Consciousness slash reality: Anil Seth and Donald Hoffman

[C C]

I got the book. Damn! Amazon is spooky action at a distance.

He said that the deeper is problem is that correlations are not explanations.

He starts with degrees of freedom. He takes it from beyond human, e.g., animals, to machine minds. You don’t even need to be conscious to play Tic-Tac-Toe, but if you are, you might have certain degrees of freedom.

Thanks for sharing some of the details.

[...] Now, if God had said to Eve, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye must shit out a pumpkin. The tree of life, fuhgettaboutit. 

Shulamith's friend certainly had a way with words.

[...] From the book:

[...] Although making tea was fully consistent with my beliefs, values, and desires, I did not choose to have these beliefs, values, and desires. I wanted a cup of tea, but I did not choose to want a cup of tea. Voluntary actions are voluntary not because they descend form an immaterial soul, nor because they ascend from quantum soup. They are voluntary because they express what I, as a person, want to do, even though I cannot choose these wants. As nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it, “Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

I guess Schop's quote is what I'll "choose" to detour off from.

Yes, it is not determined by us that we are born human, male or female, and that we have the wants and needs specific to that organism. And we didn't will or select ourselves to have specific _X_ parents and specific _X_ childhood environment.

But I don't consider that to be significant (as so many seem to) since I wouldn't exist if I wasn't psychologically this person. My body could potentially carry a different personality (if I had been abducted as a child and raised under different circumstances). But there's no option like that for my psychological form or configuration (to be somebody else).

Yes, in the context of Schopenhauer's philosophy (below), "my will" might have the underlying identity of that overarching cosmic will, but the latter is even more barren or blank than a body that hasn't developed the memories and interests of a particular person yet (like, say, a freshly cloned adult body that magically bypasses slow development).

Redundantly: I doubt that one could be "somebody else" (permanently) and still exist -- barring the futility of wholly considering the body to be who one is, rather than the information riding on it, as external observers might. (Far-fetched example: "Oh, but Mary is still alive, even though she suffered total amnesia. And 5 years later has a totally opposite personality and new habits, and doesn't care #### about anyone she knew before -- those family and friends she doesn't remember in terms of past interactions.")

When I sleep I am "gone" for awhile, but at least return. It's still continuity, but with an interruption -- where in a dream the brain not only entertained itself as a different individual or version of me, but also pretended to be that avatar's very world or surrounding environment.
- - - - - -

Schopenhauer
https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/...nhauer.htm

James Fieser: Book 2 is titled "The World as Will", and this is where Schopenhauer develops the view that the will of the cosmos is a blind impulse that creates endless suffering for individuals. The starting point for this position is again my understanding of my own body which I experience in a double aspect:

(1) my body is objectively a thing, which I experience as a representation, and

(2) my body is subjectively a will insofar as my bodily actions follow my motives.

The unique thing about this experience is that my body is the only thing I directly know that is both representation and will. However, there is a larger lesson from this double experience of my body: when I understand that my will is central to my body, I will then recognize that will is the center of all bodies in nature.

Schopenhauer is proposing a theory that we now call "panpsychism", that is, everything that exists, even the smallest speck of dust, has an element of mind in it, which for Schopenhauer is the will to live. This, he argues, is evidently the case with biological organisms like plants and animals, but it is also true of so-called inanimate objects like crystals, magnetic rocks and even gravity.

The Will, existing as thing in itself, is a single will of the cosmos, but as we experience it in space and time it has multiple appearances, such as my will, your will, the tree's will. He thus refers to space and time as "the Principle of Individuation", that is, the source of plurality and the principle by which we distinguish one thing from another.

Accordingly, the will within me is both a microcosm of me as an individual, and a macrocosm of the whole world. As an individual, it appears as though my will as a microcosm that has purpose, as when I go to work each day to earn a living. But my will as a macrocosm of the universe (as thing in itself) has no such purpose: it is only an endless striving that is groundless with no final goal.

On closer inspection, though, even the endeavors of our individual wills are groundless, since as soon as we attain them, they are ignored or thrown aside as vanished illusions. Schopenhauer expands on this point in Supplement 28, one of the most famous parts of his book. Drawing on examples from biology and the preservation of the species, he argues that we are like puppets, and the blind will to life is the set of strings that move us.

