TheRobin

Okay but it still leaves the question of how does the wave know it is being measured? As I understand it the measuring device is not supposed to interfere with the wave. It may be fallacious but it seems an important part of our reality that things communicate without physicality. I see your point that the wave collapses before human conscious intervention. What the experiment demonstrated to me was a non physical aspect to our environment, that matter is only a wave of possibility until something else asks 'where are you?' and it is only then that the matter says 'oh, here I am', if you follow. First of all, I don't think we know that whatever is being measured is a wave (the fact that it can be accurately described as a awave of probability isn't the same as saying that the thing in question is in fact a wave. Partly also because a wave isn't a thing but a form of movement. And certainly no one can say it knows anything (as that implies conciousness of some sort)). And the device surely does interfere (else no measuring would take please), but just so little that it's not supposed to disturb the measured thing in question that much. But I know too little about the math/experiments/devises used etc. to give any good answer here. I'm also not sure what you mean with "non-physical". Could you give me an example of something non-phyiscal that is verifiable/falsifiable?

just to rebut the quantum argument: You're using the words "observed" and "watched" in an ambiguous manner here. When you talk of watching something that invovles consciousness and most importantly our eyes. When you talk about qunatum stuff, our conciousness has nothing to do with it (you can't see these particles or moelcules with your eyes, just to point out the obvious here). What is being observed is a machine designed to measure these particles, not the particles. So consciousness has nothing to do with it. Especially when you consider, that people will look at the results (i.e. where conciousness comes into play) after the particle has already behaved the way it did.And to say that therefore "all matter is conscious to some degree" is even more fallacious, as there's no way of measuring conciousness, so that's by definition not a verifiable hypothesis. (Unless you know of a way to measure whether something is conscious or not)

To add a little something more to that (maybe it makes more sense then in regards to the idea of truth and reality).Let's take the idea of square and circle, both of which are concepts of 2 dimensional things. Since their properties contradict each other, there can't be a 2-d thing which is a square circle. Now let's assume we could only process 2 spacial dimensions, if there'd be a 3-d thing that could leave both circle and square "imprint" on the 2-d surface we can observe, then that'd be really "weird and incomprehensible", but still possible without contradiction. Because a 3-d thing is neither a square nor a circle, but can interract with the 2-d plane in ways that make imprints of either. You also couldn't call it a "square circle" because those terms indicate a 2-d thing, which it is not.So if someone came along and made a model describing this thing in a 3-d way and having good predictions with that model, then I don't see why that wouldn't be used. Of course, since in that example we could never confirm whether the thing is actually 3-d or not (since in the example we only have access to the 2-d plane), we couldn't rightfully go around and claim that the object is truly 3-d (as this is unverifiable). But ultimately it doesn't matter, since, if we have a way of describing how the thing interracts with the 2-d plane, then that's all we need to stick a specfic concept onto it and use that as knowledge about the thing.Basically, what I want to make clear is, that even though we can't say anything about "true" or "real" or "ultimate" (etc.) reality, that doesn't mean that contradictions (or rather contradictory concepts) suddenly become valid, as every concept is not only defined by what postive claims it makes about the characteristics of an object, but also has inherent limits, in the case of the circle, the limit is 2-d-plane, which is why we can say for certain that a square circle can't exist, as the limits of a 2-d plane makes it inherently impossible.

Without getting into the "ethic" debate.My own experience with heavy marijuana usage and addiction was that I got out of it (and completely lost interst in it) as a result of gaining self-knowledge and examining the reason for my usage etc.), so in that sense, I don't think it will inherently disturb your search for truth, but at some point you'll naturally land at a point where you'll want to question your use (imo) and it will solve itself that way.Also when I got to that point and as a result stopped smoking weed the whole time I hardly had any withdrawal symptoms either (whereas before it'd often try to stop and then start again, and then stop again, start again etc.) and I'm really one (or used to be) for heavy withrawal symptoms in that regards.

