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Andrew P. Smith, who has a background in molecular biology, neuroscience and pharmacology, is author of e-books Worlds within Worlds and the novel Noosphere II, which are both available online. He has recently self-published The Dimensions of Experience: A Natural History of Consciousness (Xlibris, 2008).

SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY ANDY SMITH

RAZING WITH REASON

More Discussion of Illuminism

Andrew P. Smith

Kindle Edition
See also: www.mathmonism.com

Several weeks ago, I posted a review of a book, The Mathematical Universe, by Mike Hockney [Getting to the Point]. Elliot Benjamin and Peter Collins have responded briefly to it, in the context of a larger discussion of Euler's equation and, in Peter's case, especially, other issues. As they are both mathematicians and I am not, I welcome their insights and don't have any particular comments on them at this time.

In addition, though, Frank Visser notified me that he had received a response to my review by Pedro deJesus.[1] Based on this response, which is unwaveringly critical of my points and unwaveringly supportive of Hockney, DeJesus appears to be a member of the Illuminati, though he did emphasize to Frank that he is not Hockney or “his partners”. DeJesus did not attempt to distill or synthesize his criticisms into a few general points, but simply replied briefly to virtually every statement made in my original review. I will respond in kind here. That is, I will list his points, one by one, with my response to each.

Before doing this, though, I want to make a few general comments about deJesus's response. First, he basically repeats what I would call the Illuminist Party Line. Though he says “this review is mine alone”, he makes exactly the same points Hockney makes, or would make as far as l can see. I see little or no evidence that he is thinking for himself. Granted, if you subscribe to a certain worldview, you are expected to present it in a way that is overall similar to that of anyone else who holds a similar worldview, but deJesus goes beyond similar, here. His view is exactly the same as Hockney's. He never disagrees with him in the slightest.

The closest he comes to disagreement is when he feels the need to provide a context for something Hockney says that seems particularly outrageous. For example, when I noted in my original article the absurdity of saying “there is no need for experiments, except as a secondary check”, deJesus says, well, Hockney was just putting sensory observations “in their place”. When I criticized Hockney for ranting against empiricism, on the one hand, yet freely making use of empirical findings to support his arguments, deJesus replies (very unconvincingly), that “using empiricism is simply a[n] easier way to explain his ideas to more people. it´s all about target audience.” I'm not sure how insulting everyone who doesn't agree with your views makes explanation easier, or what target that would appeal to, but that's another issue I'll get to in a moment.

Such thinking in lockstep appears to be a characteristic of Illuminati, that (ironic as it seems) follows from their unbridled worship of reason. Everything is certain, we know for sure, so no criticism is possible. DeJesus does not deny this, saying, “Gnostics are arrogant bastards, we know, we don´t believe.” I've seen the same sentiments repeated on their website, and as I remarked in my original review, this attitude is not much different from religious fundamentalism.

But it goes beyond holding the same view. DeJesus for the most part does not even bother to express the same view in his own words. Even individuals who agree almost completely about some worldview may describe it somewhat differently. DeJesus, for the most part as far as I can see, doesn't. This is particularly clear when I criticize Hockney for getting empirical findings wrong or for not seeing glaring errors in his arguments at certain points. DeJesus does not try to show that I'm wrong by phrasing Hockney's points in a different way, or by coming at the problem from a different angle. He just repeats what Hockney says, sort of like an animal that has a stereotyped response to some signal, and can't modify that response even when the signal is providing false information and a different response is urgently needed.

A second point, as I noted above, is that Hockney and deJesus use language that is at times insulting or at least very unflattering. People who don't see the light are described as “insane”, “lunatic”, “fools”, “deranged”, “autistic” or “dunces” (I have this vision that if the Illuminati were to take over, non-believers would be forced to march through the streets wearing pointed hats, as non-communists were during the Chinese Cultural Revolution). DeJesus seems to think this will “shock” people into seeing the light. To me, it appears to be just an indicator of their frustration that others won't accept their views. I sense a lot of anger and hostility in some of the people who write about these ideas. As I pointed out in my original article, and maintain with deJesus, these “hyperrationalists” seem to express an enormous amount of irrationality.

Finally, I want to say something about the presentation of their ideas, apart from the content. I didn't harp on this much in my original review, but I found Hockney's book somewhat unsystematic, rambling and repetitious. A highly rational person, I would have thought, would have built up his theory step by step. There are places in the book where Hockney does do this, and the presentation is quite clear, but then he will turn to some long rant against the unbelievers, before going back to the core ideas. Much of the alleged support for these ideas is likewise sprinkled throughout the book, instead of tied together into one powerful message. And because of the constant ranting, the power of the ideas, to me at least, was greatly diluted by the time I reached the end. It's like trying to read a philosophical treatise when a two year old is periodically screaming in your ear. This, to me, is not evidence of a clear thinker at work.

DeJesus, on the other hand, doesn't synthesize his criticisms at all. He simply goes through my review line by line, sniping away. I find this somewhat intellectually lazy. I appreciate that he made considerable effort, responding to almost everything I said (though he says it was quite easy: “I just need to read your quotes and automatically I know where are the flaws and what to answer without linearly thinking about it most of the time.”) But indeed it is relatively easy to say, oh, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, particularly when your arguments are basically parroting those of others. It takes a little more effort to summarize several key points or criticisms into a more general notion.

In other words, I don't think Illuminati like Hockney and DeJesus really practice what they preach. They preach rationality, but rationality to them mostly means obsessing over a few key ideas that they picked up from someone else. Rationality in practice, in my view, at least, includes (among other things) presenting arguments in a clear, systematic matter; exploring and anticipating the weaknesses of one's own view; and refraining from expressing emotions that are not designed to help win the reader over to your cause. I'd guess if the Illuminati proceeded more along these lines, they'd probably generate more interest, if not necessarily agreement, in their ideas.

Having said all that, I want to emphasize that I'm not rejecting the Illuminist view out of hand. I do think it's an interesting idea, but my criticisms of it could be summarized in two main issues. First, I think there is an enormous conceptual leap going from the fact that a certain formula equates to zero to the notion that nothingness is actually a mind in which this equation is cranking out numbers. Beyond the problem of intelligent design, it seems highly implausible to me that even if a program like this did exist, it could do so within a zero-dimensional point. I remain open to being convinced, but it will require more powerful or at least subtler arguments than those provided by Hockney or deJesus. The principle of sufficient reason, for me, is not sufficient.

The second problem is going from the zero-dimensional monad to the space-time world. There are a large set of difficulties with Hockney's view, which I discussed in my original review. Here we are not talking about someone's opinion about the plausibility of the system. There are very clear logical fallacies in the scheme. The central one, though not the only one, is that the monad is supposed to change through interaction with the space-time world, yet continues to remain capable of existing in a zero-dimensional point. Since zero-dimensionality only exists because all the numbers cancel out, I completely fail to see how the monad can be changed and remain zero-dimensional. Change is very specifically defined by Hockney as alterations in the patterns of emitted energy waves, that persist even when the monad loses touch with space-time world. It cannot have the same organization that it had originally.

Keeping this in mind, let's now proceed to deJesus' comments. In what follows, there will generally be a series of three statements.

• The first statement, in italics, is from my original review.
• The second, in bold, is deJesus' response to that statement.
• The third, in normal text, is my reply to deJesus' response.

Very infrequently, I will not respond to some statement of his, because I don't understand it, because it doesn't seem to require or imply any response, or because I believe I have adequately responded to it previously. Also, sometimes deJesus will make several points in response to one original statement of mine, and I may respond to each separately.

“And success, in the absence of truth, Hockney seems to believe is little better than no success at all”

Seems that you´re wrong, in Mike Hockney books you will see the dialectic approach being used, he affirms that scientific materialist science is a dialectical necessity but of course it will be surpassed by illuminism, since scientific materialism is irrational.

As I point out in the original review, and again later here, Hockney has a sort of love-hate relationship with science, frequently ranting against empiricism, but also freely making use of some its findings to support his arguments. For me, though, the bottom line is that calling science a joke, retarded, insane, and so on, does not sound as though he considers scientific success much better than what came before.

“The successful theories of science, after all, have provided us with all of our modern technology, including medicine, communications, transportation, and so on.”

So? Success still is not truth.

The point is that the pursuit of truth does not occur in a vacuum. It's greatly aided by a more developed society. Even if you deny all the benefits of the empirical approach, and the modern technology that facilitates it, you need to be alive and healthy to pursue the truth. And since you have conceded in your previous comment that science is in some sense a necessary step towards truth, you should be welcoming what it has accomplished.

“Hockney's alternative view, which as we shall see is based on reason and particularly mathematics, could not by itself have given us the computers and the internet that allow him to disseminate this view.”

Sorry but what is scientific materialism without math?

Sorry, but what is math without empiricism? I repeat, the modern technological world could not have been created with math alone. I never disputed, nor would any scientist, the critical importance of math. The point is simply that math alone is not sufficient. You can go on and on and on about sufficient reason, Euler's formula, and so on, but without empiricism none of that would have gotten us past the Stone Age, let alone to where we are now.

Aren´t computers using binary code? (0-1 aka math)

Aren't computers constructed from raw materials that have to be found, harvested, analyzed and tested?

What about start thinking?

What about admitting that there are different kinds of thinking, not all of which involve mathematics?

“It would not have allowed us to eradicate many diseases and to extend the average lifespan of members of our species. ”

Don´t get me wrong but isn´t chemistry possible because Pauli's exclusion principle?
Isn´t it that prevents two fermions having the same quantum numbers (they would cancel if they had)?
Isn´t quantum mechanics mathematical?
If so, that doesn´t mean that spacetime is mathematical since chemistry creates all the "matter"?

Don't get me wrong, but wasn't the exclusion principle the result of empirical breakthroughs as well as mathematics? For the rest, see the previous response.

“It would not have given us rapid access to almost any place on earth, as well as allowed us to explore outer space. ”

What is exactly physics without math?
Can you devise physics without it?
Good luck in doing it.
Seems after all Hockney math can create all you claim it don´t.
Actually Hockney math is complete, it doesn´t discriminate between any numbers, like scientific materialism do, that's why it´s irrational it´s not mathematical enough.
Actually is pretty deranged on your part in turning yourself against math (since Hockney defends ontological math).
It never failed and will never fail, bad mathematicians and scientists do.
actually i think you don´t understand rationalist meta paradigm.

Actually, I don't think you understand how empiricism and mathematics interact in modern science. Like Hockney, you call empiricism irrational, yet freely use it in support of your arguments. And back off from your wildest claims by conceding that science is a necessary step on the road to the Illuminist paradise.

“It has also delivered a fairly coherent picture of our world.”

Well that is definitely your opinion.

Shared by a very large number of people. In any case, we will see there is plenty here that is no more than your opinion.

“the different areas of science—physics, chemistry, biology, behavior—fit together to describe how primordial atoms evolved into molecules;”

Hmm coherence like having multi theories of quantum mechanics and don´t know which one is right? Well for 100 years....
Like having general and special relativity theories, one background dependent and other independent (mutually exclusive visions).
Or blocktime theory who claims that everything is already predestined (there isn´t free will), which Heisenberg uncertainty principle proves that it´s wrong and even worse blocktime theory is mutually exclusive on Darwinian evolution, since there isn´t randomness in blocktime universe. This turns Einstein VS Darwin .

The problems and controversies within physics do not prevent it from fitting together well with other areas of science. Without getting into the arguments for or against blocktime, I'll just say that predeterminism is not inconsistent with Darwinian theory. You're confusing randomness in the physical sense with randomness in the biological sense. It's quite possible for mutational events to be predetermined, and still result in effects that can be selected. When mutations are said to be random, that is not meant in the sense of being uncaused. Randomness in the biological sense simply means that the events occur independently of the selective factors in the environment. Like Hockney, your distaste for empiricism seems to lead you to misunderstand or misinterpret certain empirical findings.

