Philosophy and friends.
Posted by daydreamer at 09:01, 08 Feb 2010Just a quick question, to which i thought many of us would have different opinions and i'd be interested to see what other people thought.
Given many of the stances, assertions and defenses seen here and elsewhere a question comes to mind.
Where do people feel the line exists (and where it might merge) between science and philosophy (we can also throw in philosophies other child - religion, if we want)?
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26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
I'm not sure that this answers your question but it might be worthy of consideration anyway: I think you might look at the great philosopher scientists to see where the two fields might merge.
I'm thinking of such luminaries as Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Bohr, Schroedinger, Jung and Bohm. While I might not share all of the beliefs of any or all of these great thinkers, I can recognise what separated them from what might be termed "technician scientists". Einstein and Bohr not only shifted science to a new level but also dragged philosophy along too.
It takes time, hard work and impeccable technique to produce a theory on how something works but it takes great imagination and intuition to grasp the "big picture".
Perhaps that is why Einstein and others (Hawking, for example) sprinkle their writings with terms like "the mind of God" even though they might be considered atheists (certainly by other atheists). And perhaps the blurring of the line that separates atheists and believers also blurs the line between science and religion. Maybe it comes down to an understanding of the term "God".
Dave
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
Following on Dave's comment, I would then think that a scientist is quite content with studying a particular natural phenomenon —say, the geometric structure of a crystal —but that the philosopher would go on and try to extrapolate a much larger interpretation concerning its repercussions. Trying to put together that 'Bigger Picture' as it were.
Of course, the problem is that the philosophers are always jumping off to conclusions with incomplete & even faulty data. That's why the philosophical arguments of someone like Plato or Socrates might seem a bit naive to us —and on the other hand, the conclusions of someone like Daniel Dennett a bit biased.
But I believe that it's part of the human nature to try and make sense of the world we live in, and our place in it.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
One of the philosophically interesting parts of studying a phenomenon in detail can be that you find patterns there that are also present in completely unrelated fields.
This leads to fun stuff like studying the patterns themselves. Personally my philosophy is that we should do more of that.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
So, retaking my example of a guy who studies the geometric structure of a crystal, he then may stumble upon different examples of the same pattern elsewhere in Nature; he then might guess it's a clue of a very fundamental organization of the natural world —like fractals.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
Let's not limit our scope here. The guy studying patterns in nature might be a girl studying the sciences of the artificial :)
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
My secret that I'm a machistic chauvinist has been found out.
Oh wait... it was never a secret to begin with ;)
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
You guys!
I guess we all have a little addiction here to what might be called the 'Ultimate Pattern', and we keep looking for this.
Lets not forget though that in the last 150 years our species has managed to correlate the patterns from one side of the visible universe to the other, from the quantum to the size of clusters of galaxies, and back home we finally have an understanding of the planet beneath our feet, largely based on the patterns occuring in the atomic stuctures and up.
After reflecting on the enormity of the patterns we do understand in the 'natural' world, lets enjoy the idea that over our lifetimes there will be many more discovered. I guess we get tempted to call the smaller ones 'fundamental' based on their function as building blocks, and the rest 'emergent'. I wouldn't like to think that this was demeaning anything we do understand though.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Thanks for the points everyone. I enjoyed them all.
I would like to propose an idea. I am going to use scientific language for this, though it would just need translating using other terms, but the scientific one's are good as they are already defined for use and are not as open to interpretation as others.
All ideas start as hypothesis, this is true no matter whether we start with something possible, tangible, humerous, or whatever. It isn't necessarily just intent of reality that marks something as hypothesis more than just any idea we can conjour that takes the form 'Perhaps X is true'.
This is an important terminology (the most important?) as any philosophical/theological/material/nonmaterial idea we have takes the form of a hypothesis - whether we care to admit it or not.
From here what marks science as being different to philosophy or religion (it's boundary condition) is that it tries to test and verify hypothesis. Any act of testing marks the pathway to science.
Using this we can see 'into' scientific ideas, such as the underlying material hypothesis, and see which bits are science and which bits are not. All simple so far. The boundary of philosophy is less distinct because no action need be taken to keep within the philosophical realm. Hypothesis are conjoured and nothing else need be done. The same is true for theology with the previso that the hypothesis somewhere feature some type of 'god-inference', be it theistic or otherwise. The lack of god-features marks a boundary between theology and philosophy, but both of these are still within the boundary condition of hypothesis.