As you certainly know, this is mostly linked to how one defines knowledge and reality, so let me give you a brief summary of how I understand those terms the characteristic (or identity) of a thing is how it relates and interracts with other things. We can only know of things, because they interract with others (and ultimately with our senses, either directly or indirectly through various instruments used to measure things). And knowledge is ultimately a description of how a thing interracts with another thing. As an example: Calling something "green" is really saying how white light interracts with said thing (and also how your eyes react to the reflected light). It is not a description of the thing itself more than a description of how it relates and interracts with another thing (light in this example). You couldn't ever call anything "green" if there wasn't any light around (cause, what would it even mean?). In the same sense, "reality" the way we experience it, is an interraction of something with our senses and how our brain then translates this input and makes it into our human experience. Objectivity is a word for saying, that more people (or people with the same brain structure and working senses) have basically the same experience of a thing or happenstance. Like, if I say that a rock falls to the ground, all people involved see the rock and the ground and the movement, therefore making the claim objectively verifiable. But in a way one is more comparing one's senses to the senses of other people than to "reality" here. Or rather one compares the meaning of one's claim (which is based on ones experience of reality) to how the experience changes and verifies it according to that. (In this example, seeing the rock fall down). This in essence though, tells us nothing of reality in an absolute sense (With that I mean, it doesn't tell you how reality "really" is, cause how could you know in essense, if your experience of it is a product of reality interracting with our senses and our senses with our brain etc.) Also how could you ever verify "real" reality vs "not quite real" reality? You'd need a standard that is independent of any sensual input and translation, but all the reality you can experience stems from exactly those senses, so I don't see any way you could logically say anything about reality that is independent of your senses (not to confuse with, creating instruments to measure things that is outside the spectrum of our senses, but there again you basically see how the instrument interracts with other things etc.) And that makes any claim about what reality "really" is comepletely irrelevant. Like our idea of what a "solid" is in reality just a lot of empty space with some atomic dots in them, but that doesn't invalidate our concept of "solidity" as that describes of "solids" interract with other things (and this is still valid, even if in reality the solid is really not that "solid" from a atomic point of view) So to come to the word "truth". Truth would then simply be a concept of a thing that correctly corresponds to your experience of the thing, given a certain accuracy. Like, if I say "rocks fall to the ground" and I say that, what I hold in my hand is a rock and that which I stand on is the ground and I let the rock go and it falls to the ground, then my statement was true. If the thing I had in my hand would fall towards the sky, then either rocks don't fall to the ground or what I held in my hand wasn't a rock. So either I change my definition of the characteristics of "rock" or I change my claim about what the thing I held in my hand actually was. So in essence it's all about having a concept that accurately describes the actions relations and interractions of a thig relative to other things and applying the concept correctly to our experience that's given by our senses. Hope that made some sense To skip a few things here. The way I learned it, inductive logic is not aimed at being syllogisticly valid. I'd say it tries to come up with general ideas that make it easier to compare things to other things. (The most general being, mass, location, size, movement). Take mass for instance, under closer scrutiny, no one has any real idea what it is, even though everyone has a good intuitive sense of it. But in essence, all the concpet does is help is relate how things react to other things, when bumped together or move (i.e. things like force, impulse, energy etc.) and to describe how much move towards at each other seemingly without any particular reason at all (i.e. gravity) In the same sense, I don't have any problem with claims (or models) that describe reality in multidimensional kind of "weird" ways, as, just like the idea of mass or electric charge, this is just another way of inventing a general concept to apply to things that then describes how they interract with other things. Though there's certainly (or can be) a misuse of these concepts, that is, wehn one starts to assert, that, just because the model gives accurate predictions, that it then represents real reality, where it would be more accurate to say that "When we use this concept of behaviour and interractions and movement on this thing, then it gives us a good prediction and seems to work as a whole also with other similar things etc. though we ultimately have no idea what the thing is or why it acts the way it does." In the same sense you can call the idea of "mass" by that very same way "When we use the concept of mass and ascribe it to these things, it seems to work at giving us accurate predictions and makes sense when applied to this whole category of things, but ultimtately we have no idea what the thing actually is or why it acts the way it does." I'm also not sure what the problem supposedly is with black holes (I thought you can measure it, how else would one know where to find it. I mean, you measure it by it's influence on its surrounding obviously, as by definition, you can't measure what's going on inside the "radius of no return", but how that that invalidate anything?) I also don't see your issues with the word quantum, but maybe I just don't hear it that often. Granted, it get's tossed around quite a lot nowadays even by New Age and Spiritualism. But the concept afaik is derived at by experiment and isn't pure fiction, so I don't really know what the issue here would be. Phew, that's a lot of text well, I hope it makes some sense. Let me know if this was helpful to you

