WHY does anything exist?
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I said not all categorizations would be valid in the context of *this* discussion. The *validity* of mine is the point at issue. If you got the impression that I am proclaiming it as a non-negotiable truth - then I need to learn the English Language better so as not to cause erroneous interpretations.
Let me reiterate once more - all that I am saying are statements arising from my understanding. Their *truth* or otherwise is what is being discussed here. If you got the impression that I am behaving like an idiot proclaiming that my version alone is the *truth* - that's not my idea. I am simply stating my *arguments* and expecting a healthy discussion with the possibility of arriving at some *insights* even if not *firm conclusions*
If you start giving me synonyms for reality - facts, truths et al - they cannot be contested. So yes, facts are true by definition.
I'm enlightened.
Yeah it's somewhat like saying - since my own eyes can never really *see* my own back side so the latter wouldn't exist. That's what I call bashing an argument to death without understanding its soul. But never mind.
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I was talking about the dreamless state. There are three states which are typically encountered - the waking state, dream state and the deep dreamless state. I am talking about the third one. Lucid or horrendous dreaming therefore is out of the question.
So you want to posit a truth which is NOT CONTINUOUS, UNBROKEN AND ETERNAL. So that means it's like the quantum phenomenon which some others have pointed to earlier - somewhat akin to Heiseberg's uncertainty principle - it exists - or does it???
If you disagree with my contention of truth - how about offering alternatives if you have any? Or may be you maintain that there is no such thing as truth or reality anyway - on which I would say that by the same token there wouldn't be any *truth* to it either.
You're essentially saying that there is undeniable evidence that reality exists independently of our perception of it. This should be the cornerstone of all your thinking. Stick with it and reason everything else out from there because you'll find it all makes so much more sense that way.
Consider this. The physical universe is a mind-bogglingly intricate system that is based on natural laws which can be modeled mathematically and I would guess that there are at least some things that you don't understand about it yet that physicists do. But at any point you can decide to learn something new about the universe that you didn't know before. But where does that new information come from?
If you had the time, the inclination and the considerable ability that would be required to learn all there was to know about quantum mechanics, you could. All you'd need to do is to properly assimilate all of the information that has been already collected. The end result would be a new understanding of and appreciation for the nature of reality. But if such information doesn't initially exist independently of your own mind then it leads us to the rather problematic conclusion that you already know everything that can possibly be known, including everything that will become known in the future. Essentially you'd have to have a complete and perfectly functional simulation of the entire universe going on in your head.
Physical reality possesses the quality of being actually real. This is why we can learn about it and why people seem to agree (for the most part) on what we learn about it. People also die all the time (unfortunately). Even physicists (perhaps even more unfortunately). But none of them have taken physical reality along with them (fortunately). If you believe that you'll take physical reality along with you when you die, then that can only mean that I only exist as part of the aforementioned simulation going on in your mind (very unfortunate for me). The real question then becomes this: what the fuck is the point of having this discussion?
We are typically not functioning at a high enough level of consciousness to ponder complex philosophical questions when we are sleeping (almost all other lifeforms on the planet would be incapable of "determining" anything about the nature of existence even when fully awake) . But again, the universe still functions perfectly in spite of that. The only "truth" that I can speak of that is relevant to the discussion at hand is that the universe existed before I was born, it exists while I am sleeping and it will continue to exist after I die.
Perfect. And WE (stripped off of the body, mind, sense complex we seem to carry) are exactly THAT reality. People will jump at this and ask me to prove it. The proof is not easy - but can be recognized. Or may be not. But I do.
Trust me - aside from the fact that you rather specifically point that "I" don't understand some things about the physical universe that physicists already do - I whole heartedly agree with you. Leave alone me and the physicists - NO ONE understands the universe but only parts of it.
Sure - rest assured. I am indefatigable when it comes to learning.
I have the time and inclination for sure. Ability is something which can be gained with effort - which I am employing here. I don't profess to be quite the expert at anything. I am a student and I love it that way. If one thinks he knows enough... well that's a dead give away for his ignorance anyway.
You wouldn't think my ramblings are devoid of any material understanding about the functioning universe already? You think I am shooting in the dark? You also seem to convey to me that I am oblivous to Physics (quantum or otherwise).