Using this we can pick out where many bounaries lie. We can identify science as existing of free-floating principles that exist without an underpinning, and see that materialism is a philosophical hypothesis attempting to anchor material reality to something below it. But we are also reminded that philosophy is largely an enterprise consisting of playing with hypothesis, as is theology.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
Philosophies can also be put to the test, in a way. Maybe not with a direct experimental approach —although lately there has been a boom of what is now called 'experimental phylosophy'; trying to observe and understand real-life paradoxes and conflicts— but there's a reason why philosophies rise in importance and a are later discarded in favor of more 'reasoned' ones.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
Using this we can pick out where many bounaries lie. We can identify science as existing of free-floating principles that exist without an underpinning, and see that materialism is a philosophical hypothesis attempting to anchor material reality to something below it. But we are also reminded that philosophy is largely an enterprise consisting of playing with hypothesis, as is theology.
I'm not sure what you are saying here but it is probably something to do with my own philosophical bias that it seems to me that you are implying that only materialism is rooted in reality? And further, that it is materialism that anchors science to something real? I guess that if you are only convinced by empirical evidence, then you would have to say that, but maybe I have misunderstood completely.
I think that you might be ignoring something deeper when you talk of philosophy playing with hypothesis. People (scientists included) have always recognised the importance of inspiration in their attempts to understand the nature of things. Einstein certainly gave credit to inspiration but few would say for certain how that inspiration arrives, sometimes as fully formed ideas. Similarly, meditation can help us arrive at a deeper reality, perhaps beyond the billiard-ball physicality and into the numinous.
Pity I am having to hack this together in the few minutes before I leave for work. I'll think more on it later.
Dave.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
To me, daydreamer's comment meant that he recognizes materialism as yet another philosophical movement. And as such, not very unlike a religious movement —in the sense that, to him, philosophy works with hypothesis that are unteastable.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
What philosphical people call materialism at least allows testing for internal consistence. And for repeatability - a formal scientific statement (hypothesis, theory,...) has the same meaning today that it had yesterday.
These things cannot be said for philosophy.
Aside from that, science in my view doesn't start with hypotiesis. It starts with observation, and realization that some pattern seems to exist. Or that some events don't fit the commonly accepted pattern. Or the strange absence of any pattern at all.
The starting point is not "eureka!", it is "that's funny, did you see that?"
This starting point is outside the formal framework of science. Calling it "inspiration" seems fitting only for really big ideas, mostly it's not all that spectacular.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Hi David,
Good to hear from you. I wouldn't mind a larger discussion about things like this some time as i think your views are interesting and i wouldn't mind knowing a bit more.
Anyway, RPJ is right. By free-floating i am recognising that scientific ideas literally float without an underpinning. Then by dividing science and philosophy into realms, but using scientific language to try and harmonise the descriptions of both i am trying to recognise the roles of philosophy in science - and in material philosophy.
Materialism (in how you would you it) is indeed a philosophy, not a science. There is no doubt a requirement to have philosophies in science, but the correct language to use is 'hypothesis'. These represent the grey area around the free floating 'knowledge'. Given the fact that science and philosophy are searching for some type of underpinning to what is observed i think the metaphor of a surface beneath the free floating 'knowledge' is usable.
Even still though the difference between philosophy and hypothesis is not large. I am suspicious that a greater study of them will find that they are the same thing. So when you refer to Materialism as a philosophy the language is interchangeable; philosophical materialism is a hypothesis.
I am now expanding this thought into 3 'realms', science, philosophy and narrative or 'story'. Theology is a part of philosophy. How information and hypothesis move between philosophy and narrative is interesting, as it is dependent on scientific thought - though obviously this is not the same as something being correct; it is more of a cultural assessment and is more about harmonising the meaning of things based on common language, rather than allowing the realms to self differentiate and claim otherwise unavailable powers based on misconception of abilities though divergent language.
Now, i imagine something i will call Hypothesis Space (or the Hypothesis Landscape). This is the total possible hypothesis. Perhaps this starts of the same size and shape as narrative space (the total possible narratives). Science then alters the size and shape of the hypothesis space. Philosophy is a way of exploring the hypothesis space. Science is a way of testing it and changing it.
The i guess in this picture changes happening internally to the hypothesis space not caused by science, such as fashions in philosophy or in theology happen as just that; fashions - they are free floating, but in the Hypothesis Landscape.
Inspiration is a tricky one. Firstly it seems relative to some type of functionality. So scientific inspiration is relative to whether it is right or not (as a general rule) and cultural inspiration to whether it serves some other type of functionality. So we are the ones defining it. Secondly breakthroughs in understanding happen, but seen from a subconscious level it is not as mysterious. Fill the brain with the right stuff, think about it hard and occasionally the sub conscious spews out something good.
