“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[steve_bank]

g

You are not paying attention all tat has been said.

Theories get accepted based on observation and ex[ferment.

It never really ends. There is always the possibility of something new, but it has to be tested.

There were known anomalies observed in the solar system with Newtonian gravity, resolved by relativity.

There were known anomalies in physics appalling Newtonian mechanics, resolved by quantum mechanics.

Einstein's theories of relativity are continuously tested, with the most recent, high-precision confirmations occurring in
2026 and 2024 through analysis of gravitational waves and cosmic structure. In January 2026, researchers found a third tone in a black hole's "ringdown" phase, reinforcing General Relativity. In 2024, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) validated his gravity theory across 11 billion years of cosmic history.

You refuse to acknowledge that based on tested science your ideas on sight and light are false, end of story. And if this stuff is linked to the book's great discovery, the discovery is in turn false.

To make your case you would have to have an experiment.


Your father may have had imagination, but he lacked the background in science.

In physical scene and engineering undergrad classes we learn basic lab techniques. How to set up, run, and document an experiment.

This debate is giving me a better appreciation for all the teachers I had.

 

[peacegirl]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

 

[steve_bank]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

It is not odd, it just is.

Do you make use of GPS in your car? It doesn't work unless there is containment for time dilation.

 

[peacegirl]

Pg

Pick a few major schools. Send an email to the philosophy department and say your deceased father wrote a philosophy book and you would appreciate it if someone would review it.

Maybe a PHD student. If you can afford offer a fee for a written review.

I have sent questions to schools in the past, most recently the University of Washington climate science deportment a few years ago. I posted responses on the science forum.

The forum here is informal. You have dismissed academia but they are the ones who can give you a revue,

I did try that years ago. I never could actually talk to a professor. I made a concerted effort with a blurb about the reason for my email. Some thought it was spam. I could try it again. It's a good idea. I could also try to reach philosophers interested in this topic on academia.edu. It is just very hard when so many people are competing with their own ideas for them to want to take the time to understand this book, which is a true treasure.

The way the eyes and brain work in generating sight is not a matter of what we believe. Vision is a physical process that requires a physical means and mechanisms to enable the ability to see, eyes with light sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, optic nerve to convey signals to the brain, etc.....which does not permit seeing in real time/instant vision. That is impossible. It goes against physics, space/time, relativity....moreover, it's just a bad idea.

Again, you cannot just assume that the eyes work the way you believe because of space/time and relativity, as if everything theorized is absolute fact. Further, this version of vision does not exclude the intricacies of the eye, namely, light-sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, and the optic nerve, so you can't use this to dismiss his claim out of hand.

 

[peacegirl]

Pg

As I said I think yiu have a communication problem. You don;t undershorts how you are being viewed by those you to to reach.

I don't have a communication problem. The problem is that people have no time to read. They want a quick overview, which would not do this discovery justice. We are talking about a major shift in our thinking about human nature that is going to change the landscape of our world. How can you expect me to give a soundbite of something this important? I won't do it because then people will say, "See, we knew there was nothing to this." I won't take that chance.

I am sure there are dedicated philosophy forums and some more academic then others. Requiring formality and rigor. Certainly beyond me.

No there really aren't. All these forums are similar in that they review noted authors and philosophers that they have already read and studied. Coming in cold as an unknown author gives them permission to argue and fight without ever having read the book, let alone study it in detail.

I have no idea where contemporary mainstream philosophy is at.

Then there is the bible. Buddhism, Hinduism and others.

This is a problem. Competition doesn't mean all theories are correct, and if something is correct, it fails to be noticed in the midst of so much noise.

On top of that, the book just is not very well written. As has been pointed out a lot of it is self congratulatory.

That is because you didn't know him. He was humble. He wrote that way because he knew what he had. He was not self-congratulatory or showing off. That is your perception only, and of course bilby's.

It is not a coherent philosophical work.

You could rewrite it leaving out the pseudoscience

There is no pseudoscience, Steve.

and focus on free will versus determinism and how your version of determinism could change the world.

I am trying but everyone is focused on his claim regarding the eyes. They don't like it because it would change what science has said is true.

More of a paper not a book. Something clear and digestible.

University teachers have careers to build and maintain. They are competing among peers.