Ah, ok. Thanks for the explanation. It's been a long time since I last read anything about String theory and at that point I was mostly just enjoying how "spaced out" everything seemed to be

I was thinking of the difference between 'valid' and 'true' in the lgocial sense. A logical argument can be valid in that the form of the argument is valid, but with false premises then it is valid but false. So if I see pink unicorns I've either fallen into another world, or my senses were valid ('I' experienced pink unicorns) but still false, since in this world I can't experience unicorns, pink, grey or any other color. The term 'ultimate given' is from Mises. I have found it to be very useful. His thought is this is not necessarily an absolute limit, but a given for our level of understanding. I;m thinking all input from the senses is valid in the sense that they were indeed what we experienced, but then that experience must be run through our brain in the search for what is both true and valid. I still don't understand how it would look in your example if the senses were invalid. (I mean, an argument can be invalid and have true premises, but I don't see how that could be applied to the senses in that way)

That's nicely put. About how I'd use the concpet of the senses too. Except that... ..if all input are to be called "valid" then the idea of "valid" vs "invalid" doesn't make any more sense imo. Like if you went to a test and all answers we're called correct no matter what you write, then the idea of "correct" loses all its meaning in that context. If that makes sense

This paragraph has me now slightly confused partially. ermm...In a way I'd love to simplify it more, but the reason I try to make every concept as explicit as possible is, that the whole debate imo stems from a point of vagueness of the terms used, so I kind of want to avoid that here. I also posted "your definition" because I thought you were implying I kind of invented "my own definition" and/or also because you obviously seem to use the word differently (and/or implied I use it in a non-standard way) so I wanted a clearer understanding of what you mean by it, as, if you use it the way I posted, the argument for validity makes no sense, so you'd have to state how you use the word first so that I'm sure what you even mean. I mean, if you end by arguing for the validity of the senses, but don't explain to me how you use the term differently than I, we won't get anywhere (which is also why I wanted to make sure I didn't get misunderstood, since if you end your answer by arguing for the validity of the senses, then this makes only sense as a response to an argument of the invalidity of the senses so I automatically assumed that this was the way my argument came across and I wanted to make explicit that this was not what I intended.) Ok, that's about how I used it too. So can you tell me how you would differentiate between "acutal reality" and "reality" then? I think I could get a better understanding of what you mean that way You seem to use the word invalid now to mean that no stimulus/experience/perception=invalidty. And vice versa any perception=validity. Or how do you equate invalidity with no input at all? I mean by that definition hallucinating a unicorn would be valid and not seeing by closing ones eyes would temporarily render the senses invalid. That's probably not how you intended that to mean I assume, but as I see it that would be the conclusion if one would use the word like that, or wouldn't it?

Well, fundamentally, I want to have a clear non-contradictory understanding between the relation of my mind and myself and reality in order to have a coneptual framework that I can use as the basis of any inquiry about reality and truth. I don't think that's just "my definition" that's just how the concept of validity is usually applied. Things aren't valid in a vacuum, they're valid or invalid in regards to a certain other thing or context and logically that context can't be created by the thing whose validity is in question, can it? Or can you give me your definition of the term then instead and show me how I missapplied it or given it a new definition that's not the one usually used when talking about validity and senses? No, I'm saying that this is in essence what the question of validity in regards to the senses says. just to make certain there's no misunderstanding I'm not arguing for any invalidity here, I'm arguing that the concept of validity is misapplied in regards to the senses. I don't want to disprove that 3+green=cat, I just say it's a meanigless equation to begin with.