26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
I'll try to expand upon what I was, in my hurry before leaving for work, trying to describe the other day.
I think it comes down to the difference between intellectual understanding and - in a somewhat mystical sense - knowing. I think Earthling was right when he talked about inspiration being about big ideas and regular science being about the mundane. Ideas and hypotheses are often triggered by simple observations (sometimes big ideas also, but perhaps not in the main). Depending upon your field, these are then subject to the usual checks and balances of logic, mathematics, historical precedent, etc. and a theory develops which may or may not be adopted as something approaching the truth.
And you are right, I think, in pointing out that this process applies equally to theology and other hard thought-out philosophies too. Science has a bit of a practical advantage because, mostly, it deals with stuff we can see, hear, touch or smell. The subject matter of science dwells in a world of repeatability thus the tests are fairly conclusive and hard to argue against (with exceptions, of course).
Philosophy, generally, isn't like that, nor is theology or parapsychology or morality or aesthetics. Nevertheless, painstaking work has been done over thousands of years to develop our understanding on these matters.
Now, in both science and philosophy you get rare but highly significant events triggered by some flash of inspiration - that eureka moment Earthling mentioned. I believe that these insights are *not* due to the process of diligently placing jigsaw pieces together until the picture suddenly becomes apparent. I believe they are due to some kind of momentary access to a universal knowledge. Perhaps even that knowledge isn't complete (I'd bet a whole lot that it isn't, in fact).
Unfortunately, these enlightened insights are not easy to grasp and even harder to convey to others who can only listen to a description of the inspiratory event. Some religions have been founded on this knowledge but, inevitably, the message becomes diluted and misinterpreted and eventually lost in a sea of dogma.
I'll leave it at that because I'm still not sure we are talking about the same thing. What I've just said is merely what was foremost in my mind when I read your piece.
Speaking of which, something else occurred to me and I hope you will not be offended if I mention it - I'm certainly not trying to be offensive. It just struck me that you are in precisely the right career for your own particular philosophical bent. You like your reality to be underpinned. You like to know that if you dig down beneath the surface you will eventually hit bedrock. That solid foundation of scientific truth you believe is there. I'm not sure whether your career in geology defines you or whether it has conditioned you. I might add that I have the same need for rock-solid certainty and yet I have chosen a world-view that constantly (and uncomfortably) moves me away from it. Sometimes it makes me happy to be adventurous, sometimes I wake in the night as frightened as a 4 year old.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
I see the repeatability issue as an advantage of the tools used by science, not as a result of the subject matter lending itself to repeatability.
Having such tools allows advancing in small steps, limiting the backsliding. It allows building on the work of others.
This is an advantage not matter what the subject matter is.
It seems to me that even the concept that this is possible is not understood by those of the pure philosophical persuasion.
Perhaps that is not particularly surprising - perhaps it is a side effect of a pure holistic approach. The pure philosopher wants to understand everything in one perfect moment.
While some say they have achieved such perfect moments, the knowledge is lost even to them shortly afterwards. This is not a good thing.
One of my character traits is that I know why I do things, I know why I believe things. This is not anything mechanical, rather it is that I am honest with myself.I don't project my desired on the world - the world is what it is, regardless of what I want it to be. Some things I can change, most I cannot. Some things I can know, most things I cannot. Of course this doesn't prevent me from speculating, sometimes in an informed way, about the unknowable.
Without anything personal, it looks to me that some pure philosophers lack the honesty to admit that they are only speculating, without hope of certainty beyond moments of being perfectly convinced. They also seem to lack the honesty that at such a perfect moment, they were in fact wrong in their insight. If there are tools that allow the preservation of the perfect moment, that's always a possibility.
But I only suspect that, I don't know. It would however explain the resistance of philosophers to ever be concrete about anything. A fear not just of being wrong, but about being found out to be fallible.
Because that is really the only thing that formal tools provide - a way to disprove.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
Secondly breakthroughs in understanding happen, but seen from a subconscious level it is not as mysterious. Fill the brain with the right stuff, think about it hard and occasionally the sub conscious spews out something good.
Now, in both science and philosophy you get rare but highly significant events triggered by some flash of inspiration - that eureka moment Earthling mentioned. I believe that these insights are *not* due to the process of diligently placing jigsaw pieces together until the picture suddenly becomes apparent. I believe they are due to some kind of momentary access to a universal knowledge. Perhaps even that knowledge isn't complete (I'd bet a whole lot that it isn't, in fact).
I'm not a scientist nor a philosopher. I'm a designer; and so to me that 'Eureka' moment is as close as we can get to that which some people call 'the divine'.