“molecules evolved into cells; cells evolved into organisms; and organisms evolved behavior, including our own. ”

They explained to how lifeless mater can create life?
The famous abiogenesis aka emergentism aka magic.
Only philosophically illiterate people can swallow abiogenesis nonsense, they never heard about substance or Descartes for sure, life simply can´t come from death.

You're conflating our incomplete understanding of how life evolved—since the events were so far back in time, and there are no fossils for the forms involved—with our understanding of how life is related to inanimate matter. There is nothing magic about the latter. Long before the twentieth century, life was thought to be distinct from matter, based on qualities such as growth, reproduction and maintenance. The modern understanding of life explains precisely these same qualities in terms of molecules and their interactions. None of the old arguments for the distinctness of matter and life hold up today. And the fact that we have incomplete knowledge about the transition actually occurred does not mean that there is anything impossible or nonsensical about the process.

Actually for everything to interact it must be only one substance, well as Pythagoras said numbers (ontological math) are the arche.
This is simple, if there is a substance there isn´t sufficient reason for not having an infinity of it, if something exists then is compulsory. (This argument, infinity, kills a god of being (Yahweh), if there is one god it must exist an infinity of them, since the circumstances are the same for all of them).
Now if there is more than a substance there isn´t sufficient reason for not having an infinity of different substances who in anyway can link to each other aka complete chaos, well the universe is all about organization, mathematical ruthless precision. 2+2=4 forever.
So do you call these scientific materialist irrational and mutually exclusive theories inside their own field and outside of it mess a coherent picture? Maybe for a patient on a lunatic asylum.

Talk about opinions…You're just repeating Hockney's arguments, you aren't providing any proof for them.

“For the most part, this story hangs together remarkably well. ”

ye sure inside scientific materialist paradigm i don´t doubt, there are jobs and status at stake.

Not to mention life and death. If I get on an airplane, I want to have confidence it will fly. No amount of pure math without any empirical support will convince me of that. Nor would it convince you.

Actually "story" is the key word here, its mythos.

I'd say yours is more mythos, given how little deviation is allowed in the story.

“How does Hockney know that this Euler-based system exists? The short answer is that he believes this is the only reasonable scenario”

First truth isn´t a democracy, it´s a tyranny, so a single reasonable scenario is a must be.
Second Hockney is a Gnostic, Gnostics know don´t believe.
If you had understood that math is ontological and rationalist premises you will not be asking this, when you try deconstruct someone else ideas try at least to understand that person ideas, not project your own, it´s called a straw man and it´s a fallacy.
How Hockney knows? Simple e^{{i\pi }}+1=0 Isn´t math proof enough? Again math never failed, science and physics well....
Doesn´t the identity means the mathematical proof that something equals nothing?
Now see it as ontological.
if you don´t think that math is the arche ,you´re a Kantian and you have to explain how an unexplainable noumenal domain can have a math outlook, you have here the substance problem again, how can incompatible substances can interact, well good luck with that, math dual aspect monism solves all the problems is completely rational . All there is in the universe is energy; sin and cos waves which is math.

I'd say you and Hockney are projecting your ideas onto Euler. I discussed this in the review and will not go over it again, but just to repeat there are enormous obstacles going from a mathematical expression that equates something with nothing to concluding that nothing contains this something. You have faith that it does. I don't share that faith.

I know, I know, it isn't faith, it's sufficient reason. But to repeat, there is no proof of sufficient reason. And in the world we know, there are countless numbers of examples of contingent effects that seem to be inconsistent with it. As I pointed out in the original review, Hockney has nothing at all to say about this. Maybe it's in another book, as you imply, but given how it's critical to the entire edifice, I find it very strange to say the least that there isn't one single word about it.

How about this? 2-2 = 0. Maybe nothing contains that equation. Maybe there are an infinite number of nothings, some with the Euler equation, some 2-2, some other expressions equating to zero. Why not?

“Einstein famously objected to the notion of a universe based on a roll of the dice.”

still he was a parmenedian and a kantian, who killed reality principle with relativity theory, at least until an object enters on black hole and there it go relativity literally to the sink (singularity), now the object, objectively disappears and there is nothing a different observer can do.

I simply made the point to illustrate Leibniz's logic.

“there is no rational argument that supports the principle of sufficient reason. ”

hrrr i don´t like to repeat myself e^{{i\pi }}+1=0 , math itself is the proof of reason it never fails, 2+2 will always be 4.
if the principle of sufficient reason is false that means that universe is irrational, we as part of the universe are completly irrational, science is pointless, quit your job, there is no point in having law, there is no point in having organisation and states (heresy can´t exist organisation in irrationality), there is no point in lock people in mental asylums since we are completly irrational, we are all mad,there can´t exist any laws of math, only randomness at every instant on the universe, like let´s say particles the size of mountains apear on the universe, or particles with so much energy that would colapse in blackholes, in no time only blackholes would exist.
now you still think that universe is irrational and principle of sufficient reason is irrational?

I didn't say the principle was irrational, I said there is no proof of it. There are of course many, many examples of phenomena that appear to be irrational.

“This is basically an intuitive notion.”

Isn´t 2+2=4 an intuitive notion?

It depends on your definition of intuition, I suppose. You are trying to equate the certainty of 2 + 2 = 4 with the certainty of sufficient reason. In the first place, I don't buy that. In the second place, as I go on to discuss in the original review, we don't know that a scientific view able to be consistent with this principle is impossible. It's just your opinion that it's impossible.

Is it false?
Yes? well go again explain this if you don´t think that math is the arche, you´re a Kantian and you have to explain how an unexplainable noumenal domain can have a math outlook, you have here the substance problem again, how can incompatible substances can interact.

As I said in the original article, the fact that the scientific view is not 100% complete and coherent is not slam dunk proof that we must throw it out for the Illuminist view. I believe that the problems with Illuminism are far, far worse than those of science. Not to mention that it is, in its strictest form and by your own admission, useless. That is, without empiricism, there would be no production of what we call useful.

“certainly there is a lot of empirical evidence”

Apply this" Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false” to this, Science.
If empirical evidence failed once, well it must be a ditched hypothesis. You can start with M theory metaphysics and multiverse, after apply on science itself and ditch it as a hypothesis.

So you're saying that if any one empirically-based theory is false, the entire notion of empiricism is false? Yet as I noted before, Hockney uses empirical findings in support of his arguments.

I'll give you this much. Many scientists and philosophers believe understanding or knowing the truth is impossible. That our knowledge is at best an approximation, which is close enough to give us survival advantages. I think this is basically your view. But it doesn't follow from that that Illuminism is the truth. At best, it's a reason to search for some alternative.

“Second, as I noted in passing earlier, Leibniz himself admitted we can't always know the reason underlying some phenomenon.”

Seems that someone is making confusion between causality with reason.
Nevertheless if we don´t know the reason that doesn´t mean the reason isn´t there, actually it must be. Remember that universe is in evolution, it's a dialectical universe, rationalist content must be thought out to, and that takes time.

Thanks for agreeing with me. So there may be a reason for the total energy existing at some value, in which case the existence of this particular value can't be used as support for the Illuminist position. There may be reasons for many scientific findings which at present can't be understood. If the Rationalists take their time and think things out, they may find these reasons. And verify science, and avoid the need for Illuminism.

“For example, he assumes because no reason can currently be given for the total or net energy being at a particular non-zero value, then it must be that there is no reason.”

Go read again and go think again, doing that would be breaking the principle of sufficient reason. Another strawman.
there is a reason for 0 being the default value, for something exist forever, that something needs nothing to exist, 0 conforms with liebniz´s, simple in conception rich in phenomena which is the same thing as Occam's razor, is a parsimony law, what is material decay isn´t energy decay?
If there is decay, it must have infinite decay what is infinite decay? well 0 universe is walking to there with universal space expansion, with microwave background continuing stretching to infinity, since there is stretching there isn´t sufficient reason for not having an infinity of stretching (there isn´t any miraculous force preventing it), which will make spacetime disappear and all mass will be turned in energy outside spacetime, the place where energy sucked by black holes is going and making expand the universe.

In other words, the Rationalists are not going to take time to think things out, after all. They have made up their minds that there can be no reason for any non-zero value. They're not going to entertain the possibility that there might be a reason. Which makes me wonder how serious you are when you talk about thinking things out. It seems that you believe you have all the answers right now.

“Science has a long history of overcoming apparently conflicting or nonsensical implications of its theories”

Apparently conflicting? You´re being nice. Isn´t funny that science is using the dialectical method and still it was created by a rationalist philosopher, Heraclitus, widely used by Socrates and perfected by Hegel an absolutist idealist and bastardised by Marx and it´s dialectical materialism, which of course don´t have rational ground.

I think what you're trying to say is that the scientific method has incorporated elements from a variety of thinkers. I don't disagree. But the point, which you didn't respond to, is that history shows it's often premature to conclude that science can't solve some particular problem.

“Finally—and I think this goes to the heart of the limitations of the rationalist approach-- Hockney generally uses the principle of sufficient reason in a negative sense.”

He usually is attacking enemy positions, razing them to the ground, but he created an entire system based on sufficient reason (Euler's formula), he isn´t only a devil´s lawyer. Again another strawman, there isn´t limitations on rationalist approach, only your limitations understanding Mike Hockney.

You need to read what I said again. Negative and positive in this sense have nothing to do with whether you agree or disagree with someone else's position.

“Thus not only must the net energy of the universe be zero because there is no reason for a non-zero value, but there must be an infinity of monads, because there is no reason why there should not be. ”

This is the same of what physicists say, if exists then is compulsory.
Do you accept that an infinity of 0´s can be added between 2 numbers?
Isn´t what calculus is all about?
Guess what calculus is based on Leibniz monadology.
If there is 0 the circumstances that "produced "one are the same that can "produce infinity of them. What is needed for nothing exists? Well nothing and an infinity of nothing? Well nothing.
0 and infinity are the paradoxal opposite sides of the same coin.
If you want to understand illuminism, start to read between the lines and what is implied and what those implications means on an entire system.
Pretty much you need a shitload of intuition, you don´t? We'll try to grow it up, if you can´t well too bad for you, maybe next life.

I was providing that as an example of the reasoning process at work. But again, you are making a huge leap from infinite points between two numbers to an infinite number of minds.

“One problem, as I just pointed out, is that it depends on knowing for certain there is no reason for the alternatives,”

False, I explained this before. Mike Hockney isn´t only a devil´s lawyer.

You stated it, you didn't provide any examples to back it up. And you misunderstood the sense of positive and negative.

“A skeptic can point out that no one can provide a reason, i.e., proof, of this.”

Well that skeptic will be eated alive by an illuminist.

If you call being eaten alive being drowned out by unsupported assertions.

“it's far more difficult to counter—the famously impossible “proving a negative”

Have you heard of dialectic?
The one you said before that science uses to solve its contradictions?
Better pass your eyes on Hegel.
It´s a mistake using Aristotelian logic in world of becoming, Aristotelian logic is deductive it can be used only in perfect forms aka math.
If you´re talking about via negative, well your right it´s moronic, Mike Hockney never used it.

More ranting that avoids the issue.

“Science, of course, avoids these problems precisely because it demands empirical proof, or at least evidence. ”

Empiricism and materialism are the problem not the solution, why should anyone care about evidence? what matters is truth not some ad hoc hypothesis following each other, an infinity of them can be created and none can be true and even worse, science can´t affirm which one is true, even if by accident it find it.
This is science at his best, science "logic" aka mad house logic.

