Philosophy, Science & Reality

[tar]

How about reality is that thing that would have to change in order for you to be right.

That is, objective reality is that which is true without your participation required.

[swansont]

How about reality is that thing that would have to change in order for you to be right.

That is, objective reality is that which is true without your participation required.

 

 

Nope.

 

Plenty of physics works, i.e. is true, without my participation, and many of these things are decidedly not real.

[tar]

SwansonT,

 

You are talking about a model working, and the model being not a complete analog to the thing being modeled. I am talking about the thing having to fit together with the rest of reality, regardless of the model. The world turns, without our help. Whether we get the speed wrong, or live in the Northern hemisphere and say it spins counterclockwise or we live in the Southern hemisphere and say the place is turning clockwise. In reality, the world is only going the way it is going, without our assistance.

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

SwansonT,

 

You are talking about a model working, and the model being not a complete analog to the thing being modeled. I am talking about the thing having to fit together with the rest of reality, regardless of the model. The world turns, without our help. Whether we get the speed wrong, or live in the Northern hemisphere and say it spins counterclockwise or we live in the Southern hemisphere and say the place is turning clockwise. In reality, the world is only going the way it is going, without our assistance.

 

Regards, TAR

 

What's the big deal? Why do you have to be right so badly?

 

I don't think any of the posters, in this thread, looks around them constantly wondering if what they perceive is real. it's real enough.

 

I can't prove it (I don't have too), but you've yet to provide a single scrap of evidence that 'our senses are infallible', and since your entire argument, rests on that statement, I think it's time you start.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

My thesis depends on the fact that our senses provide an actual analog model of the reality that surrounds us. We have rods and cones in our eyes and lenses that focus an image of the world on these rods and cones. They report the frequencies are present that engage the....

 

"Red, green and blue-violet are regarded as the three primary colours of light. They stimulate one cone type and the brain translates this information received by the eye into what we call colour. When two sets of cones are fired, we respond that we see for instance yellow-a mixture of red and green light."

 

That this is all representation and translation of frequencies really extant and what and how we perceive them is a given. We are all the same in this regard, if we have normal sight. When we say the thing is red it is because the same cones in our eyes that sensed red light last time, sensed it again.

 

I don't need infallible. I need and have workable.

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

dimreepr,

 

My thesis depends on the fact that our senses provide an actual analog model of the reality that surrounds us. We have rods and cones in our eyes and lenses that focus an image of the world on these rods and cones. They report the frequencies are present that engage the....

 

I don't need infallible. I need and have workable.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Are you serious? If they aren't infallible how do you know you aren't dribbling and muttering into the pillow of your padded cell?

 

Those that are, also have workable senses...

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

Where do you draw the line between those living in reality, and those residing in their own internally constructed world?

 

 

Here is the exact central dilemma and the simple solution to the quandry is one I personally noted several years ago and have been trying to espouse on this board, since I noted it.

 

EVERYTHING is happening outside a person, except for the stuff happening inside.

 

And most, if not all of what is happening inside a person is brought in from the outside, so there is a direct connection and what is happening inside a person is part of reality, as well.

 

Thusly we each are in and of reality. And internal thoughts are mostly composed of what it is we can say about the world. With other people having nearly exactly the same way of internalizing reality, we have 8 billion people we can talk to, about reality. Plus of course the millions who left their thoughts in the literature and art and works of constructions and technology.

 

And we have a need to please each other and hold similar models of the place, and we teach each other what we learn about the place.

 

So we each have an analog model of the world built within us, in our memories. The whole place, residing inside our body/brain/heart group. It is a reflection of the place, and is not better than the place.

 

Regards, TAR

[DrP]

"EVERYTHING is happening outside of a person, except for the stuff happening inside"....

 

Amazing! The sense of numinous we all feel as that profound statement sinks into our souls is a gift Tar - thank you deeply for that life changing enlightenment.

[StringJunky]

dimreepr,

 

Where do you draw the line between those living in reality, and those residing in their own internally constructed world?....

What constitutes 'reality' is the result of intersubjective consensus and those that have a different internal mental construct from that consensus are considered to be outliers.

[Manticore]

My thesis depends on the fact that our senses provide an actual analog model of the reality that surrounds us.