Is it something entirely concocted by our subconcious mind that keeps mulling over a problem while our concious self takes a nap or plas Gears of War? Is it a brief connection to Universal knowledge —to the Akasic files, as it were?— I don't know.
... But God damn it! either of those options merits some serious scrutiny.
There was a very nice essay in the Darklore volumes (can't remember which, think it was 3) called "The Authors Are In Eternity". I don't know if you guys had the chance to read it, but it's very pertinent to this sidestepping of the topic.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
What I meant (I thought it was obvious) was that a hypothesis in a scientific setting does not start with "eureka" out of nothing. It starts with many moments of "that's funny". Eventually someone puts all these things together, and comes up with why all these funny things happen, or why none ever do.
I don't believe that anyone, philosopher or scientist or any mix of the two, ever has a "eureka" moment without ever having noticed any little funny things.
Someone who is suddenly struck by realization or awareness of a new concept may not be aware of where it comes from, but it isn't suddenly revealed from out of this world.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
Yeah I understood that in the Eureka moment you have already done a previous amount of homework. Otherwise it would be revelation, and you would have a high amount of chance you would get it wrong —since you're completely ignorant of the matter (e.g. Fatima).
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
A lot of times the eureka moment turns out to be a mistake too. But we don't hear about those all that much.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
We seem to be getting down to the nitty-gritty now :)
There is the jigsaw puzzle view that Earthling tells us is all there is to it: just continue putting the little pieces together and eventually the picture will become clear - and sometimes the moment it becomes clear can seem like a eureka moment.
Then there is the inspirational view: that sometimes you can work away at a problem and shuffle around the pieces and then suddenly - perhaps even in a dream - you get a flash of insight and you just *know*.
RPJ reminds us that we need only look at the Arts, or listen to artists, musicians, etc. for accounts of the latter. Consider these quotes:
Mozart: "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."
Mozart again: “Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.”
William Blake:"I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty lines at a time, without pre-meditation and even against my will. The time it has taken in writing was thus rendered non-existent, and an immense poem exists which seems to be the labour of a long life, all produced without labour or study."
Van Morrison: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."
Review of "The Gift of Gabe" by Rick M. Gned in Sub Rosa: "Inspired by shathiyats, Sufi poets who channeled spiritual inspirations without fully understanding the purpose or meanings of the words they wrote, Brian Joseph has discovered similar patterns in the lyrics of the Beatles’ John Lennon and George Harrison."
Albert Einstein:"I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research."
From my own experience, there are things that happen on an almost dailiy basis which I would find difficult to explain in physicalist terms. For example, times when I know what someone is going to say next; times during conversation when I suddenly change the subject to something entirely unconnected and the other person says "that's odd, I was just thinking about that". I have dreams about people, places or events only to find myself talking to that person a few hours later, or seeing that place or event on TV. Sure, they are all anecdotal and often there may be simple explanations - sub-conscious triggers, etc., but many are not so easily dismissed.
Someone who is suddenly struck by realization or awareness of a new concept may not be aware of where it comes from, but it isn't suddenly revealed from out of this world.
I wish I were so certain of my own understanding of reality. I'm not, but neither am I certain of yours. Anyway, "out of this world" is another concept in need of definition.
Dave.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Can we take the choice between the chainsaw and the gun to be perfectly inspired by external consciousness? I only ask as sometimes chainsawing a brute does seem like the 'perfect' choice; perhaps of deeper meaning than the mathematics in an XBox 360 might insipre on a simpler level ;)
I'm not quite sure how you would test this idea. Knowledge and inspiration should appear sequential if occuring on a more materialistic model. Historically you might expect people to be able to explain how they arrived at 'inspired' ideas through long and diligent thought processes. We shouldn't expect to find people suddenly arriving at more 'advanced' understanding without the steps required to reach it.
What if every thought, no matter how small, was externally derived from Universal Knowledge though. Why are people always jumping to applied fascination where it is the amazing that is considered exceptional. Given we have no evidence to the contrary why could every bit of understanding not come from outside. Why not every thought? Is it just that people find this disconcerting; how could you claim any thought or feeling as your own if they are being read from an external source?
I have had many moments of inspiration about things that have already been discovered. Self education can be a process of rediscovering/reunderstanding yourself what others have discovered; even if you are not the first to find it. The wheel is a good example. We might be tempted to pin Universal Knowledge on those things that are at the limits of the best of us, but why if not just a prediliction with coolness? Someone once had to be inspired by what is now simple to us. I see nothing to limit Universal Knowledge from ever increasing simplicity as well as the cooler focus on whatever is judged as a complex idea. This capacity to hog the simple as well as the complex surely empowers the theory with such problems as the removal of mind and free will, for perhaps no idea you have ever had has been your own.