I wonder if you accept the idea that while no scientific theory may be perfectly true, some theories may be much truer, closer to the truth if you will, than others.

“He can't provide some mathematical equation or series of equations that proves—in a way that the principle of sufficient reason can't”

Pass your eyes in god equation; actually pass your eyes in the entire god series.

You don't get it. Euler's equation is not enough. You need the principle of sufficient reason, which can't be proved.

“so Hockney presumes mathematical monads that can't be confirmed by a rigorous mathematical proof.”

What? Don´t you understand that monad is number 0, what more rigor do you want? if 0 doesn´t exist none of the other numbers exist (they come from it) .well of course to Catholics 2 aka scientific establishment 0, infinity, positive and negative imaginary numbers and negative numbers don´t exist or are barely tolerated, when there is a division by 0 on singularities physicist run in terror and claim that science laws break lol. Only their faith breaks.
But just in case, here is the 0 "working": Euler's formula is the principle of sufficient reason.

None of this refutes my statement.

“I have just pointed out that he can't provide a strictly mathematical proof for the existence of monads. ”

0 - it´s proved.

See previous statement.

“This raises an obvious question: how reliable is such reasoning? Is it really superior to sensory observations, as Hockney claims? ”

Is that really a question?

“George Lakoff (1999), has argued that reason is embodied, meaning it's not something independent of the sensory world, but derived from it:”

Here we have mind as an epiphenomenon, why this epiphenomenon have two different epiphenomenon? Consciousness and unconsciousness? If two epiphenomenon exist why not an infinity of them? So we have here mind coming from matter, again emergentism aka magic, again how can 2 radically different substances can interact? Well they can´t.
How Pauli's exclusion principle know exactly where are all electrons (and all the other particles) in the universe?
Sorry but only a hell of mind thinking instantly do the job, it explains quantum non locality where a particle is instantly in million light-years away.
Lakoff if right mind isn´t independent of sensory world, because sensory world is apprehended by minds and only minds can apprehend minds, that means that all is mind, welcome to panpsychism, there is subjective minds (ours, the monad outside spacetime, extentionless mind) and objective minds ( alienated mind created by all the monads, spacetime).
Subjective minds are in pure frequency domain, objective mind in spacetime domain, you know like a tv, our minds are the frequency the tv and image is "matter" spacetime.
Information works in feedback loop, between mind and "matter", or if you prefer between Fourier and inverse Fourier transforms.

Is that an answer? To what question?

Lakoff's point, as related to this discussion, is that reason evolved not so that we could know the universe, but so that we could improve our advantages of survival. That being the case, how do we even know that the principle of sufficient reason is true, that it can be used to apprehend our origins?

“Reason, associated with the frontal and associative areas of the cerebral cortex, was a relatively recent evolutionary addition to a brain driven, in lower vertebrates, much more by emotion.”

Here from Hockney : The Triune Brain.

Nothing new here, and a little out of date. I did find it amusing that he says the average mental age is fourteen, and that people need to grow up. I would say that applies at least as much to Illuminists as anyone else.

“Hockney is clearly enormously passionate about his view of monads. This passion is what drives him to write books about it, and to fill those books with pleas to the reader to understand what he's saying. But passion is not reason, it's emotion.”

another strawman ,for some reason you think Hockney is passionate about something, he can be a guy who just do the books and get paid, no strings attached, you must be on his head to know if he´s passionate or not or doing some brain scans, you don´t have that info.
But lets analyze this.
As you shown before all humans have limbic system, so from this beginning Hockney is human and limbic system is connected with emotions, Hockney is passionate; passion is not reason so Hockney is irrational.
lol you should have continued with the reasoning, we are all humans so we are all irrationals not only Hockney.
Now just add that Hockney have a reptilian brain, this means that hockney, feeds, fuck, fight or flight and it´s obsessive compulsive. we all are human we are like mike.
Mike have a cortex so Mike is rational, Mike is a human, we are humans so we have a cortex we all are rational.
This was a cheap attack, we are rationalists so if you´re going to attack be sure you´re a match.

This is interesting. I use reason to deduce Hockney's emotions, and you criticize me and suggest I need to use a brain scan, an empirical approach.

Why do I think he is passionate and irrational? From the language he uses, and the way he repeats it. A purely rational being (or a computer programmed to present these ideas) would not use this language, because it doesn't accomplish anything except to make the user feel good about himself and his ideas. Now Hockney could intentionally be using such language to give people a false impression of himself, but if he could do that, I guess sufficient reason would say everyone would do that. Thus we must conclude everyone is deceiving everyone else, and as a Rationalist would say, the whole world is irrational, might as well give up.

I'm probably more passionate in many ways than Hockney is, but I would bet most readers will not see in my writings as much passion as they see in Hockney's. Why not? Because despite all his claims about being hyperrational, he really isn't that rational. He's fixated on a set of ideas that he believes are the answer to existence, but beyond that his writing does not express a great deal of rationality. It's rambling and unsystematic, repetitious, jumps around a great deal, and is full of insults—e.g., calling someone a fool or a lunatic, retarded or insane, instead of just saying they are wrong or mistaken. If you're trying to persuade people to your views, it's not a good idea to treat them so patronizingly.

“So reason, like sensory observations, is based in the brain, and potentially fallible. ”

Reason is in the brain, sensory observations are in the brains so if last fails automatically by magic the first will fail to.
Bad logic again associating something to another doesn´t takes one thing identity.

Actually, if you understand Lakoff, it's quite logical.

“But Hockney nevertheless regards it as something we can potentially achieve a universal consensus about”

Reason is somewhat fallible because the nature of words, same words means many things in different contexts, but indeed we can have a consensus if the intervenient are rational enough.
Math well is always right, it´s ruthless like a guillotine.

Yes, reason is reached through a consensus. My point exactly.

“Hockney wants to show that empirical observation is fallible, but to do it, he has to use…another empirical observation.”

He used and empirical observation nevertheless it´s true, he used reason to put the system against the system, he proved wrong the system in its own terms.

Come on, he used empiricism with reason, it's exactly what science does.

“We can do this because this approach is not based on the evidence of one individual, which may be fallible, but on the evidence of many individuals.”

so one individual may be fallible, many individuals are, well individuals, this means that all the individuals in themselves are fallible ,but by magic when they gather themselves they become infallible lol , so an infinity of negative results now create positive results? ahahahahah Infinity of wrong people together aren´t right.
if one of those people is right all the rest continue wrong, unless the others because they are more are somewhat right(don´t), what you described is nothing more than herd thinking, who needs others to reassure in some way that they are right, usually is the Alfa male giving the tone, no matter how wrong it is.

You just said above that we could have a consensus with reason. When the evidence from many individuals is used, many of the factors that result in individual fallibility are exposed, and can be removed. I think you might have a point that this system does not result in absolute or perfect truth. I believe it does result in a closer approximation to the truth.

“It's through this corrective factor that we can not only meaningfully describe the sky as blue, but explain why it may not appear that way to some people. ”

Explain that to a bat or a worm, if they were rational, who have diferent sensorial aparatus, and they will call you crazy spouting nonsense. Animals have different sensorial aparatus, what is the sufficient reason for one sensorial apparatus being more truth than another? Well none. It´s pure subjectivity.
You did nothing more than an anthropomorphisation of "truth"(senses).
Well the math is the same everywhere in the universe.

If they were rational and as conscious as we were, no doubt they could understand that we have different sensory experiences. Just because they can't experience what we experience doesn't mean they couldn't have some understanding of the differences. A bat could certainly understand, as we do, the concept of objects moving in space, and a worm could certainly understand the sense of smell, or discrimination of chemical substances. More important, though, the very fact that you can point out that their experiences are different show how powerful are ability is to come to consensus even about sensory experiences. We don't assume that bats and worms experience the world as we do. We can understand that they don't. How do we know? Because sensory experience is very broad, and we realize it may encompass experiences that we don't have.

“We don't accept the “reasonable” or “logical” conclusions of one person. ”

Well if that person is logical and is that´s your problem, truth isn´t a democracy.
For example a creator god will be logic impossibility forever, no matter the quantity of people who believe in it, again truth is not success nor herd thinking.

You regard logical as either-or. People are logical to degrees. So it's quite possible for a logical person to be mistaken. It happens in philosophy all the time.

“Just as there are people who can't see the color blue, there are also people who can't reason logically.”

i think i might agree with you, but there are those who reason near perfection, look at Leibniz.

But once you concede such individuals are only “near” perfection, you are describing the process of reasoning much as the process of sensing. As something that is never perfect, but can approach the truth through a consensus.

“But what he doesn't seem to grasp is that the standards that tell us this don't come primarily from one or a handful of geniuses like Leibniz. They come from a broader social process that is very much like the one used to validate sensory impressions. ”

O really we should focus on the lowest common denominator aka smashing majority of people?
Who makes humanity advance?
If it was for stupid people we still had been on caverns talking to each others. Geniuses are mankind fire carriers not the talking sheeps.
Even if every new trick will be stored outside spacetime and mankind can tune to it.
My sensory apparatus will capture info different than yours, it's subjective, it doesn´t make sense to try to equalize or normalize it, we will capture the info differently that´s it, no one can do nothing about it.

Geniuses still depend on and build on the progress of lesser lights. A Leibniz might have been born in the Stone Age, but he wouldn't have been able to achieve what the real Leibniz achieved.

“(not to mention incapable of being determined by mathematics, either)”

It´s a subjective process, but photons can´t be mathematized?
you must be kidding,"color" is light wavelength in emissions and absorptions of "matter"captured on brains.

That's not the point. The point is that validation process is not entirely mathematical.

“So I think Hockney fails to appreciate that the distinction between reason and empiricism is not clear-cut.”

Think again.

“Both are dependent on a process of achieving consensus among individuals.”

Dream on.

You admitted it above.

“Has Fermat's last theorem been proven? I think so, but I have to take the proof on trust, as I doubt I'm capable of understanding it.”

Gnostics try to know it until they know.

So you understand the proof? I very much doubt it. And I'm certain you don't understand every mathematical proof that has ever been recorded. And all the while, taking on faith things that make a life and death difference.

“Knowledge of all kinds has become so sophisticated that very few people can directly verify any new finding of any importance.”

That´s why scientific priesthood thrives, still they hide behind jargon, they have jobs to maintain, you know.
But smart people obsessed with knowledge can learn to without priesthood needing.

So you independently verified quantum mechanics all on your own?

“Certainly demonstrating that Euler's formula could actually create the world as we see it would require an exceedingly powerful and complex mathematics that very few people would be capable of understanding.”

Fourier math, gaussian/Cartesian grids, rieman sphere, understanding that math is ontological, calculus, number theory, Pythagoras theorem.

You're still missing the point. There is a huge conceptual leap from understanding certain equations to demonstrating they could be the basis of the origin of the universe.

“The bottom line here is that most of the knowledge we have about the world beyond us is social”

Get a grip over yourself. Truth have nothing to do with society is all about math.

Do you understand that your ability to communicate with other Illuminists, to learn about the theory, is a social process? That language is a social process? That dialectics is a social process? That even math is communicated through a social process? That a social process was necessary for math to advance to the point where the Euler equation could be discovered?

Why write a book trying to explain to others? If truth has nothing to do with social processes, books should be completely unnecessary. No interaction of any kind with others should be necessary. It should all come to you without any of that.

“that humans and other organisms require certain substances external to their bodies to stay alive”

Well that others "substances" are energy, sin and cos waves aka math waves.

