geordief

Why does there have to be one meaning of life ?Why can there not be a multitude? Why can these meanings not evolve with time?

How can you prove a negative?

I was asking you. I am not claiming anything . I just want to know what people mean when they say things. But one of the meanings. (or implied meaning) of "meaning" is consequence, I think If a thing has a "meaning" then it has a purpose ,or some destination. "Meaning" can also be used in the sense of the "meaning of a word" but I don't think this is the sense that applies to the "meaning" of life

So "meaning" means "consequence" here? (amongst other things)

What do you "mean" ?

What is the meaning of "meaning"? (in this context) What is the meaning of "life" ? (it could be "a life" or "the collection of lives" etc) EDIT: What is the meaning of words anyway ?What is the relationship of words to reality? EDIT#2 Is it words that give meaning to human existence?

I see someone has given me a red negative mark for this post of mine . Can he or she explain a bit why they do not like or agree with what I wrote? I did ask a question and attempted to answer it in the sense that the "body" requires defining......

Yes and I have tried to achieve it with lucid dreaming(you may have heard of the technique) . But I must lack good powers of imagination as I had to give up. But your point as to the inability to actually gain useful information convinces me that it is smoke and mirrors. EDIT: actually ,although I cannot find the link there have been recent improvements in visually recording dreams and this technology might be applied to people reporting "out of body" experiences as it would enable a comparison to be made between what they thought they saw and what was actually going on in their brains at the time.

How do you define "body"? If I am watching television I am using "out of body eyes" and if I am a surgeon I can perform operations on and even feel patients - potentially even on the moon (with some delay).

Christopher Reeve ?

I would also be interested if someone could flesh that out a little,especially the "curved space" bit. Is this one of Einstein's thought experiments?

aha ! (actually I now see my question in post #5 was framed illogically-I gave 2 complimentary "alternatives" and plumped for the "former" as if it was the opposite of the "latter") You have cleared it up for me ,though. Can we say,then that the effect is "frame dependent" or does that go too far?

If these waves are strong enough would they potentially break the bonds that hold the material they pass through together? Or would the material itself notice nothing and the effect would only be measurable to an observer at a remove ?(I am guessing definitely the former -it is like a bomb passing through like an express train at the speed of c) What size of a source would be required ,I wonder for a destructive force to be observed? From the same article: "Having an observatory in space would enable the detection of gravitational waves of different frequencies to those sensed on the ground, including the warping generated by mergers of truly gargantuan black holes - ones that are many millions, even billions, of times the mass of our Sun."

Sorry to harp on about this but is it equally correct to say that these gravitational waves are "alternately squeezing and stretching the space they pass through" as it is to say that they are "alternately squeezing and stretching the spacetime" they are passing through? The former description is from the BBC website: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36540254 The first way is how I see it described in this story but I always feel that "space" is short for"spacetime" but am I wrong and is "space" indeed the correct description in this case?

Here you go ,mon pote http://french.typeit.org/ Just copy and paste-any language ,even Greek.

You are talking about curvature caused by mass/energy , are you ? So you are not talking about Special Relativity where as I understand it curvature is not a feature ? Is my point a valid one ,then ?You would still have to have had a (different) theory of Relativity even if the speed of light had not been observed to be constant in all frames of reference? By the way ,is it true that Maxwell had actually predicted in his equations for electro-magnetism that the speed of light would be the same in all FoRs ? If so should/could Michelson and Morley not have realized they were wasting their time? EDIT:We cross posted . I will look at your post now.

Is it correct to say that the 3 dimensional model is less accurate than the 4 dimensional model or is it possible to say that each is equally accurate depending on their area of applicability? I would have assumed that the 4-D model included the 3-D model (Russian doll style) whereas the 3-D model was inherently incomplete. Is this just semantics(?) or fundamentally important? Even if light had not been constant would space and time not have still been linked together? Does not any measurement presuppose a time taken to make it? If light did not exist as a method of communication then would we not rely upon some other method?

