Pondering Reality - GameCreators Forum

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xCatalyst

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 01:06

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Well, let me begin by stating that this entire post is going to be completely arbitrary. What I mean by this is to keep an open mind. I'm not trying to see things like 'Nope. NO. Nooo, you're absolutely wrong because you aren't a scientist and I have my head too far up my biased/materialistic --- to comprehend!!!'

Alright, anyway. About the topic: Think about everything proven fact in this world. Now, think about what proves fact to us.

The answer would probably be something dealing with background and testing.

Now what makes up this background? Other apparent 'facts' that people have come up with in the past.

This is where the dilemma persists. For thousands of years, we have been piling this so called factual information on top of other theories and ideas that what if we have everything (Well, obviously maybe not everything) dangerously wrong.

Here's an example for you. What if we had fundamentally built upon, say, the String Theory (The idea that everything is made up of vibrating energy contained within oscillating 'strings'), at the start of science, rather than building from paradigms contained within the Theory, like the idea of matter and atoms. Because we haven't, however, the String Theory may never be proven because aspects of it contradict with these 'facts' that we've established. Now, there are approximately 10^500 (An actual stat, mind you) theories to the String Theory, all because these scientists keep trying to change bits and pieces of it to match what has been recorded for centuries.

Building onto this example, the String Theory proves a great deal of phenomena that occur within the physical world, such as astral projections/out of body experiences which people have, ET interaction with humanity (Could it not be possible that, say, they are vibrating at a higher frequency, thus able to travel at a much greater speed in less time [Time, a man-made idea, yet so fundamental in much scientific research]), and many more, including ideas of the afterlife/what happens to you after you die.

Anyway, I'd like to hear what you guys think about this idea. Sorry if it is a little confusing, I'm honestly not trying to mindfreak anybody haha, just trying to clear whats been picking at my brain lately.

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Kezzla

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 06:02

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ok, I'll bite.

I have spent a lot of time wondering the same kinds of things. My current thought is deceivingly complex and open to interpretation.

Quote: "Think about everything proven fact in this world. Now, think about what proves fact to us. "

My current position revolves around point of contact for information input. When I look out into the universe, the "real world" out there is mirrored within my mind so to speak. I came to realize that although I am surrounded by a world, galaxy and universe, as far out as my mind can reach, the same exists within my mind, furthermore the only one of these two mirrored elements that I have every actually experienced is the one re-created within my mind.
Which lead me to wonder, If every piece of information that I grasp about the universe exists within my mind, what information do I possess that can prove that the other external part of the universe actually exists.
How can I prove that the universe exists, using information that has not first passed through my mind?
When faced with this question I was forced to concede that I actually had no evidence of anything existing outside of my own mind.
The logical conclusion is that the only thing that I can actually prove to exist is my own consciousness.
If i am to trust evidence and logic, then I am the only thing that exists. So, basically, I am the universe.

While this is logical and true, my human mind is not satisfied with leaving it there.

I can see that the point of contact for input is the senses. this is the perceived bridge between the mind and the conciousness.
So what is the difference between mind and consciousness?
Mind is information, consciousness is the reading head.

if information and a receiver are both moving in the same direction at the same rate, there is zero input.
This leads me to believe that consciousness is exclusively Stillness. and the mind is movement.
I being the consciousness am the anchored point of reference. I am the the part that is still.
remove all movement and the stillness remains.
There is no way to remove stillness, it is needed to define movement.

so my consciousness has to be nothing in order to perceive something... and I can think imagine anything I want.

That being said, I still play this human/real world/universe game with full enthusiasm.

I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.

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easter bunny

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 06:47 Edited at: 2nd May 2013 06:52

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Some ancient philosopher said that the only evidence that anything exists is

Quote: "I think therefore I am"

It's possible that everything is an illusion, like the Matrix, in fact, this would explain many things, for instance, the first law* of Thermodynamics state that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. The second states the the total amount of useable energy in a closed system will constantly decrease.
The first law means that the universe cannot be eternal (going forever)
The universe is one huge big closed system, now the fact that there is still useable energy [which must be constantly decreasing] means that there must have been more energy in the past, not less, but because the universe cannot be eternal, this poses a paradox.
It's like a truck rolling down a hill, it can't have been rolling forever unless the the hill is infinite Km's high, (impossible by the first law), but according to the second law, it can't have put itself up there to start rolling, the fact that it's rolling right now means that something supernatural** must have placed it at the top of the hill.
The useable energy in this universe is like that truck rolling, it can't be forever and it's going to stop someday.
Something beyond the closed system (truck, gravity, and hill | universe, and Law) must have put that truck up there in the first place (petrol, and driver)

This is undeniable evidence for the existence of 'something more', whether it's God, another scientific law, or we're really in a computer sim like in the Matrix, well, I'll leave that to you.***

*a scientific law is something that all observations ever have supported and none have gone against it, over a period of hundreds of years. Gravity for instance
references:
**Supernatural, lit: 'above natural', something beyond the known laws of the universe, not necessarily God. Could be something like another scientific law that we don't know about

***I realise that this post could possibly go against AUP 3.7 or AUP 3.9. But I have reasoned against this, as the conclusions from this post are entirely from scientific reasoning, it's not going against 3.9. Though I admit the possibility of this being a 'tangent of religion' [3.7] due to the mention of supernatural, even though it's from scientific premises.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

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Dark Java Dude 64

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 06:58 Edited at: 2nd May 2013 07:03

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This has sparked some interesting thought I have had lately.