[Secular Sanity]

"The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood."
- Voltaire

If you don't believe you can decide what you want, you likely cannot simply choose to be in a good mood.

Woah! You haven't had an "I gotcha" in a very long time. Did someone help you with that?

"Leibniz outlined his perfect world theory in his work The Monadology, stating the argument in five statements:

1. God has the idea of infinitely many universes.
2. Only one of these universes can exist.
3. God's choices are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, God has reason to choose one thing or another.
4. God is good.
5. Therefore, the universe that God chose to exist is the best of all possible worlds.

Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is."— Candide

The belief that everything happens for a reason makes you more impotent than believing that 'there’s a reason why things happen, but things don't happen for a reason.'

"Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof, that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof."

"Throughout our lives the proportion of necessity to freedom depends upon our tolerance of conflict: the greater our tolerance the more freedom we retain, the less our tolerance the more we jettison; for high among the uses of necessity is relief from tension. What we can’t alter we don’t have to worry about; so, the enlargement of necessity is a measure of economy in psychic housekeeping.

In every situation, for every person, there is a realm of freedom and a realm of constraint. One may live in either realm. One must recognize the irresistible forces, the iron fist, the stone wall-must know them for what they are in order not to fall into the sea like Icarus-but, knowing them, one may turn away and live in the realm of one’s freedom. A farmer must know the fence which bounds his land but need not spend his life standing there, looking out, beating his fists on the rails; better he tills his soil, thinks of what to grow, where to plant the fruit trees. However small the area of freedom, attention and devotion may expand it to occupy the whole of life.

But in the consciousness of that one man, it makes great difference whether or not he experiences the choice. For if he knows the constraint and nothing else, if he thinks “Nothing is possible,” then he is living his necessity; but if, perceiving the constraint, he turns from it to a choice between two possible courses of action, then-however he chooses-he is living his freedom. This commitment to freedom may extend to the last breath."— Allen Wheelis

"We must cultivate our garden."—Voltaire

---

Shulamith's friend certainly had a way with words.

Witty!

Accordingly, the will within me is both a microcosm of me as an individual, and a macrocosm of the whole world. As an individual, it appears as though my will as a microcosm that has purpose, as when I go to work each day to earn a living. But my will as a macrocosm of the universe (as thing in itself) has no such purpose: it is only an endless striving that is groundless with no final goal.

On closer inspection, though, even the endeavors of our individual wills are groundless, since as soon as we attain them, they are ignored or thrown aside as vanished illusions. Schopenhauer expands on this point in Supplement 28, one of the most famous parts of his book. Drawing on examples from biology and the preservation of the species, he argues that we are like puppets, and the blind will to life is the set of strings that move us.

Can both be true?

"I am but dust and ashes/the world was created for me."

[Syne]

"The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood."
- Voltaire

If you don't believe you can decide what you want, you likely cannot simply choose to be in a good mood.

Woah! You haven't had an "I gotcha" in a very long time. Did someone help you with that?

Not meant as a gotcha. But I can see why you'd latch onto it, to avoid the bulk of that post.

"Leibniz outlined his perfect world theory in his work The Monadology, stating the argument in five statements:

1. God has the idea of infinitely many universes.
2. Only one of these universes can exist.
3. God's choices are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, God has reason to choose one thing or another.
4. God is good.
5. Therefore, the universe that God chose to exist is the best of all possible worlds.

Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is."— Candide

Leibniz was brilliant, which is why we still use his calculus notation today, over Newton's.
The problem of "natural evil" (natural disasters, disease, etc.) is not really a problem. Voltaire et al. just fail to account for the logical necessity of consistent cause and effect for significant free will to exist at all. IOW, new, non-determinant causes, like quantum randomness, can be input into the system because causation only requires that a chain of causes continue, not determine how they originate. Some chains of causation, like weather or germs, just naturally lead to undesired outcomes, simply because causation must continue.

The belief that everything happens for a reason makes you more impotent than believing that 'there’s a reason why things happen, but things don't happen for a reason.'

"Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof, that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof."

Straw man. I never said nor implied that "everything happens for a reason." Human actions can have reasons (motivations), but much of causality just happens. Your non sequitur quote of Job is no more meaningful than your out of context, misandrist arguments about Eve.