RIght, string theory is not experimentally confirmed, though it's been ongoing research for close to 40 years, now -- plenty of lives of brilliant people have been invested into this thing, and the reality of the situation becomes more uneasy with each passing year. And there are problems of falsifiability -- it is not clear if it is even possible to do an experiment that would rule out string theory (leading to basic questions of its status as science). Basically, it's the biggest gamble in the history of theoretical physics -- it might end up with an enormous payoff somewhere down the line, but there's also a good chance that it won't. Of course, there were good motives for taking a look at this kind of thing -- one thing that is known for sure is that the current "standard model" can't be the end of the story, and string theory seemed a promising way to get to a next generation of understanding. But now the program appears to be going nowhere fast (from the point of view of a non-specialist like myself). Well my understanding of it is, that it was a try to find a model that can describe black holes (or singularities) without contradictio, as realitvitiy and quantumtheory seem to collide there in a way that is unresolvable by each seperat model. But if that's true then I understand the reason for the theory even less, as, if GR is true, what goes on inside a black hole can't ever be observed/verfied or analysed anyway, so, why bother if current models don't describe that? Also I don't see how the word "understanding" would fit into Stringtheory, as to me (as a layman) it seems more like making up a good-sounding (and mathematically accurate)story that fits the data (much like the ptolemic model). I mean it seems like QM and GR leave this empty shape in the wall and now they use some cardboard and drawing to close it up. Again, this all comes from a layman understanding/perspective of what's going on and to come back to the OT, it seems rather a problem of metaphysics and epistemology than anythign else.

ah, I missunderstood to what point you were responding then.But in regards to string theory: Isn't it purely fictional? I mean there's no empirical data for strings (and there can be none anyway afaik, or can there?)I mean, to me it seems that at one point a bunch of guys just came up with the idea to describe everything using 1d-strings swinging through n-d-mini-spaces, but I don't quite see, what they used as the basis of that or what they try to solve using this particular approach

After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that using validity (or invalidity) to describe the senses seems a contradiction in terms and I'm curious what other people think of that.The reasoning goes like this:-the concept of validity requires a standard according to which one can judge something to be either valid or invalid-the senses are the tools are used to give us an experience of reality - calling the senses valid (or invalid) would require a knowledge of reality which we then could compare against how our senses show us reality-but since any knowledge of reality comes through the senses, no such standard can ever exist without being derived from the senses first- so any standard of reality against which we could compare our senses is itself derived by the same sensesSo the idea that senses can be called valid or invalid seems to be a circular reasoning and would be logically invalid as such.Or am I missing something here?

Can you name me a criteria according to which you can verify or falsify "actual" truth then? I wouldn't say that its "all that science is good for" I'd say that's all you can do anyway (there isn't any more truth than that). If you say there's a truth beyond what you can (directly) know through measurements/observation, then I don't see how you could ever verify that, as it itself requires observation to be verified. That too is imo not quite correct, the sun "is" not at the center, it's just the most convenient model for calculation, as the gravity center is within the sun anyway, therefor making it the most intuitive representation of the solar system. Or how can you verify that the sun is "actually" at the center (I don't even know what that would mean to be honest, "actually compared to what?"). Basically the question is about the center relative to what context, which is not an absolute as the word "center" is derived from an (arbitrary) context given by the one making the claim. I think the problem with the Ptolemic system was, that it wasn't based on any principles of gravity, which lead to simply having to correct the model with every new data point. (Or rather it wasn't really a model to begin with, but a way of describing that was measured by drawing more and more circles), but I know too little about it to be certain here. I think generally, you use an epistemology where the truth of things (or their identity, as Rand calls it, iirc) is somehow independent of other things, but I don't see how one could logically make that claim or what that would even mean. As every charateristic is derived at by an interraction with other things and doesn't exist independently (or rather, what does exist independently is unknowable by definition, since as soon as you make an observation it's no longer independant, but what you observe is the reaction of one thing with another (which, ultimately, reacts with your sensory organs))

This is purely a matter of efficiency, and the fact that you have limited amount of time in your life. I do not want to spend the first 60 years of my life reproducing what Newton did from a series of careful experiments, so that I can then begin considering the next step. Of course, if there is a compelling reason to go back and start again from first principles, it can be an important thing to do -- but it would be a waste to make everyone do that at every single stage of their education, and rob from them the benefit of the intervening discoveries and theoretical construct. That said, modern students actually do many, many experiments in the course of their education to keep them grounded in the reality of the science. However, the main use is that of an illustration -- it is not to force them to re-derive all of physics as it currently exists. That would be a monumental undertaking no human could complete. I think you misunderstood RoseCodex (and Harriman) here. The point is not to start physics from scratch, but that, when doing science, one should start with evidence/data/experiments and then try and make a model using those experiments as a foundation. Harriman (as far as I understand him) cirtiques that models/theories are formed without any data backing them up in particular and then having experiments to either try to confirm or reject those models/theories. An so reversing the process from inductive (generalizing/abstracting a theory from the data at hand) to deductive (trying to find data after a theory has already been proposed). iirc Harriman tells the story here of Newton and Descartes both trying to come up with a theory/model for how light works. Where Newton experimented first before he even bothered to come up with a theory and Descartes just thought something up and then tried to see if really fits that or not afterwards. I think String theory would be an excellent showcase for that, as its based in literally nothing as far as I know, so they invent a theory (or rather a theoretical thing and its properties) and now they seem to try and tweak it until it fits the data. Or that's at least my understanding of it.