Basically, my thought goes on the idea that literally any question at all can ultimately be boiled down to an unanswered physics question. Why does A happen? Because B happens. So why does B happen? Because C happens, and it goes on and on infinitely. Eventually you get to a point where you can no longer explain why things happen, because we can't infinitely explain things.

Why did you eat so much pizza? That question could be answered by facts we know about how the brain works and psychology. This could further boil down to things pertaining to neural science, then to cell science, molecular science, and ultimately various physics related phenomena would be explaining all of the higher level questions. Again, you'd reach a point where you would need explanations you don't have. So maybe we do have good reason to gorge ourselves on pizza after all! We just need the physicists to tell us so.

Basically what I'm getting to is that there is no question that is fully answered. It also makes you wonder, will there ever come a discovery that answers everything? Or will forever all explanations of phenomena be phenomena themselves and require further explanations? This forms a very interesting paradox.

I don't think the human brain would be able to understand something and simply require no further explanation. This of course assumes 'just because' isn't a valid explanation. When something is explained or understood, out brain interprets that as 'A happens because B happens', but again, B happens, and we need to know why that is too. In order to explain a phenomena, we must state that it occurs because another phenomena occurs, but all phenomena must be explained by further phenomena.

Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that all phenomena must be explained by other phenomena.

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Wolf

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 07:14 Edited at: 2nd May 2013 07:28

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I'm surprised that this conversation happens in this particular forum. Positively surprised.

Quote: "
Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that all phenomena must be explained by other phenomena."

This reminds me of a little kid that keeps asking "why" no matter what you answer.

Quote: "The universe is one huge big closed system"

How do you know that? How do you know it is not in constant contact with another system...many other systems?

I would like to partake into this thread but I have to restrain as my english does not suffice to clearly express myself

Its a shame because I have an entire library dedicated to this subject.

-Wolf

http://www.serygalacaffeine.com
Without struggle,no progress and no result.Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.

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easter bunny

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 08:55 Edited at: 2nd May 2013 10:08

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Quote: "How do you know that? How do you know it is not in constant contact with another system...many other systems?"

firstly, there has never been any evidence for another system, and also, even if there were, unless it's got different scientific laws, I'd just increase the size of the closed system, after all, if you've got a sealed room, it's closed off, if you've got a sealed room with a doorway into another sealed room, it's still sealed off from the outside, just bigger.
there is no evidence that there is an outside either.
Of course, there could be. If the Universe is like a sealed room, there could be an outside, but we could never detect it (other dimension etc), so we're still sealed off anyway.

edit: I do realise that's circular reasoning btw

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TheComet

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 10:08

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Quote: "The second states the the total amount of useable energy in a closed system will constantly decrease."

Is this true? I thought energy couldn't be destroyed (which you stated to be the first law), and now you are contradicting yourself?

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the term "usable" in this context.

TheComet

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Libervurto

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 14:07

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Quote: "Some ancient philosopher said... "I think therefore I am""

That was René Descartes (1596-1650), you might have heard the phrase in Latin, "Cognito ergo sum", which I think is more poetic.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific method. It is true that new research and theories are based on older theories, but all theories stand or fall on their ability to make accurate predictions. It is not sufficient to state theory D because of theory A, B and C; theory D must support itself.

Like you say, it is actually possible that our fundamental understanding of the universe is false, but this isn't as damming as it sounds. While we can be fundamentally mistaken, the truth cannot be radically different to that which is purported by science. You mention atoms, and for centuries we had almost zero understanding of what an atom was, that is evident by the name: "atom" means indivisible particle but we now know about subatomic particles. Our fundamental concepts of many things, including atoms, have changed dramatically but this doesn't render the science invalid, everything that worked before doesn't stop working because we figured something else out. What does happen is that it opens up new fields of study.

The difficulty in learning is not acquiring new knowledge but relinquishing the old.

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Matty H

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 16:37

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Quote: "Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the term "usable" in this context."

Yeah, energy does not get destroyed but it goes from usable to non usable over time.