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
What if every thought, no matter how small, was externally derived from Universal Knowledge though.
We can't disprove that of course. But we cannot prove it either. And there really isn't much to indicate that this external universal knowledge influences us. So why complicate things?
Of course like most people, I have invented many things myself, just almost all the time I was not the first. Others before me had similar information available to them, and came to the same conclusions or solutions.
Let me branch out a little.
The other day I read another report on ancient seafarers. Ancient as in 100,000 years ago.
That is another indication that we are not much different from the people 100 millenia ago.
We seem to think the same way, only act different when our environment allows us. In those cases where we have made tools that give us more freedom, we use that freedom. In the other cases where we don't have tools, we are stuck in the same ways as always.
We made some concrete tools, like wheels, knives, rockets and those things. And we made some abstract tools, like writing and mathematics. The abstract tools we basically use for communication and knowledge preservation.
Where these tools apply, we behave differently than at the beginning. Where they tools don't help, we behave the same.
I say we don't think differently at all.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Hi Earthling,
We can't disprove that of course. But we cannot prove it either. And there really isn't much to indicate that this external universal knowledge influences us. So why complicate things?
Only because by complicating it and seeing how the idea behaves is the only way to test it philosophically, but perhaps more importantly the fact that the idea does not have its own boundaries means they are being applied by those using it. This must surely draw our attention to the ideological way in which it is framed.
As far as i can tell the only reason to stop this idea extending its reaches into all aspects of our personalities, thoughts and memories is that people do not like the outcome. If this is the case then it renders it quite weak philosophically. For example, you say there is not much evidence that we are affected by a Universal Knowledge field, but if consciousness happened to be that field bubbling (so to speak) then every thought could be a representation of it. In fact to suggest otherwise has serious problems. If only profound thought can come from this field then who gets to define profound and who gets to define what the field is storing. Surely it makes more sense that the field would store everything, all knowledge, else it is being conjectured that it only stores what is profound to us today. This would mean that as our understanding grows and the number of things we find profound reduces (since the wheel was profound once, as was elementary maths) the Universal Knowledge field loses information. Given the probable number of alien species much more advanced than us it is hard to explain what the field would now be storing and it would become tempting to imagine a Universal Knowledge field for each species and at each moment in time, i.e. and infinite number of knowledge fields. When you reach a conclusion like that you know something has probably gone wrong.
To say why worry about it is (in essence-if followed) to argue that a self imposed limit to philosophy be applied based on consensus. If a problem exists in a philosophy, then lets talk about it.
Do you have a link to the article about those ancient seafarers? It sounds interesting.
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
I'll look for the seafarer stuff. There were a bunch of these,
for example in www.sciencenews.org and in the mainstream press. This is also consistent with people being in Australia for more than 50,000 years. They didn't float there by accident, and they could not have walked.
But why stop at one universal consciousness. We have the traditional good versus bad traditions, in many variations. So assuming two of these big minds is not new.
And if we assume a creation-type causal chain, why not set up an infinite hierarchy. Who created the creator? Why, it was the next higher level super-creator, which operates on a higher level of infinity. I'm sure it has been done, probably even with mathematical formality.
Since there is no end to extending this concept, it does not contribute anything unless we can explain something with this concept that we cannot explain without it.
The all encompassing field you describe also isn't really any different from Wolfram's proposal of a cellular automaton as the universe. How many of these are there?
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Thanks for looking it up.
I agree with you completely with regard to the plethora of philosophies that ultimately result in infinite regressions.
Your use of what is ultimately occams razor is valuable.
I look forward to what the LHC rules either in or out. At least it will provide further data for discussion.
Just out of interest i read a book about the idea of the multiverse recently. There was a neat solution to an age old question in it using an extension of general relativity. As you know relativity is all about the individuals perspective and perspectives can differ wildly. It seems that there is a solution to the equations with regard to what is outside of this universe and our perspective within it.
The multiverse would be infinite in space and time (since the concepts differ from ours), but contain universes of finite space. As seen from the perspective of the multiverse an observer would see infinite time, and bubble universes of finite space. Inside each bubble the perspective is different though. Owing to general relativity our perspective of the dimensions is switched and we perceive the infinite time out in the multiverse as infinite space in our own universe while the finite space of our universe becomes perceived as finite time. I find this single small thought more profound than most of these philosophies suffering with infinite regressions and transgressions.
26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
Oh boy, I could go off at so many tangents here. Perhaps later I might start a few threads.