So when you go into a grocery store, you ask for sine waves?

Whatever you want to call them, you don't dispute the truth of the need.

“that we become unconscious and dream at night; that everyone eventually dies. ”

And we become gods on our own dreams :) Unconscious is our subjective private realm, consciousness is our public monadic arena, you´re literally surrounded by other´s monads energy.

Has nothing to do with the point.

“Even these facts are not eternal. They could change some day. But so can reason. ”

Well the math laws are immutable 2+2=4 forever, all the rest is mutable we live in a becoming universe (teleological).

How do you know? Your belief in the immutability of math is associated with certain patterns of activity in your brain. How is it that results from those patterns, but not results from other patterns, are immutable? Provide me with a mathematical equation that proves that mathematical laws are immutable.

“But how about the even larger graveyard of failed philosophical theories, all based on the supposedly infallible reason?”

Dialectics, all knowledge doesn´t appear at once, most philosophers weren´t rational enough, problem is the thinker not the reason.
As you said before most people are irrational including scientists.

But applying the same reasoning that you used to reject empiricism—that at least some empirical theories are false—one would conclude that all philosophy is, too. You have arbitrarily decided that certain thinkers are right, but how do you know?

“Philosophy is actually worse than science in this regard, because while failed scientific theories are generally abandoned for good,”

How do you know if they are failed, if you don´t know what the truth is?

You mean with regard to science or philosophy? For the former, because they are inconsistent with new observations. For the latter, they may meet the same fate, or be shown to be internally inconsistent.

Why wasn´t relativity theory abandoned or the berkleyan quantum mechanics Copenhagen interpretation?
Science is all about popularity contest.
If you don´t know what the truth is just abandon all scientific hypothesis for good.
Is this hatred of philosophy that makes scientists committing childish errors again and again, they don´t know what they are doing philosophers can put them on right tracks.
empiricist and materialist science meta paradigm is nothing more than the metaphysical faith that empiricism and materialism are truth and can bring truth, well they can´t, any decent philosopher can point that to scientists right way.

Reason is a popularity contest, too. That's why Hockney is writing books trying to persuade others of the truth of his view. Why should he care in the slightest if anyone else believes him? All your talk of a dialectics is just a way of describing the social process.

“If reason is so superior to empirical observations, why is it impossible to come to a consensus on so many of its conclusions? ”

Truth is not a consensus in first place.
Well you have dumb philosophers; if you have one right and the others have ill reasoning they will say that the right one is wrong. Genius usually was and is considered mad by the dunces.
Just look at you now, attacking Hockney position when he is right.
Do you want to have a consensus with him?
Simple accept his position he´s right you´re wrong.

You have already conceded that there are indeed consensual aspects to truth.

“They uniquely explain how something can arise from nothing. Science does not accept such reasoning as a proof.”

Of course not they are mutually exclusive Meta paradigms.

“It might accept a rigorous mathematical proof, but such is clearly not possible,”

typical of irrational dunces no matter what you will prove they stay dunces at same, if scientists don´t accept mathematical proofs, be coherent and ditch math the supreme rationalist subject and stick with empiricism and materialism alone.

The mathematical proof has been accepted. It's the other proofs needed to make it meaningful that are lacking.

“in much the same way that no sensory observations can prove the metaphysical assumption that only phenomena that can be observed with the senses are real. ”

Sensory observations can´t prove itself or anything none other than that itself can´t bring truth.

“However, just because the existence of these monads can't be proven in a scientific sense doesn't mean we should ignore the possibility.”

Maybe there is hope for you, just read all the god series.

I think I've seen enough.

“Hockney likens these monads to computers, unconscious information processors.”

hockney link monads with souls not dead computers, don´t get tricked by analogies.

Don't use analogies as explanations if they aren't valid. Nothing in the book explains how a soul in that sense is different from a computer.

“Maybe this is a reflection of my impoverished intellect”

it is, reading an entire book of Hockney and don´t understand that monads are souls is a serious fault.

It might help if he had a definition of soul. Don't say monad, that is circular reasoning.

Without a non-trivial definition, calling them souls does not explain anything or help anyone understand how they do what they're supposed to do. Calling them computers does.

“but neither is it an obvious improvement over the exquisitely balanced parameters or constants that have to exist in order, according to the scientific worldview,”

the monad creates all of them, it have all the math inside itself, so it is the most complex object in the universe.

I think a lot of mathematicians would disagree with you there. Not to mention scientists and philosophers.

“But this is not something that can be said with any certainty.”

Now math doesn´t bring certainty?
The opposite is true it brings perfect certainty.

The only certainty is the equality of two things on opposite sides of an equation. Everything else is subject to empirical testing and debate.

“But this is not something that can be said with any certainty. Euler's equation, as far as we know, can only be understood or visualized by a human brain, which certainly is not eternal.”

The human brain isn´t eternal but mind is, look at first law of thermodynamics.

The first law (another product of empiricism) does not say that minds are eternal. That is just your huge conceptual leap.

“But if the monads satisfy this requirement, of existing because we, someone, can figure out a reason for their existing, doesn't this reason imply a cause?”

No just implies that reason created by monads can prove how rational they are.
Monads are 0, are a container of infinity, infinity here means thoughts, which are created by 0.

So monads not only have the Euler equation and all numbers, but also a reason? Something more than just the equation and the numbers?

“If the monads exist because they uniquely balance something to zero, isn't this a cause?”

Again is a rationalization of the uncaused cause.

What does that mean? If the reason is eternal, it must have been there all the time. How is that not a cause?

“then the monads must have come into existence through pure chance”

Not really your reason just failed you again as I showed in previous lines.

Read it again. I didn't say the monads resulted from chance. I said that was an alternative to the other possibility.

“Alternatively, we can regard reasons as just thoughts that pass through our mind, which point to but don't themselves participate in reality”

so thoughts are unreal, your senses are math information which would make it unreal to.
How can something unreal can exist?! Free floating thoughts without mind?
hrr the point of a mind isn´t thinking?
If there is free floating thoughts that wouldn´t make minds redundant?
Is the universe stupid to do something like that?
If by unreal you mean that our mental thoughts are outside spacetime and use pure time energy, well than you´re right.
What´s your definition of reality?

Again, this was an alternate scenario.

“To summarize the discussion so far, one problem with Hockney's conception of monads is that they seem too good to be true.”

What? Remember Leibniz words, simple in conception rich in phenomena.
Yes monads are too good to be true, they are perfectly rational.

They contain the most complex thing in the universe, but have to evolve over millions of years just to reach a lifeform that might be able to understand that complex thing.

“This seems like intelligent design, and Hockney freely admits that it is.”

Well what you can expect of a panpsychist universe?
Monads are minds creating information (math). minds cannot not think it´s all they do.

Most forms of panpsychism postulate very simple forms of consciousness that don't involve intelligent design. Thinking is not all minds do, in fact, the first minds that evolved didn't think at all in the sense that you are describing it.

“that is exceedingly complex and which therefore seems highly improbable.”

That´s definitely your opinion.

And you have your opinion.

“How does the program operate on all numbers at once?”

Again monads are alive they aren´t a computer programs, monads have will computers are as good as it´s programmers.
well it operates all numbers at once because it´s outside spacetime, if you look at Pauli's exclusion principle you see a mind (all monads) thinking everything in the universe at once, it must know where exactly are all particles in the universe, not only electrons.
Look at a photon on his own frame of reference, times stop for it, this means no time elapsed for information change, which is the same to say in practice infinite speed. It´s 0/ infinity paradox again.

What do you mean by alive? They grow, reproduce? Life as defined by science involves DNA-containing cells. Clearly the monads are not like that. Why not provide a definition of life?

“Finally, since the Euler equation itself is not a number, wouldn't that upset the balance?”

What?
Is the infinity of all numbers including 0, how the hell you have math without numbers?

I repeat the question.

“Hockney seems to treat the equation itself as zero or invisible, making no contribution to the overall balance other than through its processing of numbers, but what allows him to do that?”

Change angular moment et voilá.
You need to spend some time understanding how Euler's formula work.

I repeat the question. The monads contain Euler's formula and all the numbers. But the formula is not a number per se.

“Information carries knowledge or meaning, but to do this implies an observer”

well in a panpsychist universe with infinite minds that definitely is not a problem at all.

It is a problem when the observer has to be something other than what you have postulated composes these monads.

“When Hockney says that the monad contains every possible number, he is assuming that numbers have an independent existence”

no he´s not, monads create all the numbers, all other numbers are implied on 0,they are dependent on it ,they aren´t free floating identities.
every number correspond to wave number, all of them are different from each other but that doesn´t mean independent existence , by the way it´s impossible the created having characteristics outside the creator.

None of this explains how this would actually work in practice.

“The number four is embodied in material objects, which are doing the representing.”

More like of our mental construction of “material” objects isn´t it?

The point is that if these monads are minds, they must represent things.

“In the zero-dimensional monad, there is nothing, no object and no process, that can represent the different numbers.”

What?
This would mean that monads were strictly nothing, absolute nothing, we can´t have something from absolute nothing. Well monads contain infinity.
you´re right there isn´t an object obviously, but you have process mental process, our dreams are created by our minds, spacetime waves are low energy “versions” of infinite pure wave number energy mental waves, you can´t mix waves outside spacetime only inside.

I don't think you understood my point. Minds represent something, which are called objects. Not necessarily physical objects, but something which is represented. But there is no room in the monad for such objects. Therefore monads can't be minds.

“Hockney seems to think these numbers can just float around”

another strawman, no Hockney don´t think that.

Your response above indicates that you think that, and Hockney says nothing to convince me that he thinks any differently.

“and if there are only numbers, there is nothing to represent them.”

Have you heard about mind?
Numbers are mental/mathematical so only a mental mathematical mind can have it´s representations no outside weird substance can do it. All is mind so there is no problem at all mind entities represent mind. Any rational system must be monist.

Again, you're completely missing the point. How are the numbers represented?

“But even a disembodied mind must function through some kind of representation”

of course by pure frequencies outside spacetime, don´t forget that the objects you see are spacetime frequencies apprehended by outside spacetime mind the monad.

Now you're confusing representation within the monad with that in space-time. Different issues.

“So according to Hockney, the phenomenal world is an illusion.”

Not really objective world exist, it´s a Fourier transform, it's low energy mirror of frequency domain. The objective world still is mind, alienated one, Fourier math bridge the gap between Cartesian mind /matter dualism.
Illuminist position is dual aspect monism.

He says explicitly in the book that the Cartesian grid is a “mathematical illusion”. The dimensions don't really exist, since they are all contained within the zero-dimensional monad.

“How can unconscious forms of existence experience an illusion?”

Unconsciously, can't you experience your dreams while unconscious?
Isn´t most of your thinking done unconsciously?
well of course less evolved minds like rocks will experience differently ,nevertheless they will ,it´s what minds do receive analyze and create information, consciousness isn´t the sine qua non.

No, dreams are experienced consciously. If you aren't conscious to some extent, no dream. Yes, most thinking is unconscious, but we don't speak of an illusion in the absence of consciousness.

“But conscious monads, it would seem, are necessary to bring the phenomenal world into existence”

dream on, unconscious monads fallowing math laws and following the dialectics will evolve in conscious minds.

Space-time is created by the unconscious monads, and Hockney says it's an illusion. But an illusion only exists in the mind of a conscious being that can observe it, and at this point, the monads are still unconscious. It seems to me he must either postulate that the monads are initially conscious, or give space-time a reality beyond illusion.

“According to our scientific understanding of them, bosons and fermions have no mental properties;”

what we can expect from rationalists following the faith of empiricism and materialism, where mind is a weird epiphenomenon popping out of non mind aka emergentism aka magic.

