News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

What do you think?

Started by Solitary, July 08, 2013, 04:32:37 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Solitary

:evil:
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

aitm

If reality is different to different people, all those realities would still have to maintain the laws of physics and math, for if not the millions of different scientists would have different maths and physics and nothing could ever be mapped out eh?
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Solitary

:-k  I agree. Whew! He! He!  Are these laws of science, nature, or God?  :wink:  Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Voskhod

My view of reality is a rather unique one, to say the least.

As one may have guessed through the idle inspection of my "Location:" description, I more or less hold the belief that reality is a simulation - a scientific test of some sort. Yes, its the recently growing 'What if we're all in the Matrix?' argument, though I try not to water it down with such trivial comparisons. Personally, my explanation of why we would life in a simulation is that the ones who administer the simulation, I'll call them Administrators, are curious about life. Perhaps they are super-advanced humans who wish to discern the motives and thoughts of their ancestors and do so by running extremely complex computational programs that they have developed enough to be considered sentient.

Or, another possibility, is that said Administrators are actually non-human - aliens or sentient machines, or other such advanced beings who for one reason or another wish to understand things that they cannot themselves understand; things like love, justice, vengeance, morality, hatred, desire, and other such abstract things that are almost universally unique to humans. Perhaps the Administrators are just like us, curious about where they came from, where they are going, and constantly asking themselves things like 'What is the meaning of life?', and in an attempt to answer those question, created us to observe our behaviors, ethics, social structures, emotions and so on to better draw conclusions.

But I could be wrong, obviously.  :-?
I by no means am 100% invested in this idea, more like 95%.
.
[size=100]
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -H.P. Lovecraft
[/size][/b]

AllPurposeAtheist

Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Solitary

:rollin:  I should have known this was coming. I'm going to send you the bill for my new monitor if this keeps up. It does look kind of neat with the brown liquid running down it though. Oh hell, I've got to go for my "medical" stash. After I clean this mess up.  :roll:  Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Aupmanyav

Quote from: "Solitary"What is your point of view regarding reality? Does reality exist that is independent of what people think about it? Do you want an accurate description of what reality is like, including aspects of reality that can't be seen? Do you think observation is the only source of knowledge about the world we live in? This is not meant to include forms of abstract knowledge such as mathematic or linguistics, which don't exist as far as I know independently outside our heads---keep the letters coming!

Many experimental physicist hold a view opposed to scientific realism: do you agree? Do you think theories should be seen as instruments used to predict observations, rather than as an attempt to describe the real but not seen world hidden but are responcible for patterns found in observation?  Would you say this is a case of STFU and calculate? Now the big question: Do you think the mathematical functions and laws of the theories of physics are the true reality while our observations are shadows on the wall of a cave like Plato said?

Bonus question: Do you think we make our own reality just by thinking we can?
Reality, whatever it is (existence or non-existence), is the same for all, observers or no-observers. Yes, I would have wanted an exact description, but I know, it would not be available in my time. Observation/experiment and what we derive from it (in other words, the scientific method) is the only method of knowledge. Exclude linguistics and leave it for the philosophers.
"Brahma Satyam Jagan-mithya" (Brahman is the truth, the observed is an illusion)
"Sarve Khalu Idam Brahma" (All this here is Brahman)

Colanth

Quote from: "Solitary"Are these laws of science, nature, or God?
Laws of nature aren't like traffic laws, they're observations.  No god needed here.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.