It Smells like Pussy in here...I Think

Quantum Quack:

This would not seem to be the case, no? For assuming that an outside exists in one's "virtual reality", it stands to reason that one could find someway to access it.

TheoryOfRelativity:

The enjoyment of dreams aside (as I must say: I too love to have hot, steamy, naughty sex with Jude Law) let me tackle this:

A perceptual reality neither takes into consideration necessary truths (which are not limited to sensory data) nor does it take into consideration that if our senses really were just "figments of our imagination", it stands to reason that our senses would lead us to our doom very often. That is, if our model if reality is not stunningly accurate and reflective of real reality, then why are we not dead from falling of cliffs and the like?

Yet atoms are themselves manifestations of properties. Mass, charge, that sort of thing. Remove mass, charge, energy, et cetera, from an atom and is there anything left?

Light exists, however, at certain wavelengths does it not? And when a certain wavelength is reflected back, do not we call that thing coloured? And if light is the foundation of colour, and our experience of that colour is linked to light, then it stands to reason that our qualia perception of colour is accurate.

Well here's the thing: If our minds are geared twoards the real world, whyever would our qualia deceive us? Even with a minor suspectibility to tricks of light, we can accord at least a reaonably high level of verification with our senses. And again, the senses manifest because of actual, physical things. It is not merely concocted.

Quantum Quack:

Is it reasonable or justified to presume that things go differently when we do not see them?

 

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say an sci fi example scenario,
One day science discovered that Gold is indeed able to be used to produce a form of electricity not unlike how an iron magnet can be used. They discover that what we have only been able to detect in the past is only magnetic fields that have a relationship with iron and that once the technology was found it was realised that all matter has the ability to generate and manifest fields that have no necessary iron relationship.
Thus new forms of "eletricity" were discovered. Energies that had surprising qualities and attributes beyond the rudimentary iron related electrical energies.

When looking back at the history of Egypt and in particular the use of gold in buildings and artifacts new concepts of energy conservation and use were found to be evident even though they were in use so many years earlier.

so yes It is always IMO safer to assume ignorance than knowledge. A position of intellectual humility if you want.

 

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Of course this shows clearly the motivation behind the question.
PJ Do you really want to know?
How much suffering are you prepared to endure to find out the answer?
Are you prepared to loose the very reason for the search in the first place that being the reality you hope exists rather than the reality that actualy exists?

No need to answer, the questions are just prods and thought provokers

 

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another fictional [or is it?] example.

It was found towards the end of the year 2006 that a poster on sci forums called quantum quack was actually posting using a entangled link from a location on the other side of the universe. His reasons were revealed as being his desire for cultural exchange and the study of diveristy of intelligent life in the universe......ha...well my avatar has " hello this is Mars calling " but no one believes me.......

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Indeed, which is why I highlighted the section relating to the continuing debate re all this in red. See again here

""The exact nature of color perception beyond the processing already described, and indeed the status of color as a feature of the perceived world or rather as a feature of our perception of the world, is a matter of complex and continuing philosophical dispute (see qualia)."

I assume nothing myself. I am not trained in physics so cannot presume 'know' much of anything.

 

What my dreams have taught me PJ is that

I can 'feel' without touching
I can 'taste' without eating
I can 'see' without opening my eyes
I can 'hear' that which makes no sound.



I don't recall any smells?

THUS

The only reason I ASSUME the waking state is based on something 'real' is the level of continuity which of course dreams do not possess. Now if it was the case that dreams did posess continuity, how would I ever know when I asleep or awake?

yes, energy

so energy creates atoms, remove those atoms and energy remains, how do we get rid of energy? Use it? That creates more energy surely.....

 

Some people allegedly can

OR

consider a world which is much more like our dream world, caos, things happenning very randomly and at will too, how do we survive, how would we cope?

WE may,

make it orderly ......

we may

reassemble the information into something more manageable

we may

elliminate uneccessary data, epxerience and the like and keep only that which is necc for our survival

we may do all this with the assistance of devices which restrict the amount of information in put, we may call those 'devices' senses

OR

we may call the waking state 'sleep' and the dream state the state at which we REALLY exist.

 

I do appreciate your openmindedness TOR.
I guess why I mention this issue using yur post as an example is that to me for someone to base a philosophical arguement on a "possible" fraud, that being light theory, one has to acknowledge the limitations of that theory. The post you made demonstrates just how strong the belief in light theory is for many persons.

I have been researching reflective theory for some time and have found thet if one allows for the fact that we are but mere sensory reflectors one can suggest that what we sense must by this virtue be objective. However it is our subjectivity that distorts the reflection we experience within ourselves [ the experience of our own mirror] thus rendering it a subjective interpretation and no longer objective.