I have been fascinated by infinity since childhood. Last week the BBC did a Horizon program about it. It is clear that mathematicians hate it, yet they spend a good deal of time thinking about it. Some actually deny it, as in: no such thing.
My own thinking has been hazy ... I wish I could pin down the concepts. It seems to me that if infinity is the reality, then anything is possible - literally. One of my childhood thoughts was that infinity must mean that there are no absolutes. Measurement is arbitrary - something we make up to satisfy our limited perception. An inch is only meaningful relative to something else. If you could imagine a single object in infinty you could not say whether it was big or small. You could not determine its position. There is no difference between infinitely small and infinitely big. My childhood conclusion was that accepting infinity was to accept that we don't exist in time and space ... it is all an illusion.
As I got older I read about relativity and understood a little. I saw that Einstein had defined an absolute - an immutable constant being the speed of light in a vacuum. This then must be our yardstick and everthing must be relative to the speed of light. But doesn't our measurement of the speed of light depend upon measurement from here to there? Does here or there have any meaning in infinity?
I have to say that my understanding has not matured much since those childhood thoughts. I wish I had a mathematical mind but, sadly, I don't :(
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Yeah, i could go on for an age on these subjects.
Infinities have always interested me as well.
We can look at them through the lense of modern physics or we can ignore that and do something else. We have a choice i guess to see what they look like through the lense of science, or ignore that and be free to play with them freely and entirely imaginatively.
One of the hardest things i find with the Grail is trying to determine the rights of evidential freedom. Someone somewhere will disagree with everything science has said, yet at the same time i am versed in it. I can either view it as a philosophical difference or look at the specific arguments on both sides; in which case science usually wins - except where we stray into unknowns of course, but then no-one has the right to claim understanding.
Infinities are fun as they stray the boundaries between these. Are they more mathematical concepts? Or physical ones? Or philosophical?
I had fun with them as a kid, starting with when i realised that if you take a finite amount of matter and compress it into an infinitely small volume that you would reach infinite energy, which to my child mind started to sound like the conditions of the big bang. Of course i didn't know about quantum mechanics back then, which has alot to say about infinities in physics.
I don't know whether space is infinite (in as much to say that i haven’t seen evidence of the opposite), but there is plenty of evidence that time isn't. Though this understanding comes through understanding that time isn't the crude philosophical concept kept by our wristwatches, but a more material aspect of our universe, an illusion of thermodynamics; heat and entropy.
It is an interesting idea that universes form in a multiverse when quantum fluctuations create conditions of disequilibrium in various fields. Even though it is most likely nonsense (even if there are grains of truth to it; just like any new hypothesis based on speculative evidence) i am always in awe that people have been able to formulate mathematical models of such sophistication, with such large implications for the philosophy and subjects we enjoy.
Anyway, as best as i understand the concepts there is not infinite freedom in infinite space or time. They are just that. I dont think anyone is even proposing that there is infinite freedom in the laws of physics across this universe, or even in an infinite multiverse. Clearly there would be many more possibilities that we witness in our universe, but there would be some type of Law of Freedom that governed the rules in each universe; basically i think because they are all being birthed from the same multiverse - so the characteristics, even though they have freedom, are still governed by the charteristics of the parent.
Who knows, even if all that was the case, maybe there are an infinite number of multiverses. So far my brain has never jammed on any question or thought except for one. Why is there something instead of nothing?
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
Oh it gets better.
You can have a finite space, and infinite time to reach the end, but impose rules on acceleration which mean that you cannot reach the end. If you do that, is the space really finite?
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
I've thought about this for a bit.
The obvious answer is that yes, space would still be finite. That doesn't seem like an answer to the depth of the question though. Perhaps the depth lies in that it really shows how finite we are.
26 June 2005
43 min 49 sec
One of the hardest things i find with the Grail is trying to determine the rights of evidential freedom. Someone somewhere will disagree with everything science has said, yet at the same time i am versed in it. I can either view it as a philosophical difference or look at the specific arguments on both sides; in which case science usually wins - except where we stray into unknowns of course, but then no-one has the right to claim understanding.
Speaking for myself, I don't dismiss science or scientific evidence: I try to understand it and place in in context with my own worldview. I think that is what scientists do too, including - if I may be presumptious - you. My worldview might differ from the orthodox scientific view. I might place the science in a philosophical context whereas a scientist might see no reason to do that. For me, it boils down to what makes sense to me.
For example, a scientist might say that if we can produce evidence for a purely physical explanation for everything we experience in our world, then why look further? Indeed, it might be unscientific to look further. However, sometimes it seems to me that the evidence has been shaped and squeezed to fit within this naturalistic template.
