Arouet's discussion about NDE's

I am beginning to regret the can of worms I have opened. But I wanted to point out that fear goes both ways from proponents to skeptics. Some skeptics with the reductionist world view may have a fear of hell fire in the afterlife. So, they cling on the mainstream materialists’ dogma as oblivion is more comforting to them than an eternal hell. Conversely, and the point I was making, that some proponents of survival have a fear of oblivion for various reasons. My reason, as I pointed out, is that the idea of oblivion with no survival of our consciousness, renders life absolutely meaningless from my perspective. Unfortunately, we are still stuck with the subjective philosophical implications for this as there is still no absolute proof of survival IMHO. However, I am encouraged that the evidence is mounting for survival and it doesn’t seem to take as much blind faith in it as it used to be. And that being stated … it still takes faith and the sensitivity to your subjective intuition to recognize that materialism is bullshit, as I feel I had experience enough unexplained events to help foster that recognition. And that’s where I take comfort in on most days.
First time poster after lurking as a guest for some time. Morning Fog, the "sub" dialogue you started here inspired me to create an account as much of the discussion you spawned reflects my own conundrum. I am afraid I won't have much to add as I really am an amateur, but I at least wanted to chime in to say "don't regret the can of worms". I think this theme is incredibly important to many people, myself included, and the discussion has been additive for me.

For whatever its worth, I have struggled with a sort of duality on this subject from a very young age. I have always found "answers" to be very satisfying specifically in terms of "knowable" endeavors. (e.g., math, science, logic) In most aspects of my own life when faced with important choices, I look for evidence or facts. While this may come off as obvious, I have found that many people do not approach things this way. Others may rely more on feel, emotion, instinct, etc. Ironically, or perhaps not, I have found those people to often be quite comfortable with their personal worldview on the question MF raised.

However, for those "evidence/fact" based folks I believe for many, likely most of the scientific materialist sort, the dogged pursuit of evidence/facts leads rather quickly to an atheistic-oriented conclusion that there is no such thing as purpose. No grander meaning. I daresay those of this mindset find this to be practical and even satisfying. That's where the dualism comes in for me: that end conclusion is not only unsatisfying but deeply troubling for me. I've always "believed" there is more even though I don't feel as if I have a shred of evidence to support this notion.

So, I continue to seek resolution.
 
That sounds like modern science through and through!

I found this suggestive page:

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/content/quantum-mind-time-flies-backwards

However, if you go to http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/content/quantum-mind-time-flies-backwards
you find that the last link on the page - Time Flies (Backwards?) is dead, while the others are alive!

Edit: then I found this - which looks good:
http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/hameroff-2012.pdf

I have wondered if presentiment means that consciousness is spread over a small region of time. Thinking of TSQM, that could mean that we can collapse the wave function at a future time - producing a back in time influence as in TSQM. Stapp should be thinking about those possibilities.

Your comparison with Newton/Lagrange has motivated me to look again at TSQM, which I must admit, I rather gave up on, once I realised that nothing 'new' would come out of TSQM. But my brain is nearly full of stuff at 67 :)

David

David,

Yes, forgot about that paper! It was an interesting read at one time. I searched for Aharonov and found this excerpt, which refers to TSQM. More detail on what I said on why it seems like TSQM can't really explain pre-cognition, but apparently Penrose has thought of something tricky that opens up some possibilities, which they then use as a segway to talk about the brain in the following section.

Penrose (1989; 2004, cf. Bennett and Wiesner, 1992) suggested quantum entanglements are not mediated in a normal causal way, that non-local entanglement (quantum information, or “quanglement,” as Penrose terms it) should be thought of as able to propagate in either direction in time (into the past or into the future). Along similar lines, Aharonov and Vaidman (1990) also proposed that quantum state reductions send quantum information both forward and backward in what we perceive as time, “temporal non-locality.” However it is generally agreed that quantum information going backward in time cannot, by itself, communicate or signal ordinary classical information; it is “acausal.” This restriction is related to elimination of possible causal paradox (e.g., signaling backward in time to kill one’s ancestor, paradoxically preventing one’s birth). Indeed quantum information going forward in time is also considered acausal, unable to signal classical information either. In quantum cryptography and teleportation, acausal quantum information can only influence or correlate with classical information, but nonetheless greatly enhance capabilities of causal, classical processes.