I am surprised and a bit aghast I daresay that what I have been saying thus far leads to a conclusion like this. What I am saying is that every *experience* requires the *experiencer* and it is the *experiencer* I reckon is the reality. The *experienced* could well be *simulation*. It is this precisely that I am trying to uncover.
I understand Reality to be the thing that exists Permanently - unconditioned by space and time. All other things are mere *specks* that appear with a definite life span and are gone. And all these other things would include every manifest and unmanifest thing comprising the universe or multiverse or whatever. It would include all the fancy quarks, mesons, protons and so forth and the big blackholes and the whole space time warp.
Like I said before - that's stretching the argument too far. Whether it is a simulation or a reality in its own right is what I am trying to understand. You guys seem to carry not a shred of doubt regarding its reality. I do.
No denying that - whether reality is physical or not notwithstanding.
Never for once have I doubted the mechanics and outcome of all such learning.
There's no telling for sure anyway... is there?
Well...
Forget about *complex* philosophical questions. We have enough of them in our waking state anyway. My objective is to lead you away from those complexities and urge you to look at the simplicity of that *entity* which I am so laboriously trying to highlight - something which is the very *truth* of our *being* (again not a statement of absolute truth - but something which I have come to understand).
Yes the universe functions perfectly (God knows what that "perfectly" is - unless you are talking about galaxies and stars which seem to exist in some pattern - which again we are only *trying* to understand and are no where near to perfection in terms of understanding them).
The universe existed before, is existing now and will continue to exist - who can deny that. That's what all our learning and experience and inference tells us. It is to add a new dimension to this understanding that my efforts were focussed on. But anyway.
Thank you for taking the pains to discuss. Really, I mean it.
I don't have a problem with the notion that consciousness and physical reality might be inextricably linked somehow. Many philosophers and even some physicists have suggested to very same thing (consciousness sans personality, emotion, sensation, thought etc). But the suggestion that consciousness is reality carries with it difficulties that are insurmountable if we are trying to formulate a consistent view of reality.
I wasn't intending for you to interpret it that way. There are many things "I" don't understand either.
Again, the physicist Eugene Wigner believed something similar; that it was impossible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent manner without reference to consciousness. It's known to some as the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation of QM in which everything in the universe is always in a superposition of possible states until a conscious observation takes place at which point it is forced into a definite single state.
While this is a seemingly outrageous notion that most physicists don't really take seriously it does deserve some consideration. But it is still fundamentally different from what you're saying in the sense that Wigner wasn't suggesting that consciousness is reality, he was suggesting that consciousness plays the critical role in determining definite states of existence.
To illustrate the difference further, let's pick on the moon again. Wigner might suggest that the moon exists in the state that it's in now (rather than a superposition of possible states) because someone has observed it. But he was not suggesting that all of the matter and energy that the moon is made up of never existed until that point in time. It always existed somewhere in the universe in one form or another. You seem to be suggesting (and please correct me if I am wrong) that the moon, including all of the matter and energy that it is made up of, doesn't exist at all unless someone is there to observe it.
Having said all that it really needs to be clearly pointed out once more that Wigners interpretation is highly controversial and most physicists favour more consistent and less problematic interpretations of quantum mechanics. If you haven't already it might be useful to ponder some of them. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
My goal at this point was in part to uncover precisely what it is that you actually believe because it's not really clear to me.
But you are not saying that these things exist independently of our perception of them?
I really don't want to be appear to be throwing a statement of conversion argumentative fallacy at you by saying this, but I have indeed engaged in an exhaustive process of philosophical exploration concerning the true nature of reality. I've rejected the idea that physical reality itself is in any way subjective. I do not think the existence of an electron, or a neutron, or a quark, or a photon, or any of the natural laws that govern the behaviour of any particle or form of energy in our universe is in any way dependent on me for it's existence. I believe that the universe does and always has existed independently of observation by a personal consciousness and that while consciousness itself is certainly a feature of reality it is only one of many features of reality.
This grounded view is the result of learning more and more about what we do know about the nature of reality and forming an appreciation for just how much more sense everything makes if we make the single basic assumption that all of the beauty and harmony of modern physics and mathematics springs forth from.
You should start another thread about that. I think it's beyond the scope of this current discussion.
You're welcome
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I exist.
I'm posting on SciForums, while drinking a mug of coffee. The sun is shining through my window and the birds are singing.
Which of those is:
Not true?
Continuous?
Unbroken?
Eternal?
