Unity of everything?

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Steve3007
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Steve3007 »

galundrux wrote:Why do you ask silly questions like this when the answer was right there? I said " Add any force that attracts one thing to another.", it was even in the same paragraph just as you wanted.
I simply didn't know what you meant by this:
For atoms, it's taking parts from other atoms, not sure what that force is called either, electromagnetism? Gravity does the same thing.
As I said, I didn't know what you meant by "For atoms, it's taking parts from other atoms". I don't understand what it means for atoms to take parts from other atoms. I therefore didn't know what you meant when you appeared to say that gravity also takes parts from other atoms. If you simply mean that gravity is an attractive force, fine. That's cleared up now.

Near the start of your OP you stated that you are "starting to think that maybe the big bang was a mistake" and you went on to mention the Big Bang several times. I therefore assumed that you had some theory as to why the Big Bang is an incorrect description of the large scale behaviour of the Universe. I assumed that this theory would appeal to evidence, by saying something like: "The Big Bang is incorrect because it is inconsistent with the following observations...". I couldn't spot anything anywhere in what you said that looked like such a theory. That's why I was trying to get you to clarify it.
if the body of scientific work has something that invalidates what I say then that is great to know, but saying that there is no scientific evidence for this or that, that is not an argument nor a clarification.
So, for any theory which attempts to describe observed reality, such as the Big Bang, how would you go about assessing its validity if not by looking at the evidence for and against it? For example, if I had a theory that most cats are black, wouldn't you naturally expect me to point to some cats? To provide some empirical evidence for my claim?
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galundrux
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by galundrux »

Since my other post must have gotten lost. I'll try this again.
All well and good, but bear in mind that whether the Big Bang is a valid or invalid description of the large scale behavior of the Universe, this is not because of what we can or cannot imagine. It's because of observed evidence. Imagination can generate interesting ideas. But (assuming we're doing science and not poetry) the things we can imagine have to be tested against the observed evidence.
No, we're not doing science, or poetry for that matter. But we are using the creative mind, without that part science is nothing. Why has imagination been relegated to the realm of entertainment and considered useless in modern society? Is philosophy dealing only in empirical evidence now? If it is then why are we even asking questions? If we could test any of this then there would be no question and we could all just relax and call it done.

It's perfectly logical to say the sky is made of water because it's blue, it just depends on how much information you have. At night it goes black so we'll ask where did the water go? And to that we can logically think that the water in the sky must belongs to the sun and the sun took it with it. Of course that's all wrong, but without an imagination we wouldn't even have gotten that far.

A logical mind thinks that the path between point A and point B is always a straight line. A creative mind will take the scenic route, which is never a straight line, and the destination is less important than the journey. But if you can't imagine that there is a point B to begin with there is no path, straight or otherwise. Would you like empirical evidence that B is there before you go looking for it? Logic and imagination are two parts of a whole, just like everything else we've been talking about, part of a whole. Now If I need to explain to you how molecules form in detail then then we're just going to derail the whole thing by getting caught up in smaller parts, missing the forest for the trees. If you want to discuss what is wrong with science I'm happy to make a new thread called "Science, is it a religion?", but that wasn't really what I meant this to be about. Anyway, tired and slightly annoyed, so I'll finish this later.
Steve3007
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Steve3007 »

Galundrux, I didn't say that I think there is no place for imagination. I explicitly said that it does have a place. As you've pointed out, without imagination we cannot generate interesting ideas; we cannot go beyond what is already immediately apparent. My point was simply that if you are interested in making any kind of propositions about the real world then the numerous products of imagination have to be tested and filtered against what is actually observed to be true.

As I've said, near the start of your OP you stated that you are "starting to think that maybe the big bang was a mistake" and you went on to mention the Big Bang several times. Since The Big Bang is somebody's attempt to explain various observations about the real world, I assumed that this meant you were going to explain why, in your view, the Big Bang fails to explain these observations and/or is not compatible with some other observations. I thought your might use your imagination to think of an alternative model and then point to some observations which support this model. If that is not in fact what you intended to do in mentioning that subject, fair enough. Now I know.