 

 

Try getting a pilot's licence. You soon learn that if you fly into a cloud relying on your own senses (ie. without instruments) you will almost certainly be dead within a few minutes.

[dimreepr]

dimreepr,

 

Where do you draw the line between those living in reality, and those residing in their own internally constructed world?

 

Regards, TAR

 

You can't draw that line, that's the whole point.

[swansont]

 

You can't draw that line, that's the whole point.

 

 

 

Yesterday's SMBC was (in a broad sense) on that topic

 

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dear-god-2

[tar]

DrP,

 

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

 

Regards, TAR

[Mordred]

Arose from nothing? how can nothing create something? If this "nothing" create something, therefore it must be something not nothing.

 

Again, I argue that q potential is purely naturalistic.

I would like to ask this related question.

 

What does it mean to state the energy of a system is zero? (you can replace state with field if you so choose).

 

 

This question is probably one of the more least understood aspects on how all universe from nothing models work...

 

Secondly why is the observer aspect so important to consider in the first question?

 

I'm curious as to the range of answers on those two questions.

 

PS if you get the first answer correct the second questions answer will be automatic.

 

These questions directly relate to the topic of what is observable or measurable take your pick.

 

Little hint the answers to the above will be the same regardless if you use relativity, statistical mechanics, classical mechanics, or QFT.

 

They will also demonstrate the difficulty involved in defining "real" Real as per some absolute value.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred

[tar]

Mordred,

 

The fact that you believe there is a correct answer to your first question depends on the fact that all the models you propose will have the same answer, because they all use the same mathematical definition of zero. If zero means the same thing as nothing, then math would have to exist prior to, or come into existence at the same moment as energy and matter and time and space came into existence.

 

So there might be a difference in claiming the universe came from nothing, and claiming the universe came from zero.

 

There is a small tribe in South America (Piraha,) who did not have much of a language able to describe mathematical concepts.

 

 

Eventually Everett came up with a surprising explanation for the peculiarities of the Pirahã idiom. "The language is created by the culture," says the linguist. He explains the core of Pirahã culture with a simple formula: "Live here and now." The only thing of importance that is worth communicating to others is what is being experienced at that very moment. "All experience is anchored in the presence," says Everett, who believes this carpe-diem culture doesn't allow for abstract thought or complicated connections to the past -- limiting the language accordingly.

Living in the now also fits with the fact that the Pirahã don't appear to have a creation myth explaining existence. When asked, they simply reply: "Everything is the same, things always are." The mothers also don't tell their children fairy tales -- actually nobody tells any kind of stories. No one paints and there is no art.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/brazil-s-piraha-tribe-living-without-numbers-or-time-a-414291.html

​So I do not think reality started with the Arabs or the Greeks, or whoever first had a notion of zero. So mathematical proofs of balance of energy and matter on either side of zero are not good depictions of what coming from nothing, means.

​Regards, TAR

Just thinking...you can write an equation down, poke and prod it and it never moves. Taste it and it tastes like ink or graphite, and tastes nothing like the thing it represents. The equation itself does not work, does not have any substance or energy or relationship or reality of its own. It is the definition of a simulation. It means something but it only is standing for a relationship that actually exists in reality already. Math can not create reality, only encode the relationships humans note.

and for this discussion, the human mind can only represent reality that already is, or imagine rearranging it and then rearrange reality on reality's terms

you can't fool mother nature

Edited July 14, 2017 by tar

[Mordred]

Try answering the question as it will answer why energy doesn't need to be created.

 

Start with three basic defintions.

 

1) energy

2) potential energy

3) kinetic energy.

 

Go from there

 

 

I have a specific reason why I asked these questions as they relate to "Observer effects".

 

Has nothing to do with my beliefs but literally physics definitions.

 

Please do not give me the argument this is philosophy not physics. Philosophy is pointless in metaphysics if it doesn't adhere to how physics defines a property.

 

You want a thread beyond mere personal claims and blah blah blah defenseless assertions then apply some basis of science.

 

After all isn't the title of this thread not.

 

Philosophy, Science and reality?

 

I see tons of posts applying very little science.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred

[tar]

"What does it mean to state the energy of a system is zero?"