Penrose suggested acausal backward time effects used in conjunction with classical channels could influence classical results in a way unattainable by classical, future-directed means alone, and that temporal non-locality and acausal backward time effects were essential features of entanglement. He suggested that in EPR (Figure 11), quantum information/quanglement from the measurement/state reduction moves backward in (what we “naively” perceive as classical) time to the unified pair, then to the complementary twin, influencing and correlating its state when measured. Can quantum backward referral happen in the brain?

As far as new things coming out of TSQM, I would also highly recommend this video, or checking out my blog post on this topic:

https://www.closertotruth.com/series/physics-free-will#video-3122

http://exploreabitmore.blogspot.com/2014/10/time-symmetric-quantum-mechanics.html

TSQM appears to connect free will to the probabilistic aspects of reality, giving both more meaning. Two of the biggest mysteries of reality, seemingly unrelated, possibly connected here. Seems like every time I mention this to folks, it always fails to impress. I don't know how this can not be a tantalizing insight, myself. It might end up being wrong, but until we know for sure, what a cool idea to wonder about!

I want to lean towards the opinion that consciousness transcends time in such a way that it is spread across all time. Though, the presentiment studies do seem to indicate the immediate future has a stronger effect on present awareness, for some reason.

The other thing that comes out of TSQM, as it came out of Lagrangian methods, is practical utility with calculations. Maybe not as exciting, but it is a big deal in some ways. There are some problems that, if done with the Newtonian method, are absolutely torturous, if not impossible at times. But, the same problem would be totally easy using the Lagrangian methods. TSQM provides similar utility for quantum theory.

Aharonov on the usefulness of TSQM (didn't copy from the PDF very well). Just a wee but more eloquent than my ramblings on the subject!

While TSQM is a new conceptual point-of-view that has predicted novel,
verified effects which seem impossible according to standard QM, TSQM is
in fact a re-formulation of QM. Therefore, experiments cannot prove TSQM
over QM (or vice-versa). The motivation to pursue such re-formulations,
then, depends on their usefulness.
The intention of this article is to answer
this by discussing how TSQM fulfils several criterion which any reformulation
of QM should satisfy in order to be useful and interesting:
• TSQM is consistent with all the predictions made by standard QM
(§1),
• TSQM has revealed new features and effects of QM that were missed
before (§2),
• TSQM has lead to new mathematics, simplifications in calculations,
and stimulated discoveries in other fields (as occurred, e.g., with the
Feynman re-formulation of QM) §3,
• TSQM suggests generalizations of QM that could not be easily articulated
in the old language (§4)

A more conservative scientist may choose to utilize all the pragmatic, operational
advantages listed above1, but stick to the standard time-asymmetric
QM formalism. Our view is that these new effects form a logical, consistent,
and intuitive pattern (in contrast to the traditional interpretation). Therefore,
we believe there are deeper reasons which underly TSQMs success in
predicting them. One generalization suggested by TSQM (§4.1) addresses
the “artificial” separation in theoretical physics between the kinematic and
dynamical descriptions [23]; another (§4.2) provides a novel solution to the
1While this paper focuses on theoretical issues, we emphasize that many of the novel
predictions have been tested in quantum-optics laboratories utilizing Townes’ laser technology
[66]. In addition, TSQM has suggested a number of innovative new technologies
which could be implemented with lasers §3.1.
3
measurement problem. Consequently, we are able to change the meaning of
uncertainty from “capriciousness” to exactly what is needed in order that the
future can be relevant for the present, without violating causality, thereby
providing a new perspective to the question “Why does God play dice?”
(§5.1) In other words, TSQM suggests that two “identical” particles are not
really identical, but there is no way to find their differences based only on
information coming from the past, one must also know the future. We also
show how the second generalization involving “destiny” is consistent with
free-will (§5.2
). Finally, we speculate on the novel perspectives that TSQM
can offer for several other themes of this volume, such as emergence.