I know I am going to ruffle some feathers by the very mention of this but I think that evolution may be a good example of this. While I would be the last to deny that evolution is taking place as we speak and has been since the beginning (if we can speak in those terms), I think that there is less certainty about the mechanism of evolution. Natural Selection by means of random mutation and survival of the fittest is just so deeply unsatisfying (sorry to be so unscientific). It doesn't make sense. It requires random chance and it denies purpose. The whole thing: life, the universe and everything amounts to nothing but a cosmic accident.
The alternative? Some kind of conscious evolution. I am not advocating the case for a grand designer in the sky. I mean that at every level - whether it be self-organising atoms and molecules in crystals or complex chains of amino acids, DNA, cellular organisms, worms, shrews whales or humans - some kind of consciousness is selecting for variety and improvement. Perhaps, given the constrains of our particular physical reality, consciousness has to do things slowly: using mutations but with a purpose. I think that there is a creative imperative born of consciousness and that imperative is towards improvement; towards perfection.
Just to take that idea and expand it somewhat: what if every individual consciousness - from sub-atomic particle to human mind - happened to be only individualised from its own point of view but part of the whole from the point of view of the whole? Thus, I am aware of myself as a self-contained mind but to some degree - perhaps sub-consciously - aware of my mind being much more than a single mind. Maybe it is heirarchical. Maybe my mind is part of a group mind which is part of a species mind which is part of a global consciousness?
I don't know anything for sure. Maybe the scientists are right and there is no point to it all. If so, I'd rather be poor old misguided me than Richard Dawkins in his certainty of meaningless oblivion (and why is he so keen to convince us all that none of it really matters anyway?).
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Hi David,
Good comments.
No offence taken at all. I guess this part of my psychology is becoming clearer to me. I think your right with me wanting to have some sort of grounding to a bedrock, though i guess that is common enough. Geology is very good for this if you want something evidentially solid, but it is worth noting that it 'only' goes back about 5 billion years, after this you need astronomy and physics and even then once you get beyond the resolution of the evidence we are in the same world of hypothesis and philosophy.
I still haven't figured out where my own lines are parrallel with other grailers and where they diverge, especially with regards to philosophy, which at the moment is what i am more interested in. Serious philosophy is defined by the same limits as hypothesis setting. So we can philosophise where the evidence is poor or knowledge is absent or we can philosophise where the resolution of evidence is poor, but i am very suspicious that the mathematical limits of the freedom of philosophy are exactly the same as the freedom of hypothesis, i.e. that they are the same thing; hence my previous ideas.
Of course we can step outside of the boundaries and philosophise that we are the thoughts of a fish, and while this is not wrong in the literal sense, or at least it cannot be proven wrong, it is a different type of philosophy. So while we can say that there are no limits to philosophical freedom, there is such a thing as good and poor philosophy - and especially to the function of different types (such as using negatives to prove positives). I am interested in using philosophy properly (as well as properly recognising it) and not just using it as placebo. I.e recognising which different branches can be applied to what, and what types of conclusions (if any) the outcomes will allow. I think this is often one of the most abused fields.
I like your outlook on consciousness. Mine is currenly quite different of course, but i am looking forward to thinking about your thoughts over the next few months, as i have been for the last couple of weeks.
The idea (reality emerging from consciousness) does seem to have a high degree of freedom though. We have atomic theory so will will slot it below that, superstring, no problem, it is the energy of the strings or the topology of space; else we slot it below that. Oh, the universe is a multiverse, ok well we'll slot it below that then. No matter what we can just move it backwards and say it constitutes that layer of reality too. We have complete freedom. I have read a couple of links from your website, but so far only see analogy. Has anyone pinned it down any further than this?
1 May 2004
1 hour 22 min
Philosophy is the outward expression of deep thinking. In your term, it’s the expression of hypothesises. All scientists, in their own way, are philosophers. This is mainly in their head though. For a true scientist, it’s the unravelling and finally the proof of an idea [hypothesis] that is the end result. Philosophers are actually involving themselves in a giant “think tank” by sprouting deep thoughts and ideas outwards for feedback.
I wrote a comment a couple of days ago that was very apt, but with some IEexplorer security issues, was unable to post it. The main gist was that this is really a symbiotic relationship. Science started from ideas and curiosity for answers and philosophy started the same way but remained in the realm of expression.
I believe the line between these are a recent occurrence. I also believe that it is science that decided to end the close relationship. This is to our detriment.
Philosophers are thinking deeply and expressing wonderful thoughts that are of great benefit to all, including science. One of the greatest philosophers I ever met is a truck driver. So this is not confined to PHD or any other doctorate holders. Sometimes having a university education can be detrimental. But we can not loose sight of the expression of thought, no matter who’s, for the benefit of social and scientific evolution.
