealism. I embrace methodological Physicalism!  If you have a broken computer and the problem is physical - then the methods of understanding the issues are closed within matter & energy science.  (like it is unplugged so no current flows)  Copper wire and electron flow are very real for me as an Informational Realist.  I give no priority to either physical or information reality, just advise not conflating the two.

However, if the problem is the computer's software - then methodological Physicalism is not useful.  The answers will come from methodological investigation of the information processing.  Two environments - two methods.  Likewise, code and real-world logical meanings are real in IR, as much as copper wire and electron activity.

Ideas have a modern cultural flavor as "airy nothing" in reality.  On the other hand, I see an evolving informational reality that explains a whole lotta of real-world activity.  This is the information age, we might as well get to the bottom of how we can think a design or plan - and then actualize the the design as an information object in the future.

so - Physicalism is only part of the story.  The counter-part to it -- is not "no physical stuff", but a universe full of probabilistic information structures that can be rediscovered in the past and be projected forward in time and change the future.  

Am I a dualist, merely replacing Idealism with IR?  No - I would be pretty confident that there are more levels to reality than just physical and informational.  But that kind of ethical metaphysics is not going to help sort the issue at hand, where the problem is neural circuits are reified by some magical property to directly interact with real-world information.

Remote viewing, gut intuition and other paranormal understandings of reality may be a natural outcome of mind detecting possible new configurations in reality.

In a poetic format  the following quote says far better.  In terms of information processing, I think that this is literally true.  Real-world probabilities are changed and a design emerges.

Thanks. To ask a very basic question, do you believe that information influences the physical world in ways that aren't currently described by the laws of physics?

Or maybe - judging from Tim's comment - the assumption is that life is more meaningful if it continues after physical death?

Of course it is more meaningful. If life doesn't continue after physical death, then life is ultimately meaningless.

Michael Prescott's Blog: We have met the enemy

Michael Tymn's Blog: Suicide and the Life After Death Factor

Of course it is more meaningful. If life doesn't continue after physical death, then life is ultimately meaningless.

Michael Prescott's Blog: We have met the enemy

Michael Tymn's Blog: Suicide and the Life After Death Factor

Hmm. The Prescott link includes this:
"I'm not saying that acceptance of the futility of life is an inevitable consequence of materialistic thinking, but it does seem to be the most common consequence."

I think this is something people can have different opinions about.

Using pure logic if one life is meaningless, x lives is x times as meaningless.

For myself I'd say determinism/indeterminism would make life meaningless, though I'm not convinced either of those metaphysical positions exist though often materialists take at least the first for granted.

If you asked for me a rational answer on the question of life after death, I'd tell you I'm agnostic. If you asked for my gut feeling, that heart of belief, I'd tell you I do think we are "transphysical" and so there is an afterlife.

OTOH, as always I can't help but be drawn back to the EM Forester quote:

"Death destroys a man but the idea of it saves him."

And yet I think suicide (different from self-sacrifice) is one of the most dangerous things you can do to your Self, recalling Henry Corbin:

"...to leave this world, it does not suffice to die. One can die and remain in it forever. One must be living to leave it. Or rather, to be living is just this."

Thanks. To ask a very basic question, do you believe that information influences the physical world in ways that aren't currently described by the laws of physics?

Yes, I do.  But the laws of physics have a standard set of units of measure (SI).  These understanding these laws has lead to the discover of informational influences and new units of measure that model information.  Thermodynamics, Information theory and logic all are expressed in probability-based measures of order, organization, communication, and logical relations.  These units are different from SI units.
  
Let me say first - that I am not qualified to discuss physics or quantum physics with anything other than causal knowledge.  Physics already models the "wave collapse" where a define outcome removes prior super-positions (real-world probable vectors).  By that I mean that before the event of a single outcome -- physics teaches us there is uncertainty (a direct measure of formal information) and multiple existing real-world probabilities.  So, physics is co-opting immaterial probabilities (which not being matter/energy) and are clearly information.

I am open to correction, but how its taught to the general public, is that these vanishing super-position vectors are "kinda nearly material".  Rather than being fully real information.  Again, I am open to correction, but Everret's many-worlds idea is another more mathematical solution.  Many-worlds takes those vanishing vectors and has them interact with (or even create) unseen universes.

My model of how information and meaningful probabilities (wave functions) influence the physical is that information objects from the past are always evolving into information objects into the future.  It is to be expected that there are multiple outcomes always being sorted by manifestation of physical configurations and by mental choices of all living things.  This is just me awkwardly saying - I think that Wheeler's "It from bit" is a worthy model.

Evolving information objects precede manifested physical objects, processes and events, like a design precedes an orderly process.  Informational objects are catalysts for future physical events.  The common statement that there are "ideas whose time has come" - I take literally.  An informational object (say a vision for the look and feel of a cathedral) - can evolve until it raises the probability of a physical building to 100%.

Would that not make life more meaningful ? Doesn't mean that it's true, of course.

You're assuming life after death is some utopia. Such a notion is a matter of faith expressed by virtually every religion ever practiced but with not one crumb of evidence in support.

I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't claim to be normal.

Me, ( the guy named Marty) > https://youtu.be/p9MKDWvtk6Q

Of course it is more meaningful. If life doesn't continue after physical death, then life is ultimately meaningless.

Michael Prescott's Blog: We have met the enemy

Michael Tymn's Blog: Suicide and the Life After Death Factor

Why?