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a bit of a solipsist, nothing exists in your absence?
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Yes.
Let's move the conversation on.
The universe, what's your view of it's form, unbounded and finite or unbounded and infinite ?
im confused, to me, unbounded means without boundaries, which is the same as infinite. so what i read that as is... infinite and finite or infinite and infinite.
can you clear this up for me please?
oh and do you mean infinite as in goes on forever in terms of distance, or infinite in terms of will exist forever - i.e. time?
An infinite universe......rule out a massive early expansion (indeed any 'start' to the universe).
surely not. isnt finite-ness measured from now forward not backward?
a perpetual motion device set in motion now is infinite (theoretically - not accounting for wear of mechanical parts etc), depite not having been in motion yesterday.
... in the very very distant future .... we will not only be dead but will have never have existed.
um, no. that isnt actually possible, due to the fact that i am sitting here. and i am actually sitting here. existance isnt merely for the benifit of consciousness. if in basquillions of year creature come to this exact spot that i am sitting and find no remains of me or my building site house, it doesnt mean i was never here. creatures may have existed on this planet or other places that we know nothing about, that our arrogance cant conceive of, so *to us *they have never existed, but it doesnt mean that they have *actually never existed. *
yes trees falling make what we call a sound (the waves outside of our bodies) even if there are no ears and brains to figure it out.
i think that (i have never cared to consider this before so i have only just decided) that time is infinite. the universe, our universe is finite. but, the space that the universe exists in, is infinite. it may be full of nothing that we understand or can clasify, but its still there. same as time will still pass when there is no consciousness to witness it.
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I have never seen that apparent conunrum as anything more that an issue with defining terms.
If, before you pose the question, you tell me what you mean by sound, then the question asnswers itself.
If - for example - you define sound as a vibration of the air falling on your ears and then being electrochemically (through nerve impulses) translated into the abstract we call sound in our brains, then of course if there is no one there then there is no sound.
If- on the other hand - you define sound as the dissipation of pressure waves through a medium such as water or air - then regradless of whether there is anyone there the dissipation of pressure waves through air happens, thus sound (as defined) happens.
The question is not a profundity, it is sophistry and equivocation, it is a trick question that relies on the equivocation of the word 'sound'.
Berkeley would say that the dissipation of pressure waves through an independent medium is just a hypothesis that you arrive at by abstracting from the only things you truly know, which are the things you know directly through sense perception, which is the sound as you hear it, the noise 'inside your head' so to speak.
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um, no. that isnt actually possible, due to the fact that i am sitting here. and i am actually sitting here. existance isnt merely for the benifit of consciousness. if in basquillions of year creature come to this exact spot that i am sitting and find no remains of me or my building site house, it doesnt mean i was never here. creatures may have existed on this planet or other places that we know nothing about, that our arrogance cant conceive of, so *to us *they have never existed, but it doesnt mean that they have *actually never existed. *
There is absolutely no way of knowing this, though. Quantum physics tells us that the act of observation has a quantifiable effect on the thing observed, so your statement "existance isnt merely for the benifit of consciousness" (sic) is a bit simplistic – we simply don't know the extent to which 'reality' is a construct that emerges somewhere between phenomenological perception, or our sense-data if you like, and the materiality of the world around us.
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yes it is simplistic, but im not sure its wrong. there is a pot of salt here on my desk and as i look at it, its a pot of salt. even if i stop looking at it, its still a pot of salt. what does quantum physics have to say about my pot of salt? what is the quantifiable effect which my looking /not looking have on it?
if you and i look at a colour pallete, we may agree, that is brown, that is green that is yellow etc, but our actual ides of what the colours are may differ wildly. so my brown might be your purple, but as we both point at the same color and agree on its name, it does not change its actual colour.
what we call something, or the context we put it in, imagined or otherwise, doesnt change what it is.
just because a consciousness witnesses something, or not, it does not change what it is, only that we percieve it, and indeed, how.
is is is.
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which illustrates my point. whatever it is, it is not changed by what we call it or how we perceive it.
although, there is colour, cos my pot of salt is green hahahahahha.
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yes it is simplistic, but im not sure its wrong. there is a pot of salt here on my desk and as i look at it, its a pot of salt. even if i stop looking at it, its still a pot of salt. what does quantum physics have to say about my pot of salt? what is the quantifiable effect which my looking /not looking have on it?
if you and i look at a colour pallete, we may agree, that is brown, that is green that is yellow etc, but our actual ides of what the colours are may differ wildly. so my brown might be your purple, but as we both point at the same color and agree on its name, it does not change its actual colour.
what we call something, or the context we put it in, imagined or otherwise, doesnt change what it is.
just because a consciousness witnesses something, or not, it does not change what it is, only that we percieve it, and indeed, how.
is is is.
'Is is is' is perfect :D
Just because the idea that there is an objective reality seems self-evident to you, doesn't make it true.
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Anyone who has read the tales of apparently professional-standard riding in the What Is Your Top Speed thread will appreciate that time is indeed elastic. Though the point is impossible to prove; quantum physics has shown us that the very act of laughing at alpha-male posturing has an effect on the posturing itself.
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There is absolutely no way of knowing this, though. Quantum physics tells us that the act of observation has a quantifiable effect on the thing observed, so your statement "existance isnt merely for the benifit of consciousness" (sic) is a bit simplistic – we simply don't know the extent to which 'reality' is a construct that emerges somewhere between phenomenological perception, or our sense-data if you like, and the materiality of the world around us.
This is carefully put: some interpretations of quantum mechanics do leave plenty of room for a deterministic, objective reality, but say that there are fundamental problems with us knowing what it is.
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@plurabelle up there ^^^^
wrong and right.
right.
my view on it doesnt change what is "true".wrong.
but true is still true whatever tint glasses we look at it through - quantum physics, biology, religion, illogic/logic, faith, not giving a shit - it doesnt matter. everything will still be what it is regardless of our consciousness. even if everything is actually a big whirling mess of nonsense and snakes. if thats what it is, then so be it. though i dont see it that way and i guess you dont either.whatever "is" is; be that the objective reality which i see or believe in or whatever, or a subjective reality which you propose; my view on it, nor yours, nor the whole population of the worlds views, do not change what "is" is in actuality. a pot of salt, which is green, for example. like i touched on earlier, the language which we use to describe things may be different from the reality, but the reality is still the reality.
3 blind men and an elephant....
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quantum physics has shown us that the very act of laughing at alpha-male posturing has an effect on the posturing itself.
true, but the posturing of an alpha male will still be the posturing of an alpha male, even if he changes his posture due to said laughing.
quantum physics..... deeeez nuuts.
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they probably did, but it doesnt change the fact that they were/are 3 blind men and an elephant.
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Well, I'm no scientist, or philosopher, or any kind of thinker really, but isn't quite a lot of this actually alpha-male posturing at a very high level?
not sure about that. i though plurabelle was a lady. and tynan is god apparently, so that mean either asexual or a woman...or at least beyond such petty things as alpha male posturing.
apologies to plurabelle if iim wrong.
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