Okay, VERY late for work :-O
 
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First time poster after lurking as a guest for some time. Morning Fog, the "sub" dialogue you started here inspired me to create an account as much of the discussion you spawned reflects my own conundrum. I am afraid I won't have much to add as I really am an amateur, but I at least wanted to chime in to say "don't regret the can of worms". I think this theme is incredibly important to many people, myself included, and the discussion has been additive for me.

For whatever its worth, I have struggled with a sort of duality on this subject from a very young age. I have always found "answers" to be very satisfying specifically in terms of "knowable" endeavors. (e.g., math, science, logic) In most aspects of my own life when faced with important choices, I look for evidence or facts. While this may come off as obvious, I have found that many people do not approach things this way. Others may rely more on feel, emotion, instinct, etc. Ironically, or perhaps not, I have found those people to often be quite comfortable with their personal worldview on the question MF raised.

However, for those "evidence/fact" based folks I believe for many, likely most of the scientific materialist sort, the dogged pursuit of evidence/facts leads rather quickly to an atheistic-oriented conclusion that there is no such thing as purpose. No grander meaning. I daresay those of this mindset find this to be practical and even satisfying. That's where the dualism comes in for me: that end conclusion is not only unsatisfying but deeply troubling for me. I've always "believed" there is more even though I don't feel as if I have a shred of evidence to support this notion.

So, I continue to seek resolution.

I have been a lurker for some time as well and I occasionally pipe in to voice my two cents for what’s it worth. Welcome btw.

I’ve been a natural doubter and skeptic basically questioning everything just about my entire adult life. That being stated, to my core, I believe I am much more than the material. But this belief comes from my subjective intuition and not from any “scientific” proof (though this proof will certainly help to shut up my ego). However, this absolute proof may never come to pass. And my ego kicks in sometimes with the fear of “what if the materialists are right?” And then I go to forums like this in hopes to see if there are some more evidence or even breakthroughs to appease my “logical” “rational” egotistic mind. However, it is a lost cause to ever appease the ego in this regard … or any regard for that matter. Because even though (as many as pointed out in this forum) the evidence is very strong for survival, the ‘logical” ego mind will find holes and doubt, doubt and doubt some more.

Many materialists will never be convinced of survival even if one day Dr. Parnia discovers another huge breakthrough in his NDE research, or another huge breakthrough in TSQM (also being discussed in this thread) that points to proof of survival. The skeptics will continue to find holes … even create them if need be, because of their unchanging mindset and worldview. What baffles me, as I pointed out earlier, is this worldview leads them to an absolute meaningless existence and most of them seem to be comfortable with it. I cannot wrap my head around it.

Anyway, the resolution you seek will (IMHO) need to come from a different place. Your ego can’t take you there. Only your intuition, gnosis, enlightenment, or whatever you want to call this higher knowing, will take you there. And no … I’m not there yet or even know exactly what it means to gain this higher knowledge where it is sustainable. But I’m working on it. However, my “logical” ego mind is very stubborn and occasionally still gives me this fear of a bleak nature of our existence. But fear leads to the dark side (Star Wars reference intended). ;)
 
TSQM appears to connect free will to the probabilistic aspects of reality, giving both more meaning. Two of the biggest mysteries of reality, seemingly unrelated, possibly connected here.

