As soon as one starts discussing wacky ideas like the possibility of "eurycosm" outside our spacetime continuum, natural question that arises is: How could these eurycosmic ideas be tested and evaluated?
I don't have an exact test designed yet, and indeed the ideas outlined here are so far a bit too slippery and vague to be rigorously tested. However, I do have a pretty clear idea what a test would look like.
Suppose we had a more precise version of the "euryphysics" sketched above. For instance, suppose we had quantitative versions of "the distribution of pattern notability tends to be more peaked than one would expect from naïve assumptions of probabilistic independence among different entities." (in Principle 18) and other similar assertions.
Then, we might be able to use these quantitative euryphysical principles to derive specific hypotheses about implications of euryphysics for observable phenomena in our spacetime continuum. For instance, we might be able to derive specific hypotheses about twin telepathy or remote viewing.
Empirical validation of such implications would provide validation of euryphysics as a physical theory vaguely analogous to, say, quantum mechanics string theory or loop quantum gravity. I.e. it would validate euryphysics as a model of a mathematical domain beyond our ordinary everyday reality, but with the property that ASSUMING the reality of this mathematical domain, makes successfully testable prediction about events in our spacetime continuum.
But what about the subjective, experiential aspect of the eurycosmos?
This may be testable via bringing in Second Person Science type ideas.
Consider an example: Suppose we figured out, using euryphysical principles combined with ordinary physics and neurophysiology, how to modify the brain of a human to enable them to more effectively "channel" individual human consciousnesses that are not associated with current physical bodies (i.e. to neuroengineer a better medium).
Then, suppose we used brain-computer interfacing to enable other people to wire their brains into the brains of this engineered uber-medium -- so they could feel what's going on in the medium's mind as the medium interacts with transcorporeal individuals.
Suppose that eurycosmic theory explained the significant aspects of the qualitative experience of the medium -- and that the observer (connected to the medium's brain) was able to directly experience that the medium's qualitative experience agreed with eurycosmic theory.
Then, we would have a combination of:
To the extent that these qualitative predictions involve experience of minds veering into and out of the spacetime continuum from the rest of the eurycosm, we would have validation of the interpretation of the eurycosm as an experiential domain exceeding the spacetime continuum.
"Second person science" plays a key role here, because it's the only way I currently see to differentiate "euryphysics as a funky physics theory" (which would still be cool if it were useful, obviously..) from "euryphysics as a new kind of 'science' incorporating empiricism and experience."
Of course, a die-hard materialist could always argue that the medium is deluded about the causes of their experience, and the observer is just sharing the medium's delusion via the techno-magic of BCI. But I don't think we need to worry much about this -- after all, nothing can ever be demonstrated truly definitively. If the experience of contacting realms beyond the spacetime continuum is equally experientially vivid as the process of kicking a rock, and this experience is associated with equational models that make accurate predictions about empirical observations correlated with aspects of the experience -- then that's really as good as it gets.
Obviously it's a long way to making a demonstration like this in practice. My point, however, is to indicate that IN PRINCIPLE there are ways to test and validate euryphysical notions.
Note that quantum mechanics was quasi-validated via various "thought-experiments" for many decades before most of the classic quantum thought-experiments were actually executed empirically.
I don't have an exact test designed yet, and indeed the ideas outlined here are so far a bit too slippery and vague to be rigorously tested. However, I do have a pretty clear idea what a test would look like.
Suppose we had a more precise version of the "euryphysics" sketched above. For instance, suppose we had quantitative versions of "the distribution of pattern notability tends to be more peaked than one would expect from naïve assumptions of probabilistic independence among different entities." (in Principle 18) and other similar assertions.
Then, we might be able to use these quantitative euryphysical principles to derive specific hypotheses about implications of euryphysics for observable phenomena in our spacetime continuum. For instance, we might be able to derive specific hypotheses about twin telepathy or remote viewing.
Empirical validation of such implications would provide validation of euryphysics as a physical theory vaguely analogous to, say, quantum mechanics string theory or loop quantum gravity. I.e. it would validate euryphysics as a model of a mathematical domain beyond our ordinary everyday reality, but with the property that ASSUMING the reality of this mathematical domain, makes successfully testable prediction about events in our spacetime continuum.
But what about the subjective, experiential aspect of the eurycosmos?
This may be testable via bringing in Second Person Science type ideas.
Consider an example: Suppose we figured out, using euryphysical principles combined with ordinary physics and neurophysiology, how to modify the brain of a human to enable them to more effectively "channel" individual human consciousnesses that are not associated with current physical bodies (i.e. to neuroengineer a better medium).
Then, suppose we used brain-computer interfacing to enable other people to wire their brains into the brains of this engineered uber-medium -- so they could feel what's going on in the medium's mind as the medium interacts with transcorporeal individuals.
Suppose that eurycosmic theory explained the significant aspects of the qualitative experience of the medium -- and that the observer (connected to the medium's brain) was able to directly experience that the medium's qualitative experience agreed with eurycosmic theory.
Then, we would have a combination of:
- Empirical predictions of observable phenomena, validated via observation
- Qualitative predictions of experiential phenomena, validated via shared experience
To the extent that these qualitative predictions involve experience of minds veering into and out of the spacetime continuum from the rest of the eurycosm, we would have validation of the interpretation of the eurycosm as an experiential domain exceeding the spacetime continuum.
"Second person science" plays a key role here, because it's the only way I currently see to differentiate "euryphysics as a funky physics theory" (which would still be cool if it were useful, obviously..) from "euryphysics as a new kind of 'science' incorporating empiricism and experience."
Of course, a die-hard materialist could always argue that the medium is deluded about the causes of their experience, and the observer is just sharing the medium's delusion via the techno-magic of BCI. But I don't think we need to worry much about this -- after all, nothing can ever be demonstrated truly definitively. If the experience of contacting realms beyond the spacetime continuum is equally experientially vivid as the process of kicking a rock, and this experience is associated with equational models that make accurate predictions about empirical observations correlated with aspects of the experience -- then that's really as good as it gets.
Obviously it's a long way to making a demonstration like this in practice. My point, however, is to indicate that IN PRINCIPLE there are ways to test and validate euryphysical notions.
Note that quantum mechanics was quasi-validated via various "thought-experiments" for many decades before most of the classic quantum thought-experiments were actually executed empirically.
I wonder if testing may be premature. The first thing would be to show that an eurycosmic approach generates new insights or provides new answers to some significant unanswered question. The new answer might be judged for its pragmatic value or for its aesthetic qualities as well as "tested" for its ability to make predictions. For example, could euryphysical analysis help us to understand the findings of precognition studies which have demonstrated some empirical validity by the usual scientific standards but are rejected because they just don't "make sense" given our standard view of the world. Can euryphysical analysis be developed as an analytical method for approaching certain kinds of problems? In the case of precognition, at least, researchers have already succeeded in making predictions with a rate of success better than random chance, although not very high. But we have no understanding of why they happen.
ReplyDeleteYes, doing tests is probably premature. However, it seemed important to me to establish that doing tests of these ideas MAY be possible in time, i.e. that it's not an intrinsically untestable collection of ideas (pure poetry / metaphysics) ... I wanted to point out that this is a train of thought ultimately aimed at coming up with something of practical concrete meaning, not just talking about some sort of "noumenal" stuff that will always utterly elude experiential or empirical detection ...
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