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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 18:58 Edited at: 2nd May 2013 19:01

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Factoid about Rene Descartes, he used to meditate in an oven. Can't remember where I heard it though. Personally, I prefer the ideas of Kant and later, Wittgenstein, because Rene Descartes was one of those philosophers, like the greek philosophers who felt knowledge could be obtained via thought. It was why Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason, because he was saying, "hang on a minute, you need a little more than that". He opens his book with the statement, "All knowledge begins with experience". And he distinguishes 2 types of knowledge, 'a priori', which is independent of experience and 'a posteriori', which is dependent on experience. He considered 'a priori' to be cognitive. Though he was not purely an empiricist. Personally, if it can't be measured, then I can really validate it.

Howeber, I find the important thing about evidence is that it allows use to test our claims. With theories they are there to be tested, pulled apart and put back together again and a good theory will be able to be adjusted upon the discovery of new evidence. With evidence, you are getting results, you are getting answers and find things are working. We strengthen its flaws the more we learn. I mean, one of the great sciences is medical science, it follows the same process of verification as any other science and its results are hugely beneficial and show that the process works. We see this with other sciences. It's a lot more confusing when we start looking away from the present and the parts of the universe we are unable to interact with. For some, it would be equated to guess-work, but claims are still being tested.

I think the issue with reality is that we don't necessarily grasp it at its fullest extent because we understand very little and yet we know a lot. Reality itself is extremely complicated and how we understand and interpret it is a long winded processes that progressively changes based on new information. At least it's how it works for me.

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Diggsey

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Posted: 2nd May 2013 19:35

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A good example of what happens is Newtonian physics. By your definition Newtonian physics is "wrong" and yet large amounts of physics have been based on it, and we still use Newtonian physics today.

The mistake is thinking this is a problem - Newtonian physics may not capture the full picture (eg. relativity) but no science captures the full picture, that's not the point. The aim is to understand some small part of the picture, and then this can be used to predict the future behaviour of a system.

When it's said that science builds on previous theories, what it usually means is that under certain conditions the new theory reduces to the old theory. Special relativity at non-relativistic speeds reduces to Newtonian physics.

All that's required to safely build on a theory is for the old theory to be approximately correct in some situations, and for all theories which have been scientifically proved this is the case.

To take your example, for us to be able to build on string theory, it's first necessary to be able to use string theory to make a correct prediction about the world. To the best of my knowledge string theory has not yet been able to make any verifiable predictions, so we can't very well build on it.

Science is not like maths where you start with a core set of axioms and then build on that, and any mistake in a proof will corrupt any maths based on that proof. To some extent it works the other way around.

In science you start off with something completely wrong (the earth is flat, we see by rays being emitted from our eyes, etc.) and then through an iterative process of forming hypotheses and testing them through experimentation, the correctness of science improves over time.

The reason maths does not suffer from this problem is that it retains its history. Once you prove something you don't forget the process by which it was proved, so it's relatively easy to go back and verify it. Verifying a proof can be a completely automated process so it's easy to trace any part of maths back to the axioms on which it was based verifying correctness along the way.

[b]

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easter bunny

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Posted: 3rd May 2013 05:27

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Quote: "I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific method."

The scientific method isn't what's so important here. Some things are simply true (2+2=4), science isn't one of these though, it can't 'prove' anything, just provide a huge amount of evidence for it.
The Laws of thermodynamic have never been observed to be broken, and there's no evidence that they've ever been broken (except the evidence so far given, that they have to have been broken)
This means that you can practically use it as proof, even though it's not 100% certain.
you don't have to understand why it happens, just that it does

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Neuro Fuzzy

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Posted: 3rd May 2013 11:04

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Quote: "but no science captures the full picture, that's not the point."

I agree with the first part, but I think the second part is a bit dismissive, because of course we've "learned" (in quotes in respect to the rest of the argument/points here ;D ) from physics a HUGE amount about the reality [that we perceive], and I think most of the really inspired physicists ARE trying to figure out stuff about reality, and that saying that physics aims at pragmatism (understanding part of a system to predict future behavior) isn't that true.

Quote: "The Laws of thermodynamic have never been observed to be broken"

Well... to my [second-hand, heard it from the minutephysics/veritasium guys on a youtube hangout I watched] knowledge, on short timescales entropy can decrease, it just increases with overwhelming probability on a macroscopic scale. But I get your point.

Quote: "String Theory proves a great deal of phenomena that occur within the physical world, such as astral projections/out of body experiences which people have, ET interaction with humanity"

uhhh... no...

Quote: "Time, a man-made idea"

Not sure what this means. "Man-made" in terms of how absolutely 100% everything in the universe might be man-made, or man-made in the literal sense, as opposed to, say, the earth and planets? From a layman's perspective it's certainly not man-made and not arbitrary in scale, because I could build a machine to tick revolutions of a wheel or number of sunsets or vibrations of an atom, and it would return a 'correct' value whether I go into a coma for 20 years etc. But of course weirdo theorists have different ideas about time, so that it is possible to envision time not existing at all. But still calling it man-made seems weird.

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