I'm not rewriting anything. I'm exhausted. I've done my best. Now it's your turn to forgive him for being pretentious (which he was not), and move on by reading the first three chapters rather than squabbling on this thread that takes much more work than reading his actual words. Then, people would actually have something to sink their teeth into before jumping to very wrong conclusions.

 

[steve_bank]

You are still side stepping the issue Pg.

What is the experimental evidence for your father's claims?
Einstein are prominent, but most do not know of all the theories that have come and gone.

You can twist, turn, and wriggle like a frog held by the leg, but iou have no evidence for your cla.

A sign on someone's offce 'In god we trust, all else bring data'.

Bring data to make your case. That moves you from speculative philosophy to science.

 

[peacegirl]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

It is not odd, it just is.

Do you make use of GPS in your car? It doesn't work unless there is containment for time dilation.

No, you are assuming the mechanism that causes the need to recalculate is due to time dilation. That is a theory, not a fact. There could be other ways of explaining this need to recalculate that does not involve the dilation of time, which sounds plausible but is very questionable given new information.

 

[peacegirl]

You are still side stepping the issue Pg.

What is the experimental evidence for your father's claims?
Einstein are prominent, but most do not know of all the theories that have come and gone.

You can twist, turn, and wriggle like a frog held by the leg, but iou have no evidence for your cla.

A sign on someone's offce 'In god we trust, all else bring data'.

Bring data to make your case. That moves you from speculative philosophy to science.

Steve, I don’t have to argue with Einstein. OMG!!! I only have to show Lessans’ proof that we do not see in delayed time is correct.

 

[steve_bank]

I picked up 'the map is not the countryside' from General Sm antics.

As I see it silence is map of reality, nit reality itself. Science is descriptive of perceived reality and predicative of experiments. Unikng Newtonian mechanics we can land a probe on the Moon. Using electromagnetics theory we can watch a TV from the Moon . An d so on.

Whether our picture of reality actually refle4cts reality is not knowable. So you can make your comments about time dilation as you pleases, but the fact is it externally works.

I picked up the term experimentalist from Popper. All we really know for certain is the result of an experiment. Beyond that it becomes progressively subjective and ineterprative

So again, to put your ideas about light and bison on a science basis provide data.

You still have not explained how your efferent vision works.

At this point are you starting to see why you have been getting nowhere?

 

[steve_bank]

You are still side stepping the issue Pg.

What is the experimental evidence for your father's claims?
Einstein are prominent, but most do not know of all the theories that have come and gone.

You can twist, turn, and wriggle like a frog held by the leg, but iou have no evidence for your cla.

A sign on someone's offce 'In god we trust, all else bring data'.

Bring data to make your case. That moves you from speculative philosophy to science.

Steve, I don’t have to argue with Einstein. OMG!!! I only have to show Lessans’ proof that we do not see in delayed time is correct. That’s it!!!

Show data. Logical poofs and thought experimennts are not sufficient.

 

[peacegirl]

I think you are misinterpreting naturalism.

The better term is causality instead of determinism which has different meanings.

Not really. Only determinism or free will. Not difficult unless you make it that way by superfluous definitions that confuse.

You have to specify exactly which form of determinism you are referriing to.

Could have done otherwise or could not have. It’s that simple!

Nothing happens without a cause, but that does not mean all things are predetermined or predictable from prior events or causes.

We know this from observation and exp[prince. I could give you electrical examples but it would not mean anything to you.

W#ill all kids who grow up in the same environment turn out the sam?

Can kids in bad environments grow up to be a doctor and kids in good environment to be criminals? Yes and yes.

If the great idea is that determinism causally is going to change behavior is refuted by observation.

Not at all because determinism, the way it is accurately defined, does not cause anyone to do anything. The word cause is misleading when it comes to this debate, which is why I can tell you never understood his first premise. How in the world would you be able to follow his reasoning from that point forward?

 

[pood]

With our most powerful telescopes we can view the universe as it was some 13.6 billion yeas ago, shortly after cosmic dawn. This of course would be totally impossible if we saw in real time. This was explained to you in great detail at FF.

We are not the ones afraid of having our “applecart” upset, or our “precious world view” challenged. That would be YOU.

You cannot abide anything that would prove your author incorrect. But he is incorrect.