The other thing that comes out of TSQM, as it came out of Lagrangian methods, is practical utility with calculations. Maybe not as exciting, but it is a big deal in some ways. There are some problems that, if done with the Newtonian method, are absolutely torturous, if not impossible at times. But, the same problem would be totally easy using the Lagrangian methods. TSQM provides similar utility for quantum theory.
Ethan,

Here is a quote from W. Zurek -- http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/zurek/Quantum_Darwinism.pdf
To study Quantum Darwinism we focus on correlations between fragments of the environment and the system. The relevant reduced density matrix ρSF is given by: ρSF = T rE/F |ΨSE ihΨSE | . (2) Above, trace is over “E less F”, or E/F – all of E except for the fragment F. How much F knows about S can be quantified using mutual information: I(S : F) = HS + HF − HS,F , (3) defined as the difference between entropies of two systems (here S and F) treated separately and jointly. For example, the mutual information between an original and and indirectly – without perturbing S.

In this version of Quantum darwinism - the measurement of mutual information establishes a method that enables a method of analysis that shows a relation of information and environment in a natural manner. Just as Lagrangian methods, which separate kinetic and potential energy make it easier to relate objects within environments. (imho)
 
Ethan,

Here is a quote from W. Zurek -- http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/zurek/Quantum_Darwinism.pdf


In this version of Quantum darwinism - the measurement of mutual information establishes a method that enables a method of analysis that shows a relation of information and environment in a natural manner. Just as Lagrangian methods, which separate kinetic and potential energy make it easier to relate objects within environments. (imho)

Admittedly, I feel pretty lost on some (most?) aspects of information science, but this does sound interesting, will have to check it out! Thanks Stephen ;-)
 
Admittedly, I feel pretty lost on some (most?) aspects of information science, but this does sound interesting, will have to check it out! Thanks Stephen ;-)
First, let me say that the math described by Zurek is over my head. However, the idea of mutual information is very simple and fundamental. Tononi's efficient information used in IIT is a derivative of Shannon's concept of mutual information. This applies more to everyday experience of our physical environment - but needs to be consistent with experience of our own mental environment.

To the subject at hand - if the phenomena of dying words, NDE and OBE are to be modeled it is that there is an array of ambient information in the "space" a person observes there. The information as to its meaning, rather than its formal structure (Shannon Entropy) is what is to be found in communicating what happened. There are predominate experiences of loving (or being without love) and belonging (or adrift) being directly experienced. Mutual information is a measure of the representation's form. There needs be a relationship between direct experience and symbolic representation. The device I promote is a heuristic of "informational objects" and probability for the information to be realized.

In other words - a person seeing a hallway or a tunnel with a light at the end is not seeing an actual place - but a symbol of a changing environment for their mind. The informational object is a symbol; and deep-meaning is associated with it. There is no abstraction that does this - there must be a personal or cultural context to have meaning with a living thing.

From Final Words Project:

FWP's findings replicated this research and discovered that end-of-life communication is rich in metaphors including those of travel, broken devices, carrying or storing boxes and analogies such as "the big dance," “the tournament poker game” or "art show" to refer to dying. These metaphors are being gathered and analyzed to see what patterns we uncover in the symbols used.
(Bolding mine)
http://www.finalwordsproject.org/qualities-of-final-words.html
 
There needs be a relationship between direct experience and symbolic representation. The device I promote is a heuristic of "informational objects" and probability for the information to be realized.

In other words - a person seeing a hallway or a tunnel with a light at the end is not seeing an actual place - but a symbol of a changing environment for their mind. The informational object is a symbol; and deep-meaning is associated with it. There is no abstraction that does this - there must be a personal or cultural context to have meaning with a living thing.

Interesting, Stephen. I've always been a big fan of comparative mythology and Jung, etc, particularly the symbology is pretty amazing, in that consistent, universal themes pop up all over the place. It's as if there is something objective about these subjective experiences. Don't know if you have similar interests, but perhaps what you suggest here is one potential explanation to these Mythological Motifs, as Campbell would call them, with mutual information being the backdrop.
 