However current theory on light disallows such a position and makes for the arguement that everything is subjectively interpreted by our minds as we analyse the light information that enters our eyes and somehow 8 billion minds can agree on this interpretation with amazing accuracy.

So the belief in currently accepted light theory has serious philosophical or metaphysical implications. Yet I find other than exceptional utility no reason to hold this theory to be absolutely true. In fact I have within personal experience every reason to believe it to be false.

For example the question: When experienceing a dream state and you experience the perception of colour, is that colour produced by light? [ in the dream ] or is it just colour and luminousity? Is the dream state subject to information delays as is proposed to be the case in the awaken conscious realms?

If you hold the view that dreams have a real basis then how real is light in a dream?

 

Quantum Quack:

This is rather different than what I was going for. I meant something like "trees don't fall down, they fly up, when they break in a forest which we don't see".

Pardon? Are you saying that the Egyptians used gold wire for electrical purposes?

Quantum QUack, do you so happen to be a sagely black man with a penchant for critical pedagogy? Am I going to see how far this rabbit hole really goes?

But as a philosopher, truth is paramount.

My good man, the Bosa Nova isn't a hallucinogenic drug.

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TheoryOfRelativity:

Indeed. Dreams are fabulous in that regard.

I do believe I have smelled in dreams. However, if I can manage to get a lucid dream, I'll try to find something to smell in it.

Continuity and internal coherence?

Actually, it doesn't create more energy (it uses more energy which in turn becomes unusable in the system but still existent). But that is just a nitpicky thing. Anyway: If we removed the energy (as energy is certainly a property) would we have anything left?

TheoryOfRelativity:

Yet in this disordered reality, could we actually survive by filtering out things? For presumably if holes are opening everywhere and cheese is really a highly intelligent life form bent on human destruction, we'd be dead by now, no?

Quantum Quack:

Just one thing...Might you elaborate on your major qualm with modern photon theory and the like? Because I fail to see what you find most refutable about it?

How real is the unicorn in one's mind?

 

Ha! on the first count and double ha! on the second.....

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To some people in Brazil the Bossa Nova is very much a hallucinogenic stimulant, and quite an erotic one at that....especially listening to it while sitting at a Barraca drinking Skol bear and watching all the G-strings and thongs parading by.....hmmmmm......

 

Ha ha! Yes, yes. I would imagine that!

 

If one for example devotes a life time of work to the discovery of what a unicorn is etc it is very real with very real implications and not just for the imaginer...... say someone devotes his life to any idea or notion, is not the act of serious devotion proof of that ideas reality?

On further thought, [ another example] a person suffering from a paranoid delusion kills someone because he thought the person was a daemon. Obviously the notion of daemon is real enough to cause the death of an innocent person and put that killer in jail or in a locked ward if caught. So how real is the idea of daemon?

Interesting....hmmmm

 

I am reluctant to get to much into it as I decided a while ago to find appropriate evidencial support for my concerns. And due to the nature of the closed logic circle of reflector and reflected this is extremely difficult and has proved unsuccessful thus far. It is similar to the philosophical quest concerning observer and observed but dealing with physical and material evidence rather than ontological or metaphysical evidence.

In other words I believe that physics and philosophy have a similar problem however science is caught up in the excellent utility of existing theory thus holding to a particular view and is extremely reluctant to seek other explanations with out evidence to support such a concern. [ which is fully understandable and to be expected ]

 

But I guess in a nut shell [ Ahh!! sipping coco nut water from a coco nut watching g-strings and thon.....

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..]
The issue for me is really about simultaneity. And how light that travels must by virtue of this travelling generate a theoretical universe that is non-simultaneous. As I know from profound personal experience that the universe is indeed simultaneous this contra to experience theory creates a problem. How I know ......leads to credibility issues therefore I prefer not to get too involved until those issues of credibility are resolved, as the exercise of futility is not one of my favourite past times.

 

Quantum Quack:

Indeed, it is. It shows that our thoughts can have major impacts on us, specifically when the thought is focused upon for a long time.

This may also be the origin of fetishes and totems.

If you develop more of this, do tell me. I'd be interesting in considering it with you.

Quantum Quack, I got a new name for you: Spooky Action at a Distance.

 

ahh!! so you know about some of my personal experience then....ha....

nothing spooky about it but yes the fear of these things effects us all.

If you thought the abilities depicted in the X-men series of movies are strange, have I got news for you......!!!ha

 

All right, professor Xavier!

 

back in 3 hours
have some Bossa Nova and For-ru to listen to....

 

We'll discuss things tonight!

 

Professor Xavier was a pussy......ha...appropriate comment for this thread hey?