"Throughout our lives the proportion of necessity to freedom depends upon our tolerance of conflict: the greater our tolerance the more freedom we retain, the less our tolerance the more we jettison; for high among the uses of necessity is relief from tension. What we can’t alter we don’t have to worry about; so, the enlargement of necessity is a measure of economy in psychic housekeeping.

In every situation, for every person, there is a realm of freedom and a realm of constraint. One may live in either realm. One must recognize the irresistible forces, the iron fist, the stone wall-must know them for what they are in order not to fall into the sea like Icarus-but, knowing them, one may turn away and live in the realm of one’s freedom. A farmer must know the fence which bounds his land but need not spend his life standing there, looking out, beating his fists on the rails; better he tills his soil, thinks of what to grow, where to plant the fruit trees. However small the area of freedom, attention and devotion may expand it to occupy the whole of life.

But in the consciousness of that one man, it makes great difference whether or not he experiences the choice. For if he knows the constraint and nothing else, if he thinks “Nothing is possible,” then he is living his necessity; but if, perceiving the constraint, he turns from it to a choice between two possible courses of action, then-however he chooses-he is living his freedom. This commitment to freedom may extend to the last breath."— Allen Wheelis

Yes, there is no freedom without boundaries, otherwise we'd never recognize freedom by contrast. Hence why free will and the determinism of the physical universe both exist. But the existence of determinism doesn't preclude free will from being real. It's just a failure of reasoning to assume it would.

[Secular Sanity]

Not meant as a gotcha. But I can see why you'd latch onto it, to avoid the bulk of that post.

It was the only real thing worth responding to. I don’t avoid it out of convenience. I avoid it out of sympathy because most it is just ill-conceived assumptions. The 'babble' was just sarcasm on my part.

Straw man. I never said nor implied that "everything happens for a reason." Human actions can have reasons (motivations), but much of causality just happens. Your non sequitur quote of Job is no more meaningful than your out of context, misandrist arguments about Eve.

Nor did I imply that you said that. The Job quote was meant to compliment what Wheelis said.

Yes, there is no freedom without boundaries, otherwise we'd never recognize freedom by contrast. Hence why free will and the determinism of the physical universe both exist. But the existence of determinism doesn't preclude free will from being real. It's just a failure of reasoning to assume it would.

If everything that happens is determined by events that have already happened, then perhaps you’re right. Maybe the paradox of free will is dissolved when one realizes that they, too…are events. Take Solaris for example, we know that we depend on the entire physical structure of the universe for our existence, but perhaps, we could view 'free will' as a necessary component that we are also dependent upon to project memories, emotions, and illusions.

"Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed."― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

"We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is."― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

***We are rooted in the flesh-and-blood predictive machinery that evolved, develops, and operates from moment to moment always in light of a fundamental biological drive to stay alive.

***Self-perception is not about discovering what’s out there in the world, or in here, in the body. It’s about physiological control and regulation—it’s about staying alive. —Anil Seth, Being You

[Syne]

Not meant as a gotcha. But I can see why you'd latch onto it, to avoid the bulk of that post.

It was the only real thing worth responding to. I don’t avoid it out of convenience. I avoid it out of sympathy because most it is just ill-conceived assumptions. The 'babble' was just sarcasm on my part.

See, you still can't be held accountable for the, at best, misinformed things you say.
As CC posted, there are reasons people seek out or ignore things: https://www.scivillage.com/thread-11374-...l#pid47683
You avoid things that don't make you feel good and affirm your existing biases. Hence why you can't even admit that you misrepresented the Bible. Feels bad to be wrong...so you just ignore it. And you're the silly girl who wanted men to treat you as an equal and friend. 9_9

Straw man. I never said nor implied that "everything happens for a reason." Human actions can have reasons (motivations), but much of causality just happens. Your non sequitur quote of Job is no more meaningful than your out of context, misandrist arguments about Eve.

Nor did I imply that you said that. The Job quote was meant to compliment what Wheelis said.

So a complete non sequitur. Just a form of self-soothing self-talk. A pacifier to quell the bad feeling of cognitive dissonance.