Then why use them as a model for what's happening?

“certainly bosons are nothing like the monads that Hockney describes.”

right monads “create” bosons, they aren´t bosons, remember that are bosons with “mass”, monads are extentionless, light actually transports information at infinite speed between fermions, it´s linked with the monad, take a look on Euler's formula and you will understand this.

See previous comment.

“And even if he wants to use it in this way, it does not provide a reason to believe that the space-time world is any less real than the zero-dimensional world of the monad.”

Understand what Hockney say and avoid yourself creating strawmans.

Again, his words not mine. See my previous comments. Hockney says space-time is an illusion. Since it's supposed to exist only within zero-dimensional monads, I don't see how it could be anything else.

“I want to add that his scheme also does not answer the question of why the particular space-time world that we experience is created.”

You will find in other god series of books the answer to this.
antisymmetry is needed to individuate monads, it´s what the Cartesian/Gaussian grid do, to distinguish nothing from nothing give 0 a different coordinate .
If this antisymmetry (Pauli's exclusion principle) wasn´t created 0 will continued to be unindividuated 0 forever, bad infinity. imagine a mind being nothing(without turn it´s potential in something) for all eternity, it would die for boredom, the problem is that even death is impossible(first law of thermo dynamics), so what the mind must do is find the best way to pass infinity, that way is transforming maximum potential to maximum actualization, from the lowest power possible to the maximum power achievable, mind knowing itself as mind, pure consciousness, becoming god, this is achieved when a certain quantity of monads become god themselves and spreading the info on all other monads, transforming all the Cartesian grid in the god of gods as Hegel said the whole is the truth.

So now these unconscious monad minds have desires and experience boredom? Seriously? Your answer to why the phenomenal world of space-time was created is that the monads were bored? Unconscious monads were bored? And you wonder why I say that this entire aspect of the theory is nonsense?

“Why or how, then, did a world with stars and galaxies and planets, and a planet with particular life forms, come into existence?”

The why is already explained the how is needed to repeat again, Euler's formula.

No, Euler's formula does not explain how one particular world arises. Any world could have arisen, so why the particular one we see?

“For someone who strongly objects to what he considers the arbitrary or contingent nature of some of science's conclusions, because they don't conform to the principle of sufficient reason, he is remarkably silent about this.”

After you read all the god series you will be silent, no he´s not silent about this at all.
The god series is a whole isn´t just a book, again as Hegel said the truth is the whole ;-) .

Why don't you give me a quick summary? I'm quite sure you don't have one. If Hockney had any answer to this question, he surely would have said something about it in the book I read.

“This is a really strange view, bordering on the nonsensical.”

Is quantum entanglement nonsensical?
Is a photon own frame of reference nonsensical?

Is a bored unconscious monad not nonsensical?

“So consciousness is an illusion? The only thing that is real is the unconscious monad?”

consciousness is outside spacetime so it cannot ever be an illusion in the first place, consciousness is built upon unconsciousness it´s a more powerful state of mind ,it´s evolution , it´s mind gaining complexity till it achieves maximum consciousness, maximum complexity becoming god.

Like Hockney, you miss the point entirely. Consciousness only arises when the monad creates this space-time matrix which “slows down” thoughts. So you can't say consciousness is outside space-time, if by outside you mean completely independent of it; it's interacting with it. And as I pointed out earlier, Hockney explicitly says that space-time is an illusion. That is his word, not mine. An illusion can only be experienced by a conscious being. So the consciousness of space-time must be an illusion.

“Even setting these contradictions or inconsistencies aside”

no contradictions or inconsistencies, except your view of it.

I'm really having trouble believing you don't see the problems. If you don't, you aren't trying very hard.

“Evidence for this is provided not only by the reports of mystics”

you don´t need to be a mystic to be intuitive and have unconscious multi parallel information processing aka introverted intuition in Jungian terms.
Of course most autistic scientists deny this, they are usually thinking sensing types, so they don´t experience introverted intuition.

I'd say you don't understand the kind of experiences I'm talking about. You have read some stuff and are trying to describe the experiences in a way that match up with what you have read.

“While consciousness of this sort may never be purely zero-dimensional”

no? So what is it size and mass? Is it on brain? If we open a brain can we see conscious thoughts?
any more brilliant affirmation of the kind?

Perhaps it would help if I said the experience of consciousness involves dimensions. Hockney says that consciousness requires slowing down of thoughts by “filtering” through space-time. We are conscious of three dimensions of space and one of time, right? So in that sense we can say that that consciousness is four-dimensional, meaning consciousness is experienced in this manner. And in the same way, we can describe other forms of consciousness as lower dimensional, including ones that approach but are not purely zero-dimensional.

“that is, completely free of the experience of space, time and distinct objects,”

this is all experienced by the mind, time is orthogonal space of if you prefer imaginary space, which can create imaginary mass, it´s the imaginary time between distances, mind experiences time because it uses pure time waves, instead complex waves that create spacetime.
Science doesn´t have a bloody idea of what time is, that´s why science fails as hell.

It would help if you wouldn't parrot Hockney at every step, but at least tried to express his views in your own way.

“Thus Hockney's proposed explanation for how monads become conscious fails on a number of levels, in large part because it's based--not surprisingly, given his acknowledged contempt for empiricism--on a poor knowledge of relevant empirical facts.”

Read the other books and don´t spout bullshit. Empiricism can never in this life bring truth.

Translation: you have no answer to these points.

“it still would not solve the mind-body problem, as he claims.”

Fourier math.

Nope. Misses the point.

“But the mind-body problem today is understood as reconciling qualia, the raw experience of consciousness, with insentient matter.”

a problem that completely disappear in a pure mental universe, that is science problem,it´s they failed meta paradigm that create this kind of problems ,not a idealist one, don´t blame idealism for materialist empiricist errors.
if you build on fallacies don´t expect true results, but bullshit.

Again, completely misses the point. A traditional panpsychist can at least explain qualia by saying they always existed. But you can't even do that, because everything starts with unconscious monads.

“Nowhere does he explain how the slowing down of mind would result in qualia”

qualia happens outside spacetime and is experienced outside spacetime by MIND, it´s a priori information stored outside spacetime, which was created by previously living humans interacting with spacetime(they are archetypes ,most archetypes are still in construction, we are all entelechies ). Spacetime means slowed down mind, it´s a feedback loop information system, Sheldrake's morphic resonance works this way.

I already explained how this doesn't work. I'll just add that Sheldrake has no explanation for qualia, and freely admits this. If you are going to hitch your wagon to him, you're in trouble.

“and as I just pointed out, it can't”

don´t overate your mind, if I could do it hockney can, just read the entire god series and start to connect the dots.

You mean, read the series and believe unquestioningly. Don't argue with any of it.

“since qualia can be associated with much faster forms of consciousness.”

Point me in this planet the other species that are conscious.
Now point me those who are self conscious.

I didn't say self-conscious, though some other species are to some extent, we really don't know how many might be. The point is, Hockney implies that consciousness is associated with slower processing, whereas numerous examples in nature, and even in humans, show this is not necessarily the case.

Again, if you thought for yourself a little, instead of just repeating Hockney, you might not fall into the same traps that he does.

“But most philosophers and scientists at least have the perception to understand that they don't, and the humility to acknowledge this.”

Well seems that illuminism is superior to most philosophers and science.
There are only 2 kinds of beings who are humble, gods and slaves.
Actually there is no surprise at all that Gnostics are arrogant bastards, we know, we don´t believe.

You got the arrogant part right.

“But he has no way to prove this through purely mathematical reasoning;”

it´s needed that I post Euler's formula again?
You´re implying that reason can´t bring truth by itself?

I'm not implying it, I'm asserting it. Do I have to post the problems with Hockney's reasoning again?

“As I discussed earlier, a growing body of evidence supports the conclusion that reason in this sense, as much as sensory observations, is a product of the body and material brain.”

You mean scientific evidence based on a failed Meta paradigm right?
Only philosophically illiterate scientists think that reason is an epiphenomenon of dead matter. Dream on

But again, no problem quoting discoveries in physics that you think support your arguments.

“Both are products of a fallible mind.”

It´s strange as hell that a fallible mind can create the infallible subject that is math.
Something imperfect simply can´t create perfection.
The opposite is truth, it serves as a proof against the Abraham god ,if god is perfect and good ha can´t create imperfection and evil, that would make him imperfect and evil hence not god according to abrahamist theology.
So a perfect unconscious mathematical mind is making itself conscious, it is learning till it achieves maximum consciousness of it mathematical perfection.

If the mind is perfect, how did it create all the imperfection that Illuminists rail against? If it's imperfect, how did it create perfect math?

Human reason did not evolve in order to understand our origins. It evolved as a tool to help us survive. Just because our mind is constructed in such a way that we believe everything must have a sufficient reason does not mean that is necessarily the case.

“Even the notion that pure mathematics is eternal and exists apart from our sensory existence is highly debatable.”

You didn´t understood a thing, how mind is external to mind?
Mind is math.
Math isn´t external to nothing, sensorial apparatus as you said evolved to help us to survive, it´s an inverse Fourier transform, Fourier transforms are math.

I didn't say mind is external to mind. Hockney say the sensory world is an illusion, and since monads are said to interact with this world, they must be separate from it in some sense. That in itself suggests a contradiction, because if they are separate, they can't all exist within a zero-dimensional point. He further says that when people die they lose contact with this space-time, sensory world, even while the mathematical monad continues to exist. Therefore, he must believe that mathematics, which is within the monad, exists in some sense apart from the sensory world. For someone who supposedly worships reason and logic, you seem to have a lot of trouble following a logical argument based not on what l believe, but on what Hockney actually says.

“We could not have gotten anywhere in the world if the only knowledge we relied on was of this kind.”

All is math, math is rational, some humans are rational, some humans can know all.
Is there any problem with the reasoning?

You're dodging the issue.

“We have no need of experiments, except as a secondary check.”

Well he is just putting sensorial experiences on its place, after reason.
It´s the dialectical end point senses guided by reason, not science´s senses guiding “reason”.

So when he says something that even you recognize as demonstrably false, it's just putting sensation in its place? Well, maybe you shouldn't take anything I say too seriously, maybe I'm just putting reason in its place.

“All knowledge or information, including that of mathematics, presupposes an interaction of the phenomenon”

math is a purely mental phenomena, it doesn´t have a single water drop of empiricism or materialism.

Yet it somehow interacts with the phenomenal world. Again, this is what Hockney himself says.

“But how are we, mortal beings whose species has existed for only a tiny sliver of time on earth, to judge that anything is eternal?”

First we aren´t mortal, we are infinite, energy can´t be created or destroyed, you can´t destroy nothing, you can´t destroy something that doesn´t have dimensions, there isn´t atomic decay.
Can you logically explain how relatively small time passed on hearth by humans in every reincarnation, makes humans incapable of judging?
How can something “mortal” can know about the eternal?
Why human desire never stops? Why will to power never stops?

I can explain the portion of the above that makes sense, I can't explain the part about reincarnation, since that is all speculation on your part.

And yes, “we” are mortal, because everything you identify with is part of the space-time world, which Hockney says we lose contact with when we die. There might be some form of consciousness that survives death, I'm not going to state flatly that that is impossible. But that consciousness is not what you identify with. It may function as a background to your identification, a light illuminating it, so to speak. But it's not what you identify with. Your identity as Pedro deJesus existing in a particular time and place, living a certain kind of life, and so on…that is all in the space-time world, and very mortal indeed.