Um, you just described yourself, and it went right over your head. You cannot abide by anything that would prove your god (Einstein) incorrect. But he MAY be incorrect with some of his theories. His stature, though, doesn't allow anyone to question. They are looked at as fools. Who is right and who is wrong would depend on whether there is an actual conflict with some of Einstein's theories and Lessans' take on how we see, and if there is, to determine who is right by studying both, not leaving Lessans out in the cold because it conflicts with Einstein. Remember, there are no sacred cows.

This is sadly and pathetically typical of you.

Nothing went “over my head.” And Einstein is not my “god,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I have no “gods,” religious or secular. I read and study and follow the evidence where it leads. You should try it sometime, though I don’t think you have the capacity to do so. People have been schooling you for 25 years on light and sight and nothing has sunk in. You keep resetting to the same nonsense.

Einstein was also a hard determinist, and I think he was wrong. Einstein also believed that QM was actually deterministic because of hidden variables. A test first conducted after he was dead proved that he was wrong. So much for Einstein or thinking that Einstein was a “god.”

There is a direct conflict between your author’s claims and relativity. As has been explained to you countless times, relativity could not even have been formulated in a world of real-time seeing. Relativity has survived countless experimental checks for more than 100 years. GPS devices must take into account two forms of time dilation or they would not work. But they do work.

We have no “sacred cows.” You do have a sacred cow, your father, who among other nuttiness believed that people fall in love with each other’s sex organs.

 

[steve_bank]

Relativity is a better model than Newtonian gravity. Someday relativity may be replaced. It is all; subject change as better observations become available.

If you want to make headway make a sketch of the eye, nerves, and brain and light reflecting off an object. Make time zero when light leaves a source heading for the object. Then show when information reaches brain in seconds from time zero.



Then figure out how to test your idea experimentally.


This kind of analysis is in part what I did for a living, it is not an abstract debate.

If you want I will walk you through it step by step. Temporarily drop your defenses.

 

[steve_bank]

I fall in love all the time, every time I see a woman with big boobs.

 

[pood]

I fall in love all the time, every time I see a woman with big boobs.

That’s lust, not love.

 

[pood]

Pg

As I said I think yiu have a communication problem. You don;t undershorts how you are being viewed by those you to to reach.

I don't have a communication problem. The problem is that people have no time to read.

No, people here are highly educated and read BIG BOOKS. Your problem is not that we didn’t have “time to read” what you posted, but that we DID read what you posted.

And we discovered that it was wrong.

 

[pood]

Pg

Pick a few major schools. Send an email to the philosophy department and say your deceased father wrote a philosophy book and you would appreciate it if someone would review it.

Maybe a PHD student. If you can afford offer a fee for a written review.

I have sent questions to schools in the past, most recently the University of Washington climate science deportment a few years ago. I posted responses on the science forum.

The forum here is informal. You have dismissed academia but they are the ones who can give you a revue,

I did try that years ago. I never could actually talk to a professor. I made a concerted effort with a blurb about the reason for my email. Some thought it was spam. I could try it again. It's a good idea. I could also try to reach philosophers interested in this topic on academia.edu. It is just very hard when so many people are competing with their own ideas for them to want to take the time to understand this book, which is a true treasure.

The way the eyes and brain work in generating sight is not a matter of what we believe. Vision is a physical process that requires a physical means and mechanisms to enable the ability to see, eyes with light sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, optic nerve to convey signals to the brain, etc.....which does not permit seeing in real time/instant vision. That is impossible. It goes against physics, space/time, relativity....moreover, it's just a bad idea.

Again, you cannot just assume that the eyes work the way you believe because of space/time and relativity, as if everything theorized is absolute fact.

We assume nothing. Light and sight have studied down to the atomic level and are well understood. But of course you refused to read the essay the biologist The Lone Ranger wrote for you on this topic.

Further, this version of vision does not exclude the intricacies of the eye, namely, light-sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, and the optic nerve, so you can't use this to dismiss his claim out of hand.

Bullshit. The eye is an evolved sense organ. The optic nerve is purely afferent.

 

[peacegirl]

Here is Clark’s essay at naturalism.org:

Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity

Maybe someone else can read it and tell my why I should take it seriously.

IMO it runs off the rails in the fifth paragraph and never gets back on the rails. I think it’s easy to identify the error in the fifth graph.