You're right that we're not doing science, but we are discussing science, specifically Cosmology (among other things), in the context of philosophy. And, in my view, a large part of philosophy consists of standing back and examining the broad principles on which other more specific subjects (like science) are founded.
Steve3007
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Steve3007 »

galundrux wrote:It's perfectly logical to say the sky is made of water because it's blue, it just depends on how much information you have. At night it goes black so we'll ask where did the water go? And to that we can logically think that the water in the sky must belongs to the sun and the sun took it with it. Of course that's all wrong, but without an imagination we wouldn't even have gotten that far.
Yes. This is, I think, relevant to the philosophy of science. Or rather, the philosophy of how we try to make sense of the world by trying to spot patterns in our observations of it (which I think is the same thing). What you're pointing out here is that for any given empirical observation (such as "the sky is blue") there are numerous different possible self-consistent explanations for it, which we can generate using our imagination. You've generated one here.

If we wanted it to, this could lead to a discussion of how we choose between different models that all appear to successfully describe the same observations. This might lead to a discussions of such philosophical concepts as Occam's razor.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote: February 19th, 2018, 6:22 am
And after, this force, if I can call it that, takes many forms. For life it's wanting to mate, or for some forms of life just consuming things until it splits into two (not sure how cells grow, but I know they'll need to aquire material to do it)
I don't know of any evidence that some imagined force stopping the early Universe from expanding is the same force which causes living things on Earth which reproduce sexually to want to do so. The latter is not a force, in any recognisable sense, at all.
I've given this a lot of thought - why did that particular virtual particle (or collection of them) inflate into a universe while the others immediately dissipated?

My latest guess is that it's a matter of "space", that virtual particles - constant perturbations of the fabric of reality - prevent each other from inflating in thematically the same way as planets prevent each other from accreting all of the stellar material. Basically, there's too much competition for any one virtual particle to reach whatever threshold is needed to inflate rather than dissipate.

My further guess is that the universe's expansion will needs to achieve a degree of space or "thinness" in the future to allow another inflation, although Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) idea is a thought-provoking one.
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by galundrux »

I'm sorry, but this is way over my head. I used to think I knew a lot, but clearly I don't, I can't even remember what Occam's razor is right now even though I know I've looked it up before. I really appreciate you making me think about stuff though, but I feel like in order to contribute anything here I need to read a lot of books and memorize a lot of new information. I wish I could understand this focus you two mentioned, I watched a TEDtalk about it by a monk after my last time here. Become a monk, go to school, I don't know how any of these things will change anything and the world is broken, it's sick, and if not even focused people like you two know, then how am I supposed to help? I guess I'm in the wrong place, all I really know is how to use computers and even that is more of a jack of all trades master of non kinda thing. I just want to make difference, and I though maybe my experience and what I learned was important somehow so I wanted to share it. But I suppose it's not something that will make sense to anyone but me, especially since I have no words to explain it. I know what I have to do now though, thanks.
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Atreyu
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Atreyu »