“Just because mathematical proofs that were developed thousands of years ago are still valid today does not establish that they are eternal”

are you serious?
That would happen only if the mathematical reasoning of mathematician is weak.
2+2=4 forever, math isn´t a bunch of ad hoc hypothesis as science, you must be insane to turn yourself against math.

You must be unimaginative not to be able to conceive of mathematics as not eternal. You seem to be closing off your mind to thinking about certain kinds of things.

“They may simply reflect something about the structure of the human brain that cognizes them”

why them math seems to work in all universe?
So mind changes so math with it, ye right ,before conscious human minds evolve how universe organized itself? Magic?
If math laws changed once there isn´t sufficient reason for not changing all the time. which means impossibility of organization and impossibility of life.
Start to think about the consequences in moving pieces of systems.

We only know that math works in the universe as we experience it.

“So one problem with idealism in general is that it presupposes an infallibility of the human mind that simply isn't supported by the evidence.”

Show me the evidence of love, show me the evidence of pain, good luck with that, show me evidence of getting bored, and show me evidence of qualia. Good luck.
As you said before and well, the basic premise of idealism is solipsism.
Well that´s the first certainty that you have, you have mind.
The problem with empiricism is that it cannot show any kind of truth.
“why does every mind experience more or less the same world?” You must be deranged if you think humans experience the universe that same as bat or a worm or a rock. This is cherry picking.
About humans experiencing more or less the same is because they have the same sensorial apparatus and of course qualia, a priori archetypes common to the species.

And you can say the same about math. In fact, many studies have shown that people have a very poor understanding of their own qualia.

“but they can agree that what they see continues to exist when they are no longer in its presence.”

Except quantum physicists.

Doesn't change the point.

“In other words, a world that supposedly requires mentation to come into existence continues to exist even when no one is thinking about or experiencing it.”

How a mental universe can stop to think about itself?
Minds cannot stop thinking it´s what they do.
You described an ontological impossibility.

We may continue to think about aspects of the world, not about any particular aspects of that world. Why do they continue to exist? And do we think about any aspect of the world when we fall into deep sleep?

“Where is the math, or even a modicum of reasoning, to provide the details of the process?”

Euler's formula, Fourier math, math laws. Pauli's exclusion principle creates chemistry, chemistry have its math, from chemistry you have “mass”.
Isn´t that difficult is it?

Missing the point.

“Dreaming represents an entirely different state of awareness, in which one mind does not interact with other minds.”

Prove this empirically or materially.
Actually there are different states of awareness on dreams, what is the sufficient reason for monads not being connected while dreaming?
How can mind be separated from mind?
When we are sleeping minds turn free floating identities separated from other minds?
If so explain why and how it happens, good luck with that.
It really seems that you don´t understand the concept of substance.

The burden of proof is one you, especially since Hockney is the one who said dreaming minds don't interact. At least not in the way that he was using the term interaction at the time.

“The difference between the dream world and the so-called waking world is not simply private vs. public.”

No? While dreaming your mind can create pretty much everything, you die, you fly, you love etc, and pretty much you are god in your dreams.
Can you do that in public arena aka waking state?
I don´t think so at least for now.

Nonsequitur. Has nothing to do with the point I made.

“but this is a faulty analogy.”

As usual only your fault understanding, your “reasoning” is based in your faith in your failed Meta paradigm well don´t expect miracles, when “knowledge” is based on fallacies.

You haven't shown why it isn't a faulty analogy.

“A collection of dreaming monads can't produce a shared world.”

How can unconscious animals, plants and rocks can produce others of their kind and even have evolution? Are they conscious? No (except a few animals).
Then what is the sufficient reason for unconscious monads can´t create and unconscious “physical” identities can?

Again, I'm just repeating what Hockney said.

“Produces by itself a world in which time and space sometimes exist, but are frequently warped.”

There is always movement through pure sin, pure cos or complex waves (spacetime) don´t understand what you mean by warped, do you mean gravity, do you mean low vibrating waves (“matter”)?!!

Warped in the sense that our ordinary sense of space and time frequently doesn't exist in dreams.

“in effect waken, so that they are in a state where they can interact with other awakened monads, and create a shared world of time and space.
What mathematical equations or transformations distinguish these two kinds of individual monads?”

It´s two kinds of process not two different kind of monads still based on previous fallacies.

Not answering the question.

“Again, we see that he does not provide a coherent explanation of just how this interaction results in a shared world”

what about looking for quantum mechanics, if all energy is spilled to create spacetime, this is the obvious place to start. It´s this really needed to be said?
Did you really thought when you wrote this review or read the book?

You continue to miss the point.

“How can monads interact with each other if they are uncaused? The word “interaction” presupposes cause and effect.”

What´s the problem if an uncaused phenomena can create? Can you explain the logic forbidding this?
You have cause and effect between monads, a person can convince another to do something, is this forbidden? No? Then is compulsory can happens an infinity of times.
You see this behavior on quantum mechanics where all the minds create causes who will have effects, all the info is “uploaded” instantly as Pauli's exclusion principle demonstrates; it knows exactly what all the particles on universe are.
Poisoning the well now?

You just conceded there is cause and effect between monads. This is inconsistent with the notion that monads are uncaused. You don't seem to understand that when a person “convinces” someone else to do something, that is a cause of what the person does.

“I think what Hockney means is that the monads cause certain events that result in the space-time world and all phenomena occurring within it, but are not themselves affected by these phenomena.”

Monads cause all events except themselves.
See monads as minds it will be easier for you to see (pure frequency domain),mind makes a choice that will affect spacetime (slowed down mind),which in turns sends information to mind, and the mind will cause new events that will have consequences in spacetime, if you know Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory ,well it´s the same mechanism, feedback loop.

You just said monads can have causative effects on other monads. Sheldrake's theory does not say that these fields are uncaused, and he is very explicit in saying that they have causative effects.

“How can one understand such filtering except as a cause of consciousness? Before the production of space-time, there was no consciousness; now there is. How is space-time not a cause of consciousness?”

Finally an enlightened thought, which was the exact reason of spacetime creation, individuation, infinite unconscious minds alienating themselves till achieving full consciousness, pretty much mind knowing itself as mind. Illuminism is mathematised Hegel, in which the Liebnizian/Cartesian/Gaussian grid of unconscious individuated monads/(o-infinity)/mind alienate (individuate) themselves to know themselves and return to themselves fully conscious. This is the big picture, isn´t hard to grasp at all.

So again you are admitting monads are subject to cause and effect.

“So when an individual monad experiences this public domain, how is that experience not caused in large part by the other monads?”

Exactly you are literally surrounded by minds, that's why is difficult to impose your will on them, they have their own thoughts, all of the monads are in a race to power, their aim is to become more powerful than the instant before. It's the nietzchean will to power, do you see the rat race occurring (selfishness), it´s a manifestation of it, but the best way to gain power (knowledge of itself) is monads cooperate (altruism), smart monads have duty to help those less powerful, since the rational aim is to make all the infinite Cartesian arena becoming god´s (amoral perfect rationality which in turn is more moral since none irrationality is committed against any of the other monads).
Spacetime is a low energy mirror “feed” by tiny quantized energy packs.

See previous comments.

“Somehow, through their interaction in this world, they become more conscious”

Go read Hegel´s master/slave dialect if you understand it you have the “somehow”.

Nope. Hegel does not address my point at all. Your problem here, I think, is you are appealing to Hegel as a description of some process, but then you ascribe to that process things that Hegel never discussed or indicated in any way that he accepted.

“and this consciousness is a permanent change, one that persists even after the monad loses touch with this world. By any other name, this is cause and effect.”

this unconscious knowledge can guide you but it´s not cause an effect ,Heisenberg uncertainty principle proves that, if you don´t know what is the next place an electron will occupy ,why should you know the future? Remember spacetime is a mental mirror.
The surrounding circumstances in life's are different, so different choices must be done, especially ones that you didn´t had to make in a previous life, not all waves (choices) are actualized.
At any instant you can think about something and chose to do it.
We have freewill, it was impossible to even ask about freewill if we don´t have any.

“Guide” is another weasel word, another way of slipping cause into the discussion with admitting it.

“then they should be independent of the causal world, but their interactions with it that Hockney describes simply are not consistent with this. He seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants them to change and evolve, but to do this without responding to any causes.”

You simply didn´t understood properly.

Nope. You're very clearly continuing to miss the point.

“But why not bite the bullet, and admit that there is no free will?”

GODDEL`S IMCOMPLETNESS THEOREMS. Is needed to say something more?

Nope. Godel has nothing to do with free will. He's talking about things like self-reference and what we can know vs. what we can prove. Those issues are not relevant to free will, i.e, they don't constitute evidence for or against it.

“The concept is incoherent.”

Gödel might not agree with you, he proved mathematically self reference.
if self reference doesn´t exist, go shout to physicist and demand the end of Einstein theories since self reference of a photon doesn´t exist, this means that photons aren´t stopped in time.
Interesting that such an incoherent concept have so dire consequences to physics.
Now go call Einstein a charlatan if you´re coherent yourself.

Again, self-reference is not relevant to the question of free will. You are confusing two very different issues.

“Any intelligent person should be able to understand this,”

hrrrr

Well, let's say any intelligent person with an open mind.

“He almost certainly understood that all of our behavior results in response to causes.”

Turning an idealist in a behavioral machine, puppet of external cause, note the “all” and “response”, obnoxious.

What you really mean is that anyone who expresses a view you don't agree with is obnoxious. Except as noted above, you have already conceded my point. You already conceded that monads do respond to causes.

“They change further over time, becoming more rational, which certainly must involve changes in the wave frequencies, yet even this does not disrupt the balance.”

Why should?

Because in particular world of space-time, certain numbers/waves are privileged over others.

“Here is the problem: for mind to change—to have conscious experiences in space-time, to think about these experiences, to have memories of them, and so on—it must undergo a change in the relative amounts of various frequencies.”

Monads aren´t in spacetime, they create it but they are outside it.
With the feedback loop between frequency domain and spacetime domain, new frequencies will be “discovered” (every frequency already exists on monads unconsciously) who will increase consciousness levels.

Outside I think is not a very helpful term. According to Hockney, space-time is contained within the monad. He does not use the term feedback loop, but I would say it's implied when he says that consciousness is “filtered” through space-time. In any case, Hockney says that this filtering changes the monads; it's the basis for his view of reincarnation. But if they change, how can the balance that is critical to maintaining zero-dimensionality be maintained?

“But this means the delicate balance is upset, and zero-dimensionality is lost.”

How exactly? I don´t see any logic on your explanation linking from one thing to another.
How balance is upset? 0 dimensionality lost? You must be kidding nothing can´t be destroyed there is nothing to destroy. You can´t destroy 0, no matter how much scientific materialists wants to get rid of singularities, the bogeyman don´t disappear. There isn´t sufficient reason that some numbers have value and others don´t. actually all numbers come from 0 and infinity.

For zero-dimensionality to be possible, according to Hockney, all of the numbers must balance exactly. This is no longer the case when certain waveforms exist rather than others. Why is space-time not zero-dimensional? Because of these particular waveforms. Where do these waveforms come from? The monads. How do the monads produce them? By emitting certain energies other than others.

Now the monads could still be zero-dimensional if they have an infinite amount of energies of every form to emit, and supposedly they do. But Hockney also says that monads are changed by space-time, such that when they die and lose contact with space-time, they are different from what they were before. This according to him is how it's possible for evolution of the mind to occur. But if the monads change with respect to the pattern of waveforms, the balance that allows zero-dimensionality is gone.

“Why? If monads collectively create space-time, why can't a monad, newly freed from a dying body, reincarnate in the form of a fully mature mind?”

