[John Galt]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Thanks for the effort, JG. I need to chew on the latter half your point #3.


The whole concept of knowldege itself affecting reality is trouble for me. Just seems like shifty ground. It all smacks of phlogiston and ether and other since-discarded theories that once sought to explain difficult phenomena.

If there's a particle out there somewhere, doing something, without my knowledge -- I just want to believe that its interactions are based on where it actually is, and I have a hard time understanding what little old me (and what I might be able to measure or comprehend about that particle) has to do with it.

I guess the one thing I would add to the mix in your thinking about the problem is to try and check yourself whenever you use a non-material concept. Things like "knowledge" and "predictions" are non-tangible "ideas" in English. However, if all "ideas" are really material (a necessary assumption of a wholly material world), then the distinctions drawn lose their power. Instead, think of what are traditionally thought of as intangibles as unknowable particles.

While this description above begs the question in a sense, it can help you bridge the gap to the "uncertain" way of thinking. If you come to believe that the intangible is really just unknowable, it makes viewing the world from a Heisenberg perspective a little easier.