On one hand philosophy is over rated, especially in university’s. But without it we would loose our moral and ethical consciousness. It’s the philosophers who will debate whether science should clone humans or not. The only danger here lies in the political side of all debates. Philosophy is, and should be, neutral to politics.
As it should remain neutral to religion.
I personally love philosophy but if we don’t get our hands dirty occasionally, we would not advance in any area.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
I agree with that. Although there were many important religious philosophers in the past.
One of my faves is Teilhard de Chardin
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
It is true, philosophy starts neutral. It is just frequently abused, like any other handy tool.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
1 hour 22 min
the merging has always been there. The first "scientists" were Sages, Magi, and deep thinkers. Alchemist and Herbist' also were "scientists". The line you refer to is a recent phenomena. One line of thinkers went the religion way and another went the physical way with tools and substantial evidence. The truely great thinkers stayed in the realm of expressed thought.
This is to say that it is still a simbiotic relationship.
Great thinkers are great thinkers reguardless of the path they have chosin.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
1 May 2004
15 hours 36 min
Modern science diverged from philosophy with the recognition of discrete, specialized material fields of study. The vast world of physical phenomena allows a modern scientist to comfortably investigate the mechanical aspect without ever touching on truly abstract inquiry. Even the hypothesis conjectured by a scientist is expected to be measurable. Unfortunately, this has led to science attempting to explain the universe in a similar manner to deducing the structure of a building from a pile of random bricks.
It is left to philosophy to deal with knowledge that does not lend itself to measurement, with systems and context. The schism with empirical science, however, tends to drive the philosopher away from the concrete to flights of fantasy, to the point of dismissing the known truth. Modern philosophy tries to deduce the building's structure from inside a locked room. Anything at all could be outside. The explanation doesn't necessarily have to make sense.
Religion is really the oldest form of philosophy, an attempt to discern the order of the universe. The problem with religion is that it almost invariably ceases to ask questions. Religion admits that there is a building with a design, but refuses to leave the room as it thinks it already knows what is outside. Nothing will be disproven and, sadly, nothing will be discovered at the same time.
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
A lot of science is very abstract. We can describe things that do not exist in this universe, and we do that for example in theoretical computer science.
A lot of mathematics is entirely immaterial.
You can talk precisely about things that cannot be measured, it's just that this is not fashionable in philosophical circles.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
9 February 2009
3 weeks 3 days
the philosophy of science??
12 April 2007
10 hours 15 min
That's what we're discussing: that Science is not without philosophy, the moment it begins to extrapolate bigger meanings to the results of experiments that confirms certain observations.
It's like a child with a new pocket knife —he wants to test it on everything, even if that means ruining his mother's dinner tablecloth :)
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
Of course scientifically literate people can be philosophical. Just because they know how some tools doesn't mean they have to apply them to everything.
Take a person with a boat. Nothing prevents them from swimming.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
Indeed,
I guess the heart of the matter is what is done by swimming. Any metaphor (such as swimming) has connotations that are not relevant to what it is relating to. Swimming already implies that something is being accomplished. Back to philosophising about nature or its base we must first decide whether anything is being accomplished beyond the exersise of hypothesis invention (or playing with hypothesis or possible hypothesis), which is obviously important in itself, but is not the same thing as conversion from hypothesis to theory and everything that goes with that for the philosophy of understanding.
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
My point is still that scientists do things with formal tools, whereas pure philosophers don't. The metaphor of swimming thus means that one tries to arrive at some conclusion without aid.
Or if you prefer we could say that the guy with the boat can still walk on dry land, where the boat doesn't help.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
3 hours 16 sec
All well and good and a good place to recognise the distinction.
Perhaps a better metaphor might be a person mentally speculating on what lies on the other side of a hill. Thought on its own can generate any number of ideas, especially if no rules are applied, but the only way to know is to walk around the hill and see.
I think this is a much better metaphor. Your's still imply accomplishment (walking or swimming imply action, or in this metaphor achievment), which is an important difference.
I don't think speculation and accomplishment can be the same thing. And the only way to tell will be to go and see. Else we remain in the land of hypothesis and while we can have fun there we can never claim we are right, as so many would like the freedom to do.
22 November 2004
4 days 9 hours
I don't think speculation and accomplishment can be the same thing. And the only way to tell will be to go and see. Else we remain in the land of hypothesis and while we can have fun there we can never claim we are right, as so many would like the freedom to do.
Oh, we can claim to be right easily enough. Ask any highly ranked religious leaders, they claim to be right all day.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.