Interesting, Stephen. I've always been a big fan of comparative mythology and Jung, etc, particularly the symbology is pretty amazing, in that consistent, universal themes pop up all over the place. It's as if there is something objective about these subjective experiences. Don't know if you have similar interests, but perhaps what you suggest here is one potential explanation to these Mythological Motifs, as Campbell would call them, with mutual information being the backdrop.
The idea is that we can approach the subject with the tools of science. Calling a vision or dream state: an array of ambient information acknowledges an actual pattern of information (information object) being there in our information space. The "look" and the resulting interpreted message for any individual is personal and culturally influenced. However, the deduction that the contents of infospace has real objects, which are perceivable as symbols and tokens is implicit.

Another information scientist Aaron Sloman has presented the idea of virtual machines and virtual machine functionality (VMF). In this way - states of mind and cultural circumstance, such as poverty, can be seen as having real causal effects.

Many things that are produced by or realised in physical resources are non-physical in this sense, e.g. poverty, legal obligations, war, etc. So we can expect all forms of consciousness to be based on, or realised in, physical mechanisms, but not necessarily to be physical in the sense of being describable in the language of the physical..................

6. Information processing virtual machines
We are concerned with the third class, the information processing machines. Information-manipulation is not restricted to physical machines, e.g. made of blood, meat, wires, transistors, etc. Virtual machines (VM) can also do it. These contain abstract non-physical entities, like words, sentences, numbers, bit-patterns, trees, procedures, rules, etc., and the causal laws that summarise their operation are not the same as the laws of the physical sciences.
http://users.sussex.ac.uk/~ronc/papers/Sloman-Chrisley.pdf
 
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The idea is that we can approach the subject with the tools of science. Calling a vision or dream state: an array of ambient information acknowledges an actual pattern of information (information object) being there in our information space. The "look" and the resulting interpreted message for any individual is personal and culturally influenced. However, the deduction that the contents of infospace has real objects, which are perceivable as symbols and tokens is implicit.

Stephen,

Just curious, but in your opinion what exactly is an "information object"? Is it physical, or non-physical? Is it objective, or subjective? Or does it transcend these concepts of polar opposites? Is information more fundamental than consciousness, or less, or are they somehow equivalent, two sides of the same coin, perhaps? What "space" do these information objects reside? Is it a higher dimensional "space"? How are the informational objects affected by time?

Sorry for all the questions, you got my curiosity going ;-)
 
Stephen,

Just curious, but in your opinion what exactly is an "information object"? Is it physical, or non-physical? Is it objective, or subjective? Or does it transcend these concepts of polar opposites? Is information more fundamental than consciousness, or less, or are they somehow equivalent, two sides of the same coin, perhaps? What "space" do these information objects reside? Is it a higher dimensional "space"? How are the informational objects affected by time?

Sorry for all the questions, you got my curiosity going ;-)
in post #57
Third, it is suggested that an ontology of structural objects for OSR can reasonably be developed in terms of informational objects, and that Object Oriented Programming provides a flexible and powerful methodology with which to clarify and make precise the concept of “informational object”. The outcome is informational realism, the view that the world is the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other.- Luciano Floridi

I think that an informational object exists as a counterpart of a physical object. There is a chair you can manifestly use as a seat. There is a program that can reproduce the chair as a sim - an OOP. This object-oriented program has all the functional information to represent a virtual chair in cyberspace. A informational object of a chair can exist before, during and after the existence of a physical chair. In this sense an informational object can be a symbol, an icon, various versions of a chair or any probable chair.

Let's say a chair is coming to your office - as you are purchasing one. You could say there are chairs in the real world who are in "superposition". It could be a red chair or a blue chair. As information objects - they are both objectively probable. The informational objects of red and blue chairs are made of actual real world probabilities. You can order the red one and its probability for manifestation in your office is increased. Yet, like the delayed choice experiment - a new measurement (decision) can be made and the order cancelled and replaced with blue.