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Everyone of those entities is perishable - is conditioned by time and space and will resolve into whence it came. Though at the moment you were executing the act - it appeared to be continuous, unbroken - though I am surprised you would reckon it to be *eternal*
Regards
dwivedys:
But: Your continued reply to Rav:
If someone claims there's an elephant in their refrigerator it is only required to show that a large object doesn't fit inside a small one, not say "Well maybe it's a tiger disguised as an elephant".
You said:
And your reply:Rav said:
Note that "my bashing an argument to death without understanding its soul" leads to Rav's contention (which I don't disagree with).
But: Your continued reply to Rav:
Appears to conflict with:
Is a proof not a truth? If it is then you are, on the one hand, claiming that your statements ARE true (and therefore not up for discussion as to veracity) and on the other you're implying that it's NOT true (and therefore you have no proof) and you are looking for discussion.
Oh, fail: if you're making a claim that something is true then you have to show that it is true. I don't need to provide alternatives to disprove you, only to show that your claim is not true to invalidate the premise.
If someone claims there's an elephant in their refrigerator it is only required to show that a large object doesn't fit inside a small one, not say "Well maybe it's a tiger disguised as an elephant".
Exactly. Not continuous or eternal or unbroken
But they are (or were at the time) true.
I don't reckon it to be eternal (how did you think that I do). That was my point.
I was showing that the quote of yours I gave was incorrect.
Dear Rav,
You've gotten the crux of the argument. Thank you.
Let me step aside from the seer seen relationship for a moment and talk about the reality of those entities that you insist exist regardless and independently of the observer.
Let's talk about a piece of metal - say a copper glass. We all know from elementary and advanced physics what lies underneath the veneer of the shape of the copper glass. Once you start peeling layer after layer starting from the copper atom and going down to the nucleus, electrons etc - we find a continous web of particles ..
Now recall the debroglie principle which relates the wavelength of any particle as being inversely proportional to the speed of light (or the speed of the particle in macroscopic scale).
We also know that Energy is directly proportional to frequency
So in equations - E = h * v (where h = planck's constant and v is the frequency)
now -> v = c/w where c = speed of light and w is wavelength. (don't know how to type the symbol Lambda - a more accepted symbol for wavelength)
So E = h * c/w
Now to observe any particle (within the limits set by heisenberg's uncertainty principle) one needs to bombard the particle with light whose wavelength must be similar (of the same order of magnitude to be precise) to the size of the particle being observed.
Since E is inversely proportional to wavelength - it has the implication that provided that you have large enough energy source you can keep observing smaller and smaller particles. No doubt with the advent of modern physics with humongous energy at our disposal (massive particle accelerators) smaller and smaller particles would theoretically keep on getting discovered starting from the electron itself. I don't need to reiterate how many such small particles were since discovered post the discovery of electron.
The obvious outcome of this situation is that there is *no limit* as to how small a particle we can observe in the limiting case of energy tending to infinity. So technically there would be achieved a point in time where we will end up with *nothing* - as in no particle --- or simply just a void. Stephen Hawkins has remarked this point in his work - A brief history of time. It's almost like peeling the onion layer after layer and not finding anything inside.
And all this while - who can actually question the reality of the copper tumbler or glass we so faithfully and confidently agree "exists" in its own right; however, as demonstrated above - what essentially constitutes it underneath the veneer of it is simply *pure energy*. Nothing else but energy.
Think about it...
You've gotten the crux of the argument. Thank you.
Let me step aside from the seer seen relationship for a moment and talk about the reality of those entities that you insist exist regardless and independently of the observer.
Let's talk about a piece of metal - say a copper glass. We all know from elementary and advanced physics what lies underneath the veneer of the shape of the copper glass. Once you start peeling layer after layer starting from the copper atom and going down to the nucleus, electrons etc - we find a continous web of particles ..
Now recall the debroglie principle which relates the wavelength of any particle as being inversely proportional to the speed of light (or the speed of the particle in macroscopic scale).
We also know that Energy is directly proportional to frequency
So in equations - E = h * v (where h = planck's constant and v is the frequency)
now -> v = c/w where c = speed of light and w is wavelength. (don't know how to type the symbol Lambda - a more accepted symbol for wavelength)
So E = h * c/w
Now to observe any particle (within the limits set by heisenberg's uncertainty principle) one needs to bombard the particle with light whose wavelength must be similar (of the same order of magnitude to be precise) to the size of the particle being observed.