galundrux wrote: February 11th, 2018, 11:26 pmAnyway, tonight I'm thinking about duality, in both religion and science. And I'm starting to think that maybe the big bang was a mistake, since we're always trying to merge things together all the time. We split things up in order to look at them, but this is only to understand their place in the whole. Civilization might not look like much today, but considering we started out as primordial soup it's pretty impressive, and we got there by what we call natural instinct. But nobody really know what natural instinct is, it's just like a chemical property we call life that drives us to live. We don't know what life really is either, we just know that our universe works according to certain laws that tend to arrange things in these ways, we have no idea why, it just is like that. Atoms, molecules, everything is either attracting or repelling, this dualism returns again and again in everything. What we experience as humans, a product of these universal laws, is a strong desire to either love or fight, much the same as everything else. Separation causes pain, closeness causes pleasure, hate and love. So I propose that the big bang is a mistake, like a sickness, and life is the immune system trying to fix it for lack of a better metaphor, that's what evolution is, this immune system learning. To fix the universe would require we find the theory of everything, the mathematical equation for the name of god which when spoken will undo creation. Since matter and energy is the same thing, I think it's fair to assume that anti matter means there is also anti energy, not a scientists either so I don't know quite how far they've gotten with that stuff, but antimatter seems like it could have the power. I think their most unifying theory is down to 10 dimensions now, think that's where Kabbalah left off too. But that's not the important part, the important part is that to me it seems plausible that we are actually here to fix the universe by destroying it, or rather putting it back the way it was. If we keep studying the universe the way we are doing, is it not plausible that we'll eventually learn how it all works? And if we can then speak this name of god, or as science would see it, make a machine that uses this mathematical equation to reverse the expansion of the universe, then maybe that's what we're supposed to do? I mean, not necessarily humans, life might be a very common thing, life might not even be the only product of the laws of the universe capable of making progress, but until we know otherwise I think it's fair to work with what we know. What do you think? Think I'll get burned at the stake as a heretic if I suggest we work together in an effort to undo the big bang? Funny thing, I actually think that this makes sense both from a logical science perspective and an intuitive spiritual/religious one so I kind of blew my own mind hence why I signed up here to get some of it out so I can sleep.
We don't have the power to "undo" the big bang and never will. So it would be useless to try to do so. Even if we "knew" how to do it. Knowing and doing are two different things.

It's not just a question of knowing. One must also have the power and resources in order to apply what one knows. And Man will never have the power, nor the resources, to change the Universe in any meaningful way, regardless of what kind of knowledge he possesses....
Steve3007
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Re: Unity of everything?

Post by Steve3007 »

galundrux wrote:I'm sorry, but this is way over my head. I used to think I knew a lot, but clearly I don't, I can't even remember what Occam's razor is right now even though I know I've looked it up before. I really appreciate you making me think about stuff though, but I feel like in order to contribute anything here I need to read a lot of books and memorize a lot of new information.
I don't think you necessarily do need to read a lot of books and memorise a lot of new information to make a contribution. We all already have lots of information stored in our heads simply from having (most of us) lived on Earth for several decades. I think the important thing is to try to process that information clearly and rationally and try not to be daunted by things that appear to be technical terminology.

Occam's razor, for example, is really quite a simple common sense concept. It's: "don't make things any more complex than they have to be."
I wish I could understand this focus you two mentioned, I watched a TEDtalk about it by a monk after my last time here.
I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention "this focus". When I used the word "focus" a while ago, I just meant that it's often a good idea to focus on talking about one subject at a time and not keep jumping between them.
Become a monk, go to school, I don't know how any of these things will change anything and the world is broken, it's sick, and if not even focused people like you two know, then how am I supposed to help? I guess I'm in the wrong place, all I really know is how to use computers and even that is more of a jack of all trades master of non kinda thing. I just want to make difference, and I though maybe my experience and what I learned was important somehow so I wanted to share it. But I suppose it's not something that will make sense to anyone but me, especially since I have no words to explain it. I know what I have to do now though, thanks.
Even if you don't think your experiences make sense to anyone except you, it might still be worth sharing them. If my reaction to you doing that here seems harshly argumentative, and if I appear to be pulling your words apart, I apologise. Try to take it as constructive criticism.

Also, do remember that you are one of 7+ billion people in the world so making a difference to the whole of that world will always be extremely difficult. When people say that the world is broken and sick, it's usually as a result of watching/reading the news. But the news is the ultra-distilled boiled-down badness of the whole of that enormous world. All the bad parts in a convenient, easily digested package. And it's one-way communication. So it naturally makes everyone who consumes it feel impotent to help and, if you have a particular type of personality, can lead to despair.

The thing to remember is that it's not really natural to even think that you should have to make a difference to all of that world at once. Just try to make a difference in a small part of it, of a size which is commensurate with your own small size as an individual. My way of achieving that (apart from with my own immediate family and friends) is to sponsor the education of a single child, who happens to live in Zambia. Works for me. Keeps it personal.

Anyway whatever it is that you now know that you have to do, I hope it helps you in some way.
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