Yes, there is no freedom without boundaries, otherwise we'd never recognize freedom by contrast. Hence why free will and the determinism of the physical universe both exist. But the existence of determinism doesn't preclude free will from being real. It's just a failure of reasoning to assume it would.

If everything that happens is determined by events that have already happened, then perhaps you’re right. Maybe the paradox of free will is dissolved when one realizes that they, too…are events. Take Solaris for example, we know that we depend on the entire physical structure of the universe for our existence, but perhaps, we could view 'free will' as a necessary component that we are also dependent upon to project memories, emotions, and illusions.

As expected, you still can't comprehend the simple point. If everything is determined by past events, that's just a completely determined universe. But we know QM adds random inputs into the system, belying complete determinism. And if there can be one non-deterministic input, there can be others.

[Secular Sanity]

As expected, you still can't comprehend the simple point. If everything is determined by past events, that's just a completely determined universe. But we know QM adds random inputs into the system, belying complete determinism. And if there can be one non-deterministic input, there can be others.

Randomness is just that…random, meaning nothing influences it.

If your choices are random, you do not have free will. So, where does this so-called non-deterministic free will originate from? Is it mystical?

[Syne]

As expected, you still can't comprehend the simple point. If everything is determined by past events, that's just a completely determined universe. But we know QM adds random inputs into the system, belying complete determinism. And if there can be one non-deterministic input, there can be others.

Randomness is just that…random, meaning nothing influences it.

If your choices are random, you do not have free will. So, where does this so-called non-deterministic free will originate from? Is it mystical?

Again, no one said anything about anything influencing randomness. I actually said the complete opposite...randomness influencing other things. Please learn how to read.

And what part of "if there can be one non-deterministic input, there can be others" don't you understand? No one said free will is randomness. It's an example of a non-deterministic input, which means there could be other, non-random and non-deterministic inputs.

I feel like I need to break out the crayons for ya.

[C C]

Schopenhauer
https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/...nhauer.htm

James Fieser: [...] Accordingly, the will within me is both a microcosm of me as an individual, and a macrocosm of the whole world. As an individual, it appears as though my will as a microcosm that has purpose, as when I go to work each day to earn a living. But my will as a macrocosm of the universe (as thing in itself) has no such purpose: it is only an endless striving that is groundless with no final goal.

On closer inspection, though, even the endeavors of our individual wills are groundless, since as soon as we attain them, they are ignored or thrown aside as vanished illusions. Schopenhauer expands on this point in Supplement 28, one of the most famous parts of his book. Drawing on examples from biology and the preservation of the species, he argues that we are like puppets, and the blind will to life is the set of strings that move us.

Can both be true?

"I am but dust and ashes/the world was created for me."

Probably entertained in some contexts. But practices centered around products of inference and generalization can probably never view the phenomenal side as being an equal, or legitimate, co-partner.
- - - - -

Schopenhauer – Atheist, Idealist, Visionary
http://www.philosopher.eu/texts/schopenh...visionary/

EDIT: His contended double-aspectism and the role or inspiration of Kant's "prior-to-experience" cognitive apparatus. Deleted what was here, since select excerpts didn't sum it up accurately. (Post overly long, too.)
- - - - -

Either the situation hasn't actually changed much as Huxley espoused at the end of the passage below, or it has regressed back.

Aldous Huxley: (Ends and Means): ". . . the man of science abstracts a simplified private universe of things possessing only those qualities which used to be called 'primary.' Arbitrarily, because it happens to be convenient; because his methods do not allow him to deal with the immense complexity of reality, he selects from the whole of experience only those elements which can be weighed, measured, numbered, or which lend themselves in any other way to mathematical treatment.

By using this technique of simplification and abstraction, the scientist has succeeded to an astonishing degree in understanding and dominating the physical environment. The success was intoxicating and, with an illogicality which, in the circumstances, was doubtless pardonable, many scientists and philosophers came to imagine that this useful abstraction from reality was reality itself.

Reality as actually experienced contains intuitions of value and significance, contains love, beauty, mystical ecstasy, intimations of godhead. Science did not and still does not possess intellectual instruments with which to deal with these aspects of reality. Consequently it ignored them and concentrated its attention upon such aspects of the world as it could deal with by means of arithmetic, geometry and the various branches of higher mathematics.

Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaninglessness lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of erotic or political passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning and value has been deliberately excluded, with ultimate reality.