Since E is inversely proportional to wavelength - it has the implication that provided that you have large enough energy source you can keep observing smaller and smaller particles. No doubt with the advent of modern physics with humongous energy at our disposal (massive particle accelerators) smaller and smaller particles would theoretically keep on getting discovered starting from the electron itself. I don't need to reiterate how many such small particles were since discovered post the discovery of electron.
The obvious outcome of this situation is that there is *no limit* as to how small a particle we can observe in the limiting case of energy tending to infinity. So technically there would be achieved a point in time where we will end up with *nothing* - as in no particle --- or simply just a void. Stephen Hawkins has remarked this point in his work - A brief history of time. It's almost like peeling the onion layer after layer and not finding anything inside.
And all this while - who can actually question the reality of the copper tumbler or glass we so faithfully and confidently agree "exists" in its own right; however, as demonstrated above - what essentially constitutes it underneath the veneer of it is simply *pure energy*. Nothing else but energy.
Think about it...
If it appears to you that I am claiming my side of the story to be the sole truth - you are mistaken. You are reading my lines too clinically. I said this is what I *consider* to be the truth - in other words my version of it.
It's up for discussion regardless of what *I* consider to be the truth or else I wouldn't have been wasting mine or the readers' time by going on and on.
I may end up dropping the notion if I am convinced what you guys are saying is indeed a better version of the so called truth. Either way, that's the understanding of the *soul* of the discussion I was referring to rather than clinically analyzing semantics of my verbiage.
Learn to respect that other people *may* carry some amount of intelligence and may have a distinct possibility of understanding that it is usually the claimant on whom the onus of proving his claim lies. The others simply have to deny it by citing instances where the claim appears to go contrary to established notions around it.
Thank you.
Thanks! In other words, *fundamental* things are *simply what they are* and all others can be expressed relativistically with the datum being things at their elemental levels...
That's a good way of taming the inevitable ...
Did you, or did you not, write:
Do you have a proof?
And here again you appear to failing to get the point.
You will drop your point of view if you can find a "better" version of "the truth"? What would you do if no one comes up with a "better" version but merely shows that your view is NOT the "truth"?
Either way, you failed to recognise my argument for what it was.
You're arguing my point here, in direct contrast to YOUR request to me -
You have said that you
which means that you're aware you're being misinterpreted (somewhere) yet you persist in repeating things that have been pointed as as source of misinterpretation of your aim.
I suggest that you spend more time formulating your replies and then re-read them before posting.
For example saying there is a proof, especially one that you recognise, is NOT compatible with it being up for discussion as simply your point of view.
And you have failed so far to respond my refutation of truth being eternal etc.
For Philosophers who believe that the physical world exists independently of an observer, the double slit experiment produces a real problem.
What occurs depends on whether anyone, or anything is measuring the events.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/W/wave-particle_duality.html
What occurs depends on whether anyone, or anything is measuring the events.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/W/wave-particle_duality.html
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Theoretical physics proposes something just as interesting. That the fundamental building blocks of physical reality are mind-bogglingly tiny quanta of energy oscillating in multiple mind-bogglingly tiny dimensions and that it is the mode of oscillation that gives each particle it's particular properties. String Theory has the added benefit of not violating a well known law of physics like yours does, as pointed out by Dywyddyr.
Aside from all that, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at anyway. Are you arguing that because all of physical reality is actually nothing more than pure energy that it is all an illusion? I will not deny that almost all of the macroscopic reality that we experience can be said to be an illusion in one way or another, but an illusion is very different from an apparition. Energy is physical reality. Everything we see is a manifestation of that energy. Things may not always essentially be what they appear to be, but everything always does exist, and as we learn more and more those illusions disappear and are replaced by theories that describe what things actually are.
Oh that was a brillaint experiment. The very act of observing the electron caused it to pass through one of the slits and produce a dot as opposed to unobserved case where the single electron still produced a regular interference pattern - similar to the plate having been bombarded with a regular electron steam... Thanks for bringing this one up...
There is no problem there at all. When no measurement is taking place the photon (or electron if that's the version we're doing) may very well sniff out every possible path in the entire universe on it's way through but that's very different from saying that the photon (or electron) doesn't exist at all when no measurement is taking place. Everything in the universe always exists, in one form or another. Measurement simply forces definite outcomes.
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