I wondered if you might be interested in a few thoughts that it has generated for me.
I see the resort to multiple universes as a desperate effort to avoid the "hard problem of consciousness." The assumption of science today seems to be a kind of ontological naturalism, in which consciousness is seen as an epiphenomenon. The double-slit experiment was on the verge of forcing physicists to encounter consciousness, and so in order to avoid that nightmare, they were forced to postulate endless alternate worlds. The whole field of physics was threatened with the bugbear of what looked like subjectivity; otherwise I doubt that such ideas would have been so feverishly pursued. The real passion behind such theories, in my "read," is the staunch desire to keep physics and consciousness separated.
It is customary for scientists to pillory the idea that the universe was made with human beings in mind, but I believe that the evidence for that belief must be surprisingly strong if it compels scientists to postulate extraordinary explanations like these.
I think the fact that physicists dislike dealing with consciousness can be seen, moreover, by their (to me) naive view that they are on the verge of finding the answer to everything. The fact is, everything could fall into place mathematically for physicists tomorrow and the lives of the vast majority of individuals would be completely unchanged. They would not consider the physicists' "breakthrough" as a solution to anything in THEIR world, but rather as an answer whose cold numbers ignore humanity and consciousness altogether.
How do physicists get away with implying that they study "everything"? Apparently because they want to believe with Francis Crick that everything we experience and feel can be explained by reductionism, that we are nothing but tokens moved around by impersonal laws. But as Richard Evans Schultes reports, all tribal peoples have used psychoactive medicines to study THEIR world of consciousness -- and such trips reveal cross-cultural archetypes and deep if controversial insights into the nature of reality, as western society is only grudgingly beginning to acknowledge after having decimated many of these tribes and forced them to use alcohol instead. I am not suggesting that physicists should work with tribes, but it should be remembered perhaps that the reductionist dismissal of the importance of consciousness is a western "given" that might need to be re-examined in light of its philosophical links with past imperialism. The plant-based religions were not just uprooted for religious reasons, but for rational ones as well, based on western beliefs in the primacy of thought over feeling. Surely the least we can do by way of reparations is to think twice before rejecting the holistic and mindful view of tribal peoples out of hand.
Right now, instead of recognizing that consciousness matters, I see physicists promoting exorbitant theories for the express purpose (whether they're doing this consciously or not) of keeping consciousness and physics separate. For once physicists admit that consciousness may matter, they will no longer be able to say so confidently that they are on the verge of a theory of everything. For now, what they mean by that (but never say) is that they are on the verge of a theory of everything as regards objects -- and a world in which human beings are at best poor computers -- a dim view of the world, indeed, for many of us non-physicists.
The search for beauty in theory seems mixed with a penchant to ignore all data that might suggest purpose in the world. That's why we ignore data that looks to us like multiple royal flushes -- not just because it seems improbable to us but because it suggests teleology -- which today's naturalism rules "out of court."
Thanks to the Drug War, folks are forced to become amateur chemists to profit from DMT, a drug that occurs naturally in most living things. This is the same Drug War that is killing American young people wholesale by refusing to teach safe use and regulate drug supply.
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.
Had we really wanted to "help" users, we would have used the endless godsends of Mother Nature and related synthetics to provide spirit-lifting alternatives to problem use. But no one wanted to treat users as normal humans. They wanted to pathologize and moralize their use.
There are endless creative ways to ward off addiction if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.
"Abuse" is a funny term because it implies that there's a right way to use "drugs," which is something that the drug warriors deny. To the contrary, they make the anti-scientific claim that "drugs" are not good for anybody for any reason at any dose.
Until we legalize ALL psychoactive drugs, there will be no such thing as an addiction expert. In the meantime, it's insulting to be told by neuroscience that I'm an addictive type. It's pathologizing my just indignation at psychiatry's niggardly pharmacopoeia.
The scheduling system is a huge lie designed to give an aura of "science" to America's colonialist disdain for indigenous medicines, from opium, to coca, to shrooms.
The Partnership for a Death Free America is launching a campaign to celebrate the 50th year of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. We need to give credit where credit's due for the mass arrest of minorities, the inner city gun violence and the civil wars that it's generated overseas.
For those who want to understand what's going on with the drug war from a philosophical point of view, I recommend chapter six of "Eugenics and Other Evils" by GK Chesterton.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Physics has found a theory of everything: but you're not part of it, published on September 27, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
You have been reading an article entitled, Physics has found a theory of everything: but you're not part of it, published on September 27, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)