It is worth while to quote in this context the words with which Hume closes his Enquiry: 'If we take in our hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Hume mentions only divinity and school metaphysics; but his argument would apply just as cogently to poetry, music, painting, sculpture and all ethical and religious teaching. Hamlet contains no abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number and no experimental reason concerning evidence; nor does the Hammerklavier Sonata, nor Donatello's David, nor the Too Te Ching y nor The Following of Christ. Commit them therefore to the flames: for they can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

[...] In the arts, in philosophy, in religion men are trying doubtless, without complete success to describe and explain the non-measurable, purely qualitative aspects of reality. Since the time of Galileo, scientists have admitted, sometimes explicitly, but much more often by implication, that they are incompetent to discuss such matters.

The scientific picture of the world is what it is because men of science combine this incompetence with certain special competences. They have no right to claim that this product of incompetence and specialization is a complete picture of reality.

[...] The successive steps in the process of identifying an arbitrary abstraction from reality with reality itself have been described, very fully and lucidly, in Burtt's excellent Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science; and it is therefore unnecessary for me to develop the theme any further. All that I need add is the fact that, in recent years, many men of science have come to realize that the scientific picture of the world is a partial one the product of their special competence in mathematics and their special incompetence to deal systematically with aesthetic and moral values, religious experiences and intuitions of significance.

Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag. Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed and the belief often caused them considerable distress that the product of their special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total experience.

The masses, on the contrary, have just reached the point where the ancestors of today's scientists were standing two generations back. They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world.

[Secular Sanity]

Femme fatale isn't a misogynistic trope. It's demonstrated every single day that men have their lives ruined by divorce, baby traps, gold diggers, etc.. As in Adam's case, men need to have a strong sense of integrity. Women, as you've repeatedly demonstrated yourself (even here, misrepresenting the Bible), cannot generally be expected to. It's not your fault. It's just evolutionary psychology.

And women have their lives, not only ruined by men, but taken by men every day. As for your integrity, that’s why you needed a help meet, deary. We gained the knowledge of good and evil prior to you. The knowledge of what will and won’t hurt you has traditionally been passed down from mother to child. It's not your fault. You’re a beast of burden. So, stop whining about your role and go plant something. Just be grateful that it’s not growing in your field.

---

Either the situation hasn't actually changed much as Huxley espoused at the end of the passage below, or it has regressed back.

Aldous Huxley: (Ends and Means): ". . . the man of science abstracts a simplified private universe of things possessing only those qualities which used to be called 'primary.' Arbitrarily, because it happens to be convenient; because his methods do not allow him to deal with the immense complexity of reality, he selects from the whole of experience only those elements which can be weighed, measured, numbered, or which lend themselves in any other way to mathematical treatment.

By using this technique of simplification and abstraction, the scientist has succeeded to an astonishing degree in understanding and dominating the physical environment. The success was intoxicating and, with an illogicality which, in the circumstances, was doubtless pardonable, many scientists and philosophers came to imagine that this useful abstraction from reality was reality itself.

Reality as actually experienced contains intuitions of value and significance, contains love, beauty, mystical ecstasy, intimations of godhead. Science did not and still does not possess intellectual instruments with which to deal with these aspects of reality. Consequently it ignored them and concentrated its attention upon such aspects of the world as it could deal with by means of arithmetic, geometry and the various branches of higher mathematics.

Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaninglessness lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of erotic or political passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning and value has been deliberately excluded, with ultimate reality.

It is worth while to quote in this context the words with which Hume closes his Enquiry: 'If we take in our hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Hume mentions only divinity and school metaphysics; but his argument would apply just as cogently to poetry, music, painting, sculpture and all ethical and religious teaching. Hamlet contains no abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number and no experimental reason concerning evidence; nor does the Hammerklavier Sonata, nor Donatello's David, nor the Too Te Ching y nor The Following of Christ. Commit them therefore to the flames: for they can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

[...] In the arts, in philosophy, in religion men are trying doubtless, without complete success to describe and explain the non-measurable, purely qualitative aspects of reality. Since the time of Galileo, scientists have admitted, sometimes explicitly, but much more often by implication, that they are incompetent to discuss such matters.