The idea is informational objects are made from structured informational relations and that they are real and objective probables. To me - that there is an object called a wave function - makes perfect sense and is not "weird" small science. Wave functions are an objective fact and part of how reality evolves.

I see physical objects as occurring in the ever-moving forward "here and now" band of time. Informational objects are structured so that they can be continuously related to conditions in the past and in the future.

Physics measures only" here and now" physical objects. Any objective thing we are discussing in the past and the future - are informational objects, as to the methods we can use to understand them.

Arouet likes the two-sided coin metaphor. It works in some ways. However, one side can be bitten by pirates to test is metal - and the other side has infinite possibilities appended to it. Rather than another dimension - I think of the activity of real-world probables interacting --- is just a separate generative level.
 
in post #57

I think that an informational object exists as a counterpart of a physical object. There is a chair you can manifestly use as a seat. There is a program that can reproduce the chair as a sim - an OOP. This object-oriented program has all the functional information to represent a virtual chair in cyberspace. A informational object of a chair can exist before, during and after the existence of a physical chair. In this sense an informational object can be a symbol, an icon, various versions of a chair or any probable chair.

Let's say a chair is coming to your office - as you are purchasing one. You could say there are chairs in the real world who are in "superposition". It could be a red chair or a blue chair. As information objects - they are both objectively probable. The informational objects of red and blue chairs are made of actual real world probabilities. You can order the red one and its probability for manifestation in your office is increased. Yet, like the delayed choice experiment - a new measurement (decision) can be made and the order cancelled and replaced with blue.

The idea is informational objects are made from structured informational relations and that they are real and objective probables. To me - that there is an object called a wave function - makes perfect sense and is not "weird" small science. Wave functions are an objective fact and part of how reality evolves.

I see physical objects as occurring in the ever-moving forward "here and now" band of time. Informational objects are structured so that they can be continuously related to conditions in the past and in the future.

Physics measures only" here and now" physical objects. Any objective thing we are discussing in the past and the future - are informational objects, as to the methods we can use to understand them.

Arouet likes the two-sided coin metaphor. It works in some ways. However, one side can be bitten by pirates to test is metal - and the other side has infinite possibilities appended to it. Rather than another dimension - I think of the activity of real-world probables interacting --- is just a separate generative level.
It sounds to me like you're talking about archetypes, or more specifically Platonic archetypes (Ideas/Forms). Is this what you are describing?

Cheers,
Bill
 
in post #57

I think that an informational object exists as a counterpart of a physical object. There is a chair you can manifestly use as a seat. There is a program that can reproduce the chair as a sim - an OOP. This object-oriented program has all the functional information to represent a virtual chair in cyberspace. A informational object of a chair can exist before, during and after the existence of a physical chair. In this sense an informational object can be a symbol, an icon, various versions of a chair or any probable chair.

Let's say a chair is coming to your office - as you are purchasing one. You could say there are chairs in the real world who are in "superposition". It could be a red chair or a blue chair. As information objects - they are both objectively probable. The informational objects of red and blue chairs are made of actual real world probabilities. You can order the red one and its probability for manifestation in your office is increased. Yet, like the delayed choice experiment - a new measurement (decision) can be made and the order cancelled and replaced with blue.

The idea is informational objects are made from structured informational relations and that they are real and objective probables. To me - that there is an object called a wave function - makes perfect sense and is not "weird" small science. Wave functions are an objective fact and part of how reality evolves.

I see physical objects as occurring in the ever-moving forward "here and now" band of time. Informational objects are structured so that they can be continuously related to conditions in the past and in the future.

Physics measures only" here and now" physical objects. Any objective thing we are discussing in the past and the future - are informational objects, as to the methods we can use to understand them.

Arouet likes the two-sided coin metaphor. It works in some ways. However, one side can be bitten by pirates to test is metal - and the other side has infinite possibilities appended to it. Rather than another dimension - I think of the activity of real-world probables interacting --- is just a separate generative level.


