"Trying to signal wisdom by refusing to make guesses - refusing to sum up evidence - refusing to pass judgment."
I use this non-committal stalling defense when I have not concluded which response will gain the most / cost the least, or when the question is one I don't want to answer for fear it will diminish my status, or for which I have not yet devised a rationalisation.
Well, it all seems to be cause and effect, and until effects overlap/intersect, we remain unaware and unaffected. Afterwards, in retrospect we can deem things this or that.
"In a long essay called 'What is Life', the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger comes up with the following argument:
Given that i) my body functions as a pure mechanism according to laws of nature,
and that ii) I know by direct experience that I am directing the motions of my body,
it follows that iii) I am the one who directs the atoms of the world in their motions.
Schrödinger remarks, '...it is daring to give to this conclusion the simple wording that it requires. In Christian terminology to say, "Hence I am God Almighty" sounds both blasphemous and lunatic.'"
I believe this summary is Rudy Rucker's from his book "Seek!". It does seem to wrap up consciousness/God/Thou Art Physics into a neat little bundle. A bundle of crazy? Perhaps, but a neat and little one.
"Trying to signal wisdom by refusing to make guesses - refusing to sum up evidence - refusing to pass judgment."
I use this non-committal stalling defense when I have not concluded which response will gain the most / cost the least, or when the question is one I don't want to answer for fear it will diminish my status, or for which I have not yet devised a rationalisation.