So a So a( incomplete part of a ) model rather than an attempt to describe an aspect of reality? Is that fair? To my mind you cannot disentangle space and time but does there need to be a term that describes separation between "objects" or do we just accept that (in layman's terms) " empty space" is "full" ?

When I come across the term "space" and the term "spacetime" am I right that they refer to different things ? Can they ever mean the same thing ? (I would not be surprised that ,if the user of the term did not understand the subject then that confusion would be expected) Would there be a generally accepted distinction between the two terms or would it depend on the context in which they are used? My inclination would be that "spacetime" would refer to the "spacetime" model that Einstein theorized and which has so far held up to scrutiny. "Space" on the other hand I would associate with a layman's appreciate of what apparently exists between "things" (not events) Is my understanding more or less correct? Or does "space" also have a well defined meaning within Relativity Theory that would be distinct from "spacetime"

Thank you very much for your detailed attention to my post. I hesitate to answer before I am at least able understand the points you are making and how they apply to what I was trying to say. I will have to give it a bit of time and then perhaps I will be able to answer. I will only answer,though if I feel that I have gained a preliminary understanding of the points you have raised as it is not helpful to anyone for me to add confusion on top of my initial confusion. It does look interesting though. You did ask me a specific question or two but I still prefer to also leave that till later (if I feel that I can formulate a decent response)

If someone was permanently attached to a recorder and was able to access these recordings in a way that made some kind of a direct sensory impression could it be a way of jogging the memory? You know sometimes you have a "tip of the tongue" experience and your mind searches around for something to associate what it is you are looking for with? If you knew the time that was relevant to the item you were trying to dredge up in your mind ,could you play back these mental recordings and the memory would not be "tip of the tongue " any more but you would have ,so to speak "bridged the gap". I am not suggesting you could "listen into" these recordings but that they might perhaps still work as an "aide-memoire".

I don't think so .If I have rightly understood the method you refer to is a bit like tree grafting. The "method" I am suggesting is to start with a ,,one dimensional (I was thinking of a 3-dimensional .object but clearly if I can't start with 1 dimension then there is no point) This one dimensional object (a straight line) is a set of points with perhaps 2 extremities . Next we introduce an "exclusion zone " ( a gap) which forces the other points in the set to configure themselves around it in a continuous,organized way -a bit like the way the surface of running water deviates around a rock projecting from the water..They can stretch to any shape provided there is this gap .And the "gap" can increase to any size and shape also. Once this new configuration is made it may be possible to introduce a second gap in the same way and that would give a new , more complex one dimensional topology. This process would work in exactly the same way for any-dimensional object and the "gap" or "exclusion zone" would be correspondingly dimensional giving any amount of n-dimensional topologies. Now I realize this may be seriously (and perhaps laughably ) flawed but that is what I had in mind By the way I would be interested to know how we can define when 2 (or more?) points are close or closest to each other in these circumstances.

I don't approve of your spelling of "doughnut" but ,dammit (damn it?) it is accepted

Clearly not required reading in Relativity then "Number of holes" does seem to accord with my preconception ,though. Very good There is a difference though. You cannot dunk a coffee cup.

I have been thinking about this subject a bit (without any serious study) as I think it may be related to general relativity although I am not sure about that. Anyway ,one of the examples that always comes up is the torus and I have noticed that you can make a torus by inserting a space in a 3d sphere or globe and then stretching the "remainder" of the sphere to that of a torus or indeed to any object that shares the same topology as the torus. My question is this: Can we generalize from this method to create any exotic variety of topology we want by "making a space or gap" in the torus and subsequently in the new object so on ad infinitum? If not ,is there any method or algorithm for creating new examples or types of topological spaces? Just to repeat I know very little about this subject and I also have found it difficult to learn about it -so any corroboration , debunking or other explanation would be very welcome.