Hehe, actually it was this site/intereviewer that first got me into critical thinking and through whose interviews I came across the ideas of anarchy (and last but certainly not least Stef), so I have some sympathies towards him for that. That being said, he's quite the horrible interviewer unfortunately, as he always tends to interject/interrupt and I get the feeling he kind of wants to "show off" his own knowledge quite a lot, on the other hand he does have a lot of intersting guests who have good material and research, so that somewhat cancels out at least a bit imo. :)But enough tangents. I actually listened to the interview over a year ago and found it quite intersting. Though as of right now, I would comment in the following way (based on my memory of it).First, there must be made a difference between having a working model that provably gives accurate predictions and the claim, that this model somehow represents actual reality. In the case of QM I don't see a problem with using a particle-wave duality or superpositions, since they predict the outcome well. But the moment someone claims that such a thing as a particle in superposition actually exist, they make an unverifiable claim (as observation by defintion causes that particle to stop being in that superposition), so they can't really use that as a way of making claims about reality.As far as my understanding goes, the same is true for the Big Bang theory, and the dark matter/energy. String theory seems to be a fiction by definition that is unporvable according to the theory itself (afaik), as there's no way to ever prove those strings exist or not (again, afaik), so I don't see why he jumbles them together into one pot.

While it's a pyschologically very nasty thing to try to "dominate" others with such things, it's not really an appropriate application of the word dominance or violence, since all participants (especially the ones dominated) can opt out of this crazy any time they want. If people play a game and behave aggresively when they win towards to loser, then the loser is free to just not play with them anymore. I really don't see how the word "violence" could be applied here

Not sure how that (the sentences I marked) was itnended, but there's certainly an (almost obvious, imo) causality between not being able to relate to women and not having sex that early. The way it's phrased there makes it either seem reversed or simply a statement of correlation. Could you explain further how this was meant?

http://www.sciencenewsline.com/articles/2013022818340004.html"...12 hours of video game play did more for reading skills than is normally achieved with a year of spontaneous reading development or demanding traditional reading treatments."

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiPQuOFVHl4:640:480]Intersting interview. Salman Khan talks about how he wants to move into the direction of Khanacademy being able to give relevant credentials. "Relevant" meaning releveant to the employers here.

I get the feeling we were listening to two completely different videos here.I just listened to some parts again to see if I got it wrong, but it seems that no. She doesn't talk about how everything ended with a good oucome for (only) her (Those parts I relistened to didn't end that way, so the claim that she ends "each anecdote" that way is certainly incorrect.) the family wasn't in a state "where they couldn't afford it" (or if they where, then she didn't tell us that) and they really didn't offer her anything besides a bible (which imo is not quite an offering in that sense, but more a way of ,well, idk, being religiously irrational).So I have literally no idea where you draw those evidence from.I also don't see how talking about how she experienced twitter is implying that she is "so important and wonderful".

You're welcome. Enjoy the chatting

I didn't see any such subtext. How is talking about one's own experience as an example for a general concept necessarily implying that this means being self-centered or self-agrandising (however that's spelled correctly)?Especially since she didn't portray herself as a kind of person who's above it all with no concerns and always perfectly confident etc. but rather just talked about how she experienced trust/closeness and vulnerability towards strangers/fans.

if you look at the forum page, where all the subcategories are, to the utterost right, there's a "chat" column. Usually people are in the chat that's in the "general messages"-column (indicated by the number). Click there and you should get to the chat.

A H2-molecule is already two H atoms resisting each others gravitational pull. (Else they would probably end up bein a He atom instead in the long run).By that criteria every atom that forms a molecule with another atom would need to be considered alive. (Which makes pretty much everything alive except loose atoms that don't form bonds with any others)