 

If we are going by E=MCsquared I suppose it would mean the system is devoid of mass or velocity.

"Secondly why is the observer aspect so important to consider in the first question?"

 

because the position and momentum of the observer defines the rest mass of the system in question and it matters greatly whether the observer is an inertial observer or an other than inertial observer

Edited July 14, 2017 by tar

[beecee]

If zero means the same thing as nothing, then math would have to exist prior to, or come into existence at the same moment as energy and matter and time and space came into existence.

 

So there might be a difference in claiming the universe came from nothing, and claiming the universe came from zero.

 

But zero does not mean the same thing as nothing. Zero is a number while nothing is something that in my opinion has yet to be defined accurately.....eg: Is the vacuum of space nothing:No....I have said it elsewhere that one's definition of nothing, sometimes can be compromised by one's specific beliefs.

Are quantum fluctuations nothing? Remembering of course that quantum fluctuations occurred before spacetime [as we know them] came into existence.

Maths by the way, while being an abstract quantity, is simply the language of physics/science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

But zero does not mean the same thing as nothing. Zero is a number while nothing is something that in my opinion has yet to be defined accurately.....eg: Is the vacuum of space nothing:No....I have said it elsewhere that one's definition of nothing, sometimes can be compromised by one's specific beliefs.

Are quantum fluctuations nothing? Remembering of course that quantum fluctuations occurred before spacetime [as we know them] came into existence.

Maths by the way, while being an abstract quantity, is simply the language of physics/science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

Can I add to my previous post........

Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle would be relevant in my opinion, and remembering that there is a limit to the precision and accuracy with which two aspects of the physical properties of any particle, can be known.

[Mordred]

Heisenburg is definitely relevant. You are on the right track.

 

Lets start with field energy=0. Does that truly mean zero. Or does it mean that it is the lowest possible energy density value or vacuum expectation value that can possibly be determined.

 

(disregarding zero point energy with HUP for the moment)

Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred

[tar]

beecee,

 

Philosophy and its methodology also includes a formalized language. I do not know it, or use it, but there are various formalized symbols for logical argument components, and truth tables and variable levels of truth considered and such. The OP question as to which methodology is better in determining what is real, is still not settled here.

 

I would expect that we can agree that truth is very close to real in this discussion. That is, if something is objectively true, that means it is real and can be experienced by other than one observer.

 

Quick question on the zero energy point. If an electron acts like a spring recoiling accepting and releasing tiny bits of energy down to half plank amplitudes is there a photon released on a down move and one absorbed on an up move?

 

regards, TAR

[Mordred]

Yes Tar e=mc^2 is involved but I am focussing on what energy is and how energy is a consequence or property.

 

One cannot measure energy without measuring a potential difference between observer and emitter.

 

So if you have a 100% uniform field energy=0 to all observers.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred

[tar]

that is, the energy is not coming from nothing, it is coming from a neighboring electron, and electrons are all in the business of trying to reach the rest state, but they can't because of all the other electrons in the universe trying to get rid of their energy

[Mordred]

umm no it applies to all fields.

 

Potential energy is ability to perform work due to position in a gradient potential.

 

Kinetic energy ability to perform work due to the momentum term again influenced by observer under relativity.

 

It is inpossible to determine some "absolute energy" as energy requires potential differences and is a consequence of potential differences.

 

So energy does not get created. It is a property or relation denoting the ability to perform work.

 

That is how the universe from nothing models work. The HUP is your source of potential differences initially.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred

[tar]

matter fields though exchange energy with other matter fields through energy fields

 

quanta of energy are photons

 

how does a lepton change energy levels without accepting or emitting a photon?

 

 

to the thread topic, I ran into this guy, looking up the definitions of energy https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Friedrich-Freiherr-von-Weizsacker

[Mordred]

matter fields though exchange energy with other matter fields through energy fields

 

quanta of energy are photons

 

how does a lepton change energy levels without accepting or emitting a photon?

 

 

to the thread topic, I ran into this guy, looking up the definitions of energy https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Friedrich-Freiherr-von-Weizsacker

All field excitations (particles) are potential differences. The amplitude to some baseline. That includes every particle mentioned in the quoted section. Edited July 14, 2017 by Mordred