Skipping phases in human growth?
Baby brain isn´t equal to an adult brain, it's a feedback loop system ,they grow with the help of each other, illuminism is all about becoming, evolution, not magic, that´s for scientific materialist establishment and all other religions (except illuminism).
A fully mature brain in a newborn body pooping itself, vision of hell.
Usually mature people are conservative with a static self.
When a human would achieve 30 years it will be on that time an old man tired of living, suicide should be a blessing.

You like Hockney are just conceding the scientific view of the world. Why is there a baby brain? Why can't the monads emit waveforms that result in an adult brain, directly? Why does there have to be a baby body? Why not an adult body? If monads have all waveforms and numbers, they should be able to create anything. Why are they constrained to produce the particular kind of developmental program we actually see?

“For that matter, why is there aging and death at all?”

For the same reason of why there is youth.
How can god be complete if he doesn´t know death or getting old?
He will be a simpleton, a moron.

You are presupposing events like getting old. You aren't explaining why they are necessary. Why can't these waveforms produce a world where we “know” what it's like to get old without actually aging physically over time? After all, everything we know is just some pattern of waves, right? Why not emit the wave pattern for this knowing without emitting the wave pattern that results in birth, maturation and aging?

“why don't these bodies and brains persist?” Entropy. Universe energy is racing from the maximum energy potential and decaying to the lowest possible state 0.
Why the hell you want the same body? How can a soul know how to be woman if it had to stick with the same man body?
Again monads wants to experience the maximum possible, this is all about evolution and completeness.
Or a species advancing to another?
A rock for a time, a rock forever.
Your question imply Aristotelian great chain of being, illuminism isn´t the holy mother catholic church.

See previous comments.

“How can an individual monad, which he claims contains an infinite amount of energy, ever run out of it?”

It doesn´t, no energy is lost only transformed.

Then why does the monad die, lose contact with the space-time world? That world is created by emission of energy. If there is an infinite amount of energy, why is the monad not eternally interacting with space-time?

And don't reply, because the monad is bored, because it needs to grow, etc. I have already pointed out that none of that constitutes a reason. The monad could accomplish growth without this dying and reincarnating process.

“The answer to all these questions, of course, is that empirical science has backed Hockney into a corner.”

All those silly questions backed Hockney into a corner lol?
Actually they only showed your own lack of a decent thinking mind, understanding and faith in the metaphysical empiricist, materialist paradigm.

You have fallen into the same trap Hockney has. Hockney simply adopts the birth, maturation and death process, along with Darwinian evolution and much else, because he has to. He has no explanation as to why this particular world came into existence.

“The process has to work as I just described because the evidence of our senses reveals that we are born, mature, age and die”

by magic your senses knows the truth, ye right dream on. Why then send schizophrenic people hallucinating, seeing and hearing things that no others can see are sent to mad houses?
If senses bring truth, their senses must be right to. Medics are evil, poor guys. Not only evil but mad t, if senses bring truth and they know it, they know that schizophrenics know the truth to and are deranged to send them to “treatment”. Aren´t the medics the ones needing treatment?
Actually your answer is even an answer? It doesn´t have any explaining power it doesn´t answer the why but only your interpretation of the how. Well there are many interpretations; by definition truth must be only one.
It´s hilarious to even think that science is superior to illuminism.

Then why do you accept babies, growing old, etc? The evidence for these comes from our senses.

“it's a result of social, not individual, evolution, which means all the changes are occurring in the space-time world.”

What? If monads are outside spacetime how can only have changes occurring in spacetime?
No, all the changes aren´t occurring in spacetime, but spacetime, frequency domain feedback loop.

You keep referring to a feedback loop. You don't seem to understand that this is a causative process, and that it results in changes in the monad that are incompatible with zero-dimensionality.

“Hockney himself effectively admits this, by describing the growth of consciousness and rationality as dependent on interaction with this world.”

Hockney admits that for having growth of consciousness is needed other consciousness, Hegelian master/slave paradigm explain this in detail.
Hockney doesn´t admit that all changes are occurring in spacetime, don´t misrepresent a position to validate your own conclusion.

Hockney says all growth of consciousness results from interaction with space-time.

“What he doesn't seem to see is that one can easily and completely account for social evolution without reincarnation at all”

really?
How can then an unconscious monad with maximum potential, who “lives” only once capable of advancing all the rest to much?
Now see all the monads ,an infinity of them living once, when all of them “died” and no reincarnation is possible ,what you have is a static universe, a universe of being instead of becoming ,a universe of being is a dead universe, no motion.
Another one of your “pearls”, seems after all and again, you´re the one who doesn´t see.
Want an advice, stop doing anthropomorphisations, it will spare you some grief.
Social evolution is done by all the monads not only by humans. Reincarnation as I shown is the sine qua non of all the process. There aren´t free floating identities.

If you don't understand cultural evolution, I can only suggest you learn about it.

“But absent compelling evidence for this, which he doesn't have, Occam's razor, which he claims to have great respect for, suggests that he should drop this notion entirely.”

hrr no it doesn´t suggest, full human beings don´t pop up of thin air.
You should drop your faith instead.

But they could pop into thin air according to the view that monads create space-time by emitting certain energies. That they don't just shows, to repeat, that Hockney has to adopt most of the empirical findings of science.

“So what? What if this view were basically correct? How much difference would it make?”

Well the vision is correct.
Welcome to nihilism. What´s the difference?
You must be kidding right?
Any thinking human who knows he is becoming god doesn´t bow to anyone, if there isn´t submission there aren´t masters, now imagine a world without masters and slaves, well that makes a hell of difference. Do you think that a capitalist world will ever survive with persons who know they are becoming god?
Not a chance.
The system would become a meritocracy.
Physics would be abolished, there are math laws not physics laws.
Science Meta paradigm would change reason before experiments.
No billions spent in particle accelerators.
Science as we know it will be a subset of a whole.
Illuminism answers to all the great questions, those who science have no clue.
it will end human groundlessness, it will answers the issue of mortality, it will teach how to control insatiability, pretty much explains the human condition, if you have those questions answered, you don´t have fear of time and don´t suffer from the anxiety of getting out of time, you don´t have fear of the unknown, because that unknown that nothing is not other than the soul, a free soul who can create.
If your condition doesn´t interest you, well take nihilism to his maximum conclusion, have the most meaningful decision in your life and take it.

More ranting from a True Believer. As I said before, even if the basic scheme were true, it has very little real life consequences. All the stuff you just wrote is add-on, it doesn't necessarily follow at all from the monad theory.

“But would Illuminism fare any better?”

You´re autistic right?

Again, insults replace arguments.

“I would say—does not attempt to claim that his wave theory can explain either how or why these various objects or lifeforms arose, by challenging basic physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, Darwinism, neuroscience, and so on.”

Doesn´t answer the why? Ouch.
The how would mean to create an entire science based on wave theory (since science have no idea of the meaning of quantum mechanics, 100 years right?), it will happen when the current scientific materialist Meta paradigm will be ridden of.
Ontological math challenges physics, it makes it redundant, science is nothing without math, chemistry comes from Pauli's exclusion principle, Darwinism well you have some of your own physics theories against it, like the unimportant block time theory used by Einstein. Illuminism is teleological hence Lamarckian, but accepts Darwinist natural selection of new species abilities, the best of the two worlds, illuminism is dialectic. You can see illuminism as science with the right Meta paradigm and giving ontological value to all numbers.

As I said before, Illuminism is just piggy-backing on what science has already shown, beyond the origins of the universe. If your wave theory can explain biological evolution, why don't you give me a brief example? Why doesn't Hockney even touch the question in his book? Why is there nothing about it at your website?

“He does claim that he has solved the wave-particle problem--with the unoriginal and experimentally unsubstantiated idea that particles travel in waves”

something doesn´t need to be original to be true.
Explain what is mass and what energy in Einstein theory is. hrrr quantum mechanics is the most experimentally substantiated theory of all time, they talk about wave/particle duality, ALL the time.

Do you understand quantum mechanics at all? To say that it's about wave-particle duality is entirely different from offering an explanation for this duality. As I said before, Hockney's explanation is not original, it's held by very few physicists, and has a lot of experimental evidence against it.

“as well as that he and other Illuminati are the only ones who understand the nature of time. But I don't know any scientists who would accept these claims.”

Well scientists aren´t the most rational people around are they?
If they don´t accept 0, they can deny pretty much everything.
If scientist were minimally rational they would understand if space and time are linked, the distance between the numbers of one and another must be the same starting from 0, this is achieved by orthogonality, time is orthogonal space .
Condolences to the scientists you know.

Yet you accept an enormous portion of the scientific worldview. Talk about cherry picking.

“Technology is the development of what is successful or useful, and Hockney has already yielded that domain, quite willingly, to science.”

Applying to science success doesn´t make it true.
if you want to talk about success don´t you think that a whole system like illuminism will be more successful than a system that is full of ad hoc patches who most of the times are mutually contradictory, who can´t by definition know what is the truth?
You must be kidding for sure.

Can we back to intelligent arguments instead of simply meaningless rants?

“Of course, technology is ultimately based on findings in basic research,”

instead destroying shiploads of money in basic research, it can be done in paper first, since people know what they are doing instead of crude, brute, expensive method of try and error.

Care to provide an example? I'm sure scientists would be delighted if you could save them some time and effort.

“As I pointed out before, tautology may be the most certain kind of knowledge, but by itself it's also the most useless.”

All math is tautological, so you affirm that math is useless?
you affirm that tautology brings the most certain kind of knowledge, so the most certain kind of knowledge is useless?
Go search a psychiatrist, this is off limits.
Try to do science without math. Good look with you new alchemy.
Science is the math bitch not the other way around.

By itself it's useless, yes.

“Unless you are a first grade teacher, repeating 1 + 1 = 2 does not get you dinner.”

This means that if you´re a mathematician or a theoretician, you´re useless right?
Seems that you´re more interested in your own comfort than the truth, do you call yourself a scientist?
You mirror the scientific establishment to perfection, priests wanting to maintain their status cuo and their jobs and fuck all the rest.

Mathematicians look for new tautologies, they don't repeat the old ones.

“Even far more sophisticated mathematical equations generally have no known practical value, and those that do are found to do so only through empirical breakthroughs.”

Ye the crude method who by accident founds something and after is linked to math, science at is best, seeing math as a free floating identity instead of ontological.

“Would Illuminism provide new insights into human psychology or behavior, lead to new predictions in social processes or economics? No”

you´re not exactly a visionary. Yes radically.

How? Explain.

“it does not address the central issue of qualia”

Of course it does, archetypes outside spacetime time have the previous knowledge of this. Illuminism have a priori storage of information outside spacetime, it have a collective unconscious where monads are linked (Cartesian grid),personal unconscious and conscious.
science in the other way doesn´t know where memory is, it can´t explain qualia, it believes in tabula rasa , it have almost no idea about mind and consciousness(the hard problem ;-)).

Again, you're repeating the errors of Hockney. There is nothing, repeat nothing, in Hockney's book that suggests in the slightest how qualia are to be explained. Traditional panpsychism says that consciousness is a property of all matter, but that solution isn't open to Illuminism because monads are explicitly said to begin as unconscious. That means no qualia. Where do the qualia come from? Don't say from interacting with space-time. How does that interaction produce the raw experience of qualia? Illuminism has no answer.

“Not only does it lack empirical support, but the social consequences of the process are much more easily explained in terms of the scientific worldview.”

Who cares about the failed empiricism? behaviorism of science indeed is very basic, but it explanative power is far from great, if people want to know about mind, scientific worldview is the last thing they should search, they deny freewill, mind is an epiphenomena (magic), they don´t know how consciousness appear, they can´t explain unconscious, they can´t explain qualia, they can´t explain where memory is, etc…when comes to mind science is a joke.