The scientific picture of the world is what it is because men of science combine this incompetence with certain special competences. They have no right to claim that this product of incompetence and specialization is a complete picture of reality.

[...] The successive steps in the process of identifying an arbitrary abstraction from reality with reality itself have been described, very fully and lucidly, in Burtt's excellent Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science; and it is therefore unnecessary for me to develop the theme any further. All that I need add is the fact that, in recent years, many men of science have come to realize that the scientific picture of the world is a partial one the product of their special competence in mathematics and their special incompetence to deal systematically with aesthetic and moral values, religious experiences and intuitions of significance.

Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag. Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed and the belief often caused them considerable distress that the product of their special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total experience.

The masses, on the contrary, have just reached the point where the ancestors of today's scientists were standing two generations back. They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world.

Interesting, but he underestimated Heisenberg in this regard.

In Huxley’s book, "Literature and Science", he quotes Heisenberg as saying, "for the first time in history, man, on this planet, is discovering that he is alone with himself, without a partner and without an adversary." He says, "For the writer, atomic physics is interesting, above all, for the in which it illustrates the workings of the scientific mind as it moves from a set of sense perceptions to a set of unobservable, hypothetical entities and back again to another set of sense perception, in relation to which the concept of the atomic hypothesis are operationally validated."

He goes on and he writes…

Surely, it’s obvious.
Doesn’t every schoolboy know it?
Ends are ape-chosen; only the means are man’s.
Papio’s procurer, bursar to baboons,
Reason comes running, eager to ratify…
Comes with Calculus to aim your rockets
Accurately at the orphanage across the ocean;
Comes, having aimed, with incense to impetrate
Our Lady devoutly for a direct hit.

The reality we talk about is never the reality, in and of itself. We’ve given it form with the information that we’ve accumulated.

For Heisenberg, reality is "the continuous fluctuation of the experience as gathered by the conscience. In this respect, it is never wholly identifiable to an isolated system."

"It is possible to ask whether there is still concealed behind the statical universe of perception a ‘true’ universe in which the law of causality would be valid. But such a speculation seems to us to be without value and meaningless, for physics must confine itself to the relationship between perceptions." —Heisenberg

"It is clear that the ordering of the regions must substitute the gross division of world into a subjective reality and an objective one and to stretch itself between these poles of subject and object in such a manner that at its inferior limits are the regions where we can completely objectify."—Heisenberg

[Syne]

Femme fatale isn't a misogynistic trope. It's demonstrated every single day that men have their lives ruined by divorce, baby traps, gold diggers, etc.. As in Adam's case, men need to have a strong sense of integrity. Women, as you've repeatedly demonstrated yourself (even here, misrepresenting the Bible), cannot generally be expected to. It's not your fault. It's just evolutionary psychology.

And women have their lives, not only ruined by men, but taken by men every day. As for your integrity, that’s why you needed a help meet, deary. We gained the knowledge of good and evil prior to you. The knowledge of what will and won’t hurt you has traditionally been passed down from mother to child. It's not your fault. You’re a beast of burden. So, stop whining about your role and go plant something. Just be grateful that it’s not growing in your field.

Ah, another tu quoque (whataboutism) argument. The problem with a tu quoque is that you're essentially admitting the claim it seeks to refute is true. Basically admitting that, yes, some women are femme fatales (meaning it isn't a misogynistic trope), but what about...

But those men tend to be readily identifiable, if a woman has some accountability for her, usually repeated, choices of "bad boys." Pretending that all men are ruinous or murderers ignores that plenty of men are murdered by other men as well. And don't try to justify your misandry by assuming I think all women are femme fatales. I don't. Just the ones who have proven to be so by their actions. But we all remember that you think "all men are potential threats."

Unlike your straw man, I consider much of the Bible metaphor (just as orthodox Jews view that Genesis story).

But do tell, how does a person needing companionship contradict them having integrity?
Are you incapable of having integrity when others help you? That just means you lack integrity in general.

Yes, according to Genesis, woman did gain the knowledge of good and evil before man. And with that knowledge, her first action was to make sure man had that knowledge as well. Maybe she knew she couldn't be trusted as the sole bearer of that knowledge. And no, mothers didn't teach boys about the dangers out on the hunt or at war. Don't add delusion to your misandry.