Thanks for taking the time to share your view on this stuff Stephen, much appreciated! ;-)
 
It sounds to me like you're talking about archetypes, or more specifically Platonic archetypes (Ideas/Forms). Is this what you are describing?

Cheers,
Bill
I am not qualified to parse Plato, considering the vast amounts of commentary on his Forms existing in literature. At a simple level: yes -- what Plato was trying to address is addressed by the idea of a non-physical information object with some P value. By P value; I am saying its probability to be manifest in the here and now at some empirical location and time.

Materialism has an intuition that superposition is weird. Informational Realism would embrace multiple "objects" having various P values resolving (decoherence) into a single physical object.

Some theorists solve this issue by saying all those real-probabilities pop up in multiple universes. (how whack is that - I am not a supporter of "many worlds")

On the other hand, informational objects - in the sense of their structured relations - are anything but static and eternal as Plato believed! In this sense of real-world probabilities, OOP can make models that correct and correlate Plato's ancient conception shaping them to fit the empirical patterns found by modern science.

Donald Gillies has published an article challenging Luciano Floridi's IR as being to Platonic and offers an Aristotelian version. I may agree with some of D. Gillies points. http://philpapers.org/rec/GILIRA-2

So, while the concept of a Platonic naked number 2 in heaven that may seem eternal and unchanging is am accepted meme, its actual practical meaning is contextual. 2 is part of the idea of symmetry, it is part of the concept of a copy, it is part of dividing in half, etc. 2 is structured information that can be included (or excluded) into the context of more complex information objects.
 
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I am not qualified to parse Plato, considering the vast amounts of commentary on his Forms existing in literature. At a simple level: yes -- what Plato was trying to address is addressed by the idea of a non-physical information object with some P value. By P value; I am saying its probability to be manifest in the here and now at some empirical location and time.

Materialism has an intuition that superposition is weird. Informational Realism would embrace multiple "objects" having various P values resolving (decoherence) into a single physical object.

Some theorists solve this issue by saying all those real-probabilities pop up in multiple universes. (how whack is that - I am not a supporter of "many worlds")

On the other hand, informational objects - in the sense of their structured relations - are anything but static and eternal as Plato believed! In this sense of real-world probabilities, OOP can make models that correct and correlate Plato's ancient conception shaping them to fit the empirical patterns found by modern science.

Donald Gillies has published an article challenging Luciano Floridi's IR as being to Platonic and offers an Aristotelian version. I may agree with some of D. Gillies points. http://philpapers.org/rec/GILIRA-2

So, while the concept of a Platonic naked number 2 in heaven that may seem eternal and unchanging is am accepted meme, its actual practical meaning is contextual. 2 is part of the idea of symmetry, it is part of the concept of a copy, it is part of dividing in half, etc. 2 is structured information that can be included (or excluded) into the context of more complex information objects.
From your description it sounds more like the answer is no, and you're likely talking about a different aspect. My interpretation of Ideas or Forms are that which are "Perfect, as conceived by the Mind of God (the Creator)" ... as such, the accepted meme of "the naked number 2 in heaven" actually encompasses ALL of the concepts that are possibilities in ANY context that you mention (plus many more our human minds can't conceive of)...

BTW, I consider myself an expert in OOP, and while I fully appreciate the benefits of man-made / programming models in helping us understand complexity, I am highly skeptical of these particular models getting us much closer to understanding Forms/Archetypes.

Cheers,
Bill
 
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In the above post I noted that I was skeptical of OOP giving us much deeper insight into reality, so I wanted to at least give an indication of the kind of things that I believe may. I think glimpses of "higher level" aspects of reality require states of consciousness that are outside our normal waking states. For example, I've been reading some of Don DeGracia's discussions on states of consciousness associated with the yoga sutras of Patenjali. I think that similar kinds of states of peak consciousness are experienced by some people during NDEs and it's why they are so transformative and at the same time the experiencers have great difficulty relating the meaning they experienced in terms of our limited language.

Cheers,
Bill
 
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