More ranting.

“As far as I can see, all the Illuminist theory does, at best, is graft a different beginning onto a story that is fourteen billion years old.”

it doesn´t cling to magic, the same can´t be said of science, where something appears of absolutely nothing (the impossible) and somehow organized itself , or some weird fluctuation who appear by magic, since nothing existed before the big bang.
Science says give us the first miracle and we try to figure out what happened after.
contrary to science illuminism doesn´t count a story, Gnostics know, stories is for the faithful.

Yes, science has problems explaining origins. But Illuminism opts for a version of intelligent design. To most scientists, this smacks of magic.

“This theory might be bold and elegant, aesthetically pleasing to those who grasp it, and might avoid some of the difficulties associated with the current scientific view.”

It´s the elegance of the truth, the elegance of ontological math.
Yes it avoids the “difficulties” that makes scientific view impossible, an intellectual joke.

At the expense of an enormous number of difficulties of its own.

“But as long it depends purely on reason for its validation, I don't see how it can ever be taken very seriously by the wider community.”

Well we are surrounded by irrationals, how many people in % understand science?
Doesn´t matter if morons take illuminism seriously, truth is only one, not an opinion or peer reviewed subject.
If meritocrats take a government in this world illuminism will be taken very seriously.

If llluminati take over the government, Illuminism will be taken very seriously. Yes, there's another brilliant and useless tautology.

“As I pointed out earlier, Hockney is passionate, which is to say, highly emotional”

straw man.

Very relevant. His emotional investment makes it less likely he will listen to arguments against his view.

“in my view, is for him to overcome his distaste for empiricism and focus his intellect on devising ways of empirically testing it, even if this can only be done indirectly, on its implications.”

Waste of time. That would be decreasing of level.

Again, ignoring all the empirical evidence he uses to support his view.

“Empirical support for it would help validate not just the concept of monads, but indeed, the rational approach used to formulate them.”

hrrr how can you empirically validate mind? Do you see it? Where it is? Where is love or hate? You can´t see them so according to empiricism they can´t exist.
By definition you can´t subject rational unobservables to empiricism. You already have holograms; you already have televisions using Fourier transforms. The problem itself is science Meta paradigm, science don´t need to be that way, it can evolve.

Yet earlier you suggested brain scans as a way of confirming the existence of emotions. And when I suggested using reason to identify emotions, you objected.

“Beyond that, what I think Hockney and other Illuminati simply don't get is that science has solved most of the important pieces of the puzzle already”

dream on. Science doesn´t even know what time is or give ontological value at math, by definition it can´t know what is true, but only endless experiments proving confidence.
do you have the cynicism of saying that science as solved most important pieces of puzzle, science by definition can´t solve nothing ,it´s a via negativa it´s impossible to know the truth.

More ranting. As I pointed out earlier, Hockney freely accepts gigantic pieces of the puzzle.

“the parts that actually matter in our everyday lives.”

Well the parts that really matter is know the meaning of life, not some expensive trinkets that make your life easier. You just objectified yourself, well at least it´s the first coherent position you take.

I'm sure if you have a serious illness, your knowing that you have existence all figured out will be of great comfort to you. You won't need any modern medicine to prolong your life, even though doing so would let your reborn monad start a little further towards perfection.

“This method does not by any means dismiss mathematics and reason;”

reason and math are the archetypal rationalist Meta paradigm.
Senses the empiricist one, what the hell have you being talking about then, that math and reason must complain with empiricism or are invalid or not accept by science.
Decide yourself you are holding contradictory positions.
Illuminism, just use empiricism as confirmation, but if it doesn´t complain with math and reason it must be abandoned, math first next all the rest.

Have no idea what you're saying here.

“Nor is the scientific method set in stone.”

It looks like, especially when careers, status and Money are on the table. Dialectics say that the paradigm will change, unless human race dies first, survival isnt´compulsory.

“such as the development of moral behavior”

which by definition is an impossibility with scientific meta paradigm, which denies free will, free will is the source of morality.
It´s hilarious seeing Sam Harris try to do it, that guy is dumb beyond belief, he is a joke, no wonder William Craig crushed him, it must be said that the catholic one is far more logical, still illogical but…

Not having free will is not inconsistent with morality. Just because we are creatures of cause and effect does not mean that we can't identify some forms of behavior as preferable to others. But the really big contribution of science so far has been to cast light on the evolutionary origins of morality.

“the basis of political and economic beliefs;”

economics is no science at all, when it fails to predict itself it can be posted side by side with tarot or astrology.
The radicalized scientific method it´s without doubt the best way to build the new world, but that idea didn´t came from a scientist, but a genius philosopher ,politician, among other things.

Still waiting to hear how Illuminism is going to change economics.

“There is even, contra Hockney, an entire field known as experimental mathematics, which simply recognizes the fact that even a genius like Leibniz does not come to his insights in a flash”

lol , I'm pretty sure that field mathematicians are Myers Briggs sensing thinking types, if they were introverted intuitive they simply would laugh about your quotation.
Sorry knowledge comes in a flash; you just know the answer after you go rationalize, it´s unconscious multi parallel intelligence. It´s the way all the monadic arena thinks everything at same instant.
No wonder I think you´re autist , probably you never experienced introverted intuition, personally I just need to read your quotes and automatically I know where are the flaws and what to answer without linearly thinking about it most of the time. If I can do that, I'm pretty sure that Leibniz can do it to but better.

What you are doing is simply regurgitating Hockney. I have yet to see you make a comment that suggests that you can think about these ideas on your own. Awareness of knowledge often comes in a flash, but even Leibniz would have understood the importance of incubation, known today as unconscious processing.

Yes, you respond to me automatically, because you have a series of set beliefs that are never challenged. It's very easy to respond quickly in those circumstances. Just trot out exactly what Hockney or some other Illuminist would say. People who believe in God don't have to deliberate to respond to atheists, either. What takes time and effort is putting ideas into your own words, modifying them, advancing on them, and so on.

“In particular, the term empirical is not necessarily restricted any more to observations made through the senses, but can apply to any kind of knowledge that can potentially be shared between independent observers.”

“Really and how independent observers know the results? They don´t use the senses to gather data from computers?
Another of your pearls.

By discussing their experiences. I didn't say sense information is not used, I said the knowledge pursued is not necessarily limited to that.

“Even Hockney, as I have discussed earlier, makes use of empirical findings in his theory.”

if it was purely mathematical, his audience would shrink much more, the books aims to turn atheists, agnostics, rationalists, skeptics and cynics in illuminists.
Using empiricism is simply a easier way to explain his ideas to more people. it´s all about target audience.

Bullshit. If he were targeting anyone, he would dispense with the insults. He appeals to empiricism because he has to.

“Hockney regards Leibniz, Pythagoras and some other philosophers of the past as the greatest minds in history, surpassing any modern or more recent scientists and philosophers. But they did not know things that most educated people know today, and which often have enormous implications for philosophy:”

Any day, you have in this world morons who believe in fairy tales, the others ones believe in their senses, are philosophically illiterate, don´t have a bloody idea what the arche is, well more than 2500 years ago Pythagoras already knew, the smashing majority of people today don´t.
Leibniz putted Pythagoras ideas in mathematical grounds and create a mathematical theory of everything, which will be true forever. You still have doubts?
Seems that you´re trying to commit a chronological fallacy.
Scientists' don´t have no idea what they are seeing in quantum mechanics for example or know what the truth is. If you don´t have a clear structure how can you create decent implications?

More ranting.

“that matter is composed of atoms that are identical for any particular substance;”

scientific jargon that´s it, without a pinch of truth, it´s all about math.
for example if electrons have mass how can they ocuppy the same place, just having to change the spin, by definition, you can´t put 2 material substances in exactly the same place.
Or bosons with “mass” occupying the same state, don´t you see nothing wrong with that?
Or photons without “mass” being called particles (particles have extension).

Nonsequitur. And a lot of empiricism.

“that all sensory stimuli undergo extensive processing before we become conscious of them”

most thinking is done unconsciously, Leibniz already said that.

Really? He understood that language, for example, is mostly unconscious? He understood that most of our immediate impressions of the world are created unconsciously, through memories? I must have missed his essays on this. Can you provide me with some links?

“the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature.”

I think you should read about what he thinks about causes first.

It doesn't change what he said in that quote.

“A little study of this unquestionably brilliant mind reveals, in fact, that he believed knowledge resulted, or could result, not primarily from the work of a few isolated geniuses, but from the collective efforts of large numbers of people”

every new trick that human invent goes to collective unconscious mind, humanity as whole helps to develop it, but is the few genius who create advanced knowledge who really makes advance humanity.

Some people contribute more than others, sure. But the point is that the collective contribution is enormous.

“The other strong recommendation I make to Mike Hockney is to tone down the rhetoric and cut out some of the long, repetitious rants against science and other “anti-rationalists” that I think mar the exposition.”

Mike Hockney isn´t here to please you, what you call rants aren´t rants at all. Repetitious, maybe. The point is to confront to call attention, it´s a tactic to shock people, there isn´t bad advertising only advertising.

So much for the targeting, I guess.

“No religious zealot expresses more certainty in the truth and the righteousness of his belief in God than Hockney does in his mathematical ontology--an approach, he boasts, that “can rationally rubbish all of the rival approaches.”

Well is the “madness” of certainty ;-) .
Actually he can rubbish all the rival approaches, because he is right and all the rest is wrong no matter what others whine.

I wish I could interpret that symbol that appears after “certainty”, but I guess I need a brain scan to do that. Yes, arguing is a piece of cake when one is certain that one is right.

“He even suggests that he and his fellow Illuminati constitute a “master race” (1044), the only ones who can save the rest of us clowns from our stupidity.”

Why I have feeling that you cut out “master race” out of the context, well actually only illuminism can save irrationalists from their stupidity since it´s the truth.

The context was very clear.

“Einstein's theory of relativity is “lunatic” (4378); Bertrand Russell is a “fool.””

is there something wrong with that?

It's not possible to disagree with someone without insulting them?

“Whatever the validity of its ideas, this book is also a testament to the fact that hyperrationality (his own description of his views, not mine) can become a blind, emotionally-driven obsession with reason that threatens the existence of respect, humility, compassion, and uncertainty--all essential tools, I would say, to anyone who wants to exert influence in the marketplace of ideas.”

Another strawman. To exert influence in the market place of ideas, you must be on power. Respect, compassion and subjective morality is worthless.
People understand power and that´s it. You´re naïve if you think otherwise.

I'd say you're the one who's naïve. There are a lot of people out there, certainly at this site, who are eager for new ideas, and who will be much more open to a civil discussion of them than to someone on a rant trying to gain power. (Or to put it another way, power is far subtler than you seem to realize). But your worship of what I would call crude power certainly explains a lot about you and Hockney that I didn't understand before. Though you say you're interested in truth, I'd say it is indeed much more about power.

I advise you to read all the god series, you will start to connect the dots, you may even learn how to think and become more intuitive.

I've read enough, I think. I've also read quite a bit on your website. I haven't seen anything that answers my criticisms.

Thanks for doing a review of Mike Hockney book anyway.

You mean thanks for giving you the opportunity to repeat the same arguments Hockney uses? I respect the sincerity of your beliefs, but they would be more convincing if they sounded more like a product of your own mind, and not just someone else's.

NOTES

[1] Since Pedro de Jesus' response was not written in the format of an essay, and Andy has responded here to virtually all of it, I haven't posted it as a separate essay in the Reading Room. (FV)