As I have previously noted, I do take (somewhat, provisionally) seriously Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, because if the block universe model is correct, it may imply (even entail?) eternal recurrence.

You're completely out in left field. There is no block universe.

And you know this how?

The theory of relativity clearly indicates a block universe, that past present and future all exist. And the theory of relativity has passed every test for more than a hundred years.

All the theories out there can't be right.

That;s true. Real-time seeing, for example, if false, although it’s strictly is not a theory, just a daft claim by a crackpot.

You can imagine anything you want, but it doesn't make it true. The past does not exist. The future never arrives. We look back at our past, and we make plans for the future, but in actuality, the past is a bunch of stored memories, and the future is just a thought of things that could be, but it actually has no reality. We don't live in the future. We live in the here and now. But who am I to change your stupid beliefs?

Indeed, who am I to change YOUR stupid beliefs? And your beliefs in general are incredibly stupid.

I don’t have beliefs. I go where the evidence leads and provisionally accept the evidence until new evidence comes along to challenge what I accept.

Relativity theory (which would be impossible under real-time seeing, but is correct, ruling out real-time seeing) shows that an event in my present may lie in your future. An event in my present may lie in someone else’s past.

It depends what you mean. An event happening in your present may not be part of my present because the event hasn't come to my town (my future), but that does not mean I'm living in the future while you're living in the present, while someone else is living in the past. This is untenable on many levels and would make a great film, sort of like the Christmas Carol or Back to the Future, but holds no truth value in that it's physically impossible.

Hence past, present and future all exist.

Which is really not all that amazing. No one has any problem with the idea that all locations in space, no matter how far apart, exist. Now relativity extends the idea to time, that all moments in time, no matter how far apart, exist.

Sorry you can’t wrap your mind around actual reality as opposed to a crackpot’s version of it.

Space and time are not synonymous. All locations, no matter how far apart, exist. But to extend that to time, in that we can all live in different futures or pasts, has not been proven. Will the true crackpot version of reality please stand?

 

[peacegirl]

Pg

I do not care out in the world what you or anyone else believes.

Here on the forum you present a book and strongly argue you are right and we are all wrong. You claim your philosophy will end war.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong. I'm saying Lessans was right in his observations.

Christians proselytize on the forum trying to convince others they are absolutely right,and they get picked apart.

Christians proselytize by trying to get people to believe in Jesus. I am not trying to get people to believe in a guru, God, or saint, or to pray to one.

Your book and arguments get picked apart. That is what happens on the for.um.

I understand that, but how can they pick apart something that was not understood? Do you know why he claimed the eyes aren't a sense organ? What were his reasons for coming to this conclusion?

Somebody's views like block universe are irrelevant to making your case.

I started a thread on block universe on,metaphysics out of curiosity. You can have at it. Tear it apart.

You have the freedom to make a free choice to post or not.

I have a choice, yes. I can choose to tear it apart or not. But whatever I decide to do is not a free choice. Do you know why? What were his observations as to why will is not free?

S

Thread 'Block Universe'

Nov 8, 2025

Pood periodically brings it up so I looked at it.

Time is clicks on a clock. Time has no more relity than mters and kilograms.

Time is a quantifiable measurement of rate of change. Instead of time say rate of change.

The universe changes, we measure in seconds and meters.

Perception of passage of time on a clock or passage opf Moon is subjective.

The four dimensional block is just space-time, (x,y,z,t).

Observed charge is not an illusion neither is time in seconds..

Sounds like he philosophized on AE.

AI Overview
Einstein's block universe fact or fiction | Unifying Quantum...

• steve_bank
• Replies: 50
• Forum: Metaphysics

There is a lot mre dissscussion than your book. Scroll through metaphysics.

I don't have the time or inclination to scroll through other discussions, although I'm sure they are interesting. There are only 24 hours in a day.

 

[peacegirl]

It would be silly to argue that because I exist HERE, on earth, that Mars does not exist THERE, just not HERE.

Similarly, relativity, fusing space and time, shows that dinosaurs exist EARLIER than me, and future entities exist LATER than me. But we all exist on equal footing. And the problem is?

Everything. Dinosaurs do not exist on some equal footing. They existed (past tense), but they don't exist in some kind of block universe as if time works in the same way as space. There are no time coordinates that can be identified other than through one's very active imagination. Pood, your imagination has been working on overtime.