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16th January 2018, 07:55 PM | #521 |
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16th January 2018, 08:42 PM | #522 |
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16th January 2018, 08:49 PM | #523 |
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The first quote says that it is generally accepted that reality is independent of the mind, but it is not really testable.
The second that the two best arguments for the former are "that everyone experiences the same objective reality" and "that the observable Universe existed for over 99.99 per cent of its existence before humans evolved. Reading comprehension? |
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16th January 2018, 09:39 PM | #524 |
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“Not really testable” means we have no evidence with which to test “The first”. Then you immediately contradict that by providing “The second” which can be used as evidence to test “The first”.
Is reality independent of the mind? Let’s test that against the evidence that reality existed long before any mind did. Test complete . . . conclusion obvious. Testing comprehension? |
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16th January 2018, 10:16 PM | #525 |
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IOW yes, comprehension problems.
How do you prove to a solipsist that he is wrong? He just claims everything is happening in his mind. Please demonstrate. |
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17th January 2018, 12:45 AM | #526 |
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My comment in other thread:
It's not easy. But we must include objects that are not observational. Will is a non-observational concept, but one that is unavoidable in describing psychological facts and behaviours. Unjust is a non-observatory concept, but it is inescapable in moral evaluation. These are the limits of science and the territories where it does not reach... by itself. |
17th January 2018, 12:51 AM | #527 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th January 2018, 12:53 AM | #528 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th January 2018, 12:54 AM | #529 |
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Ha, if it was that easy there would not be any solipsists.
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17th January 2018, 02:17 AM | #530 |
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17th January 2018, 02:26 AM | #531 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th January 2018, 02:36 AM | #532 |
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Don't see how that waffle has anything at all to do with answering my question.
Give an example of an object that isn't observational. Concepts aren't objects. Give an example of an object that isn't observational. Concepts are abstract human constructs and science can "reach their territories" as such. Seems you want abstract human constructs to be more than what they actually are. Even if your poor (being kind) attempt at an explanation did make sense, you still haven't explained what non-scientific method can reach the "territories" that science can't (and how it does it, and what explanations it provides) |
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17th January 2018, 03:24 AM | #533 |
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A cite was requested. Did you perhaps accidentally forget to provide a link?
Sure as soon as you prove to a raging paranoiac that no one is really out to get him. Please demonstrate. Just like there aren't any theists? |
17th January 2018, 03:29 AM | #534 |
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Well, it's hardly a surprise that people (you in the present example) like to believe simplistic things from philosophers. That's nothing new, and it's certainly far easier than putting in real work to study & learn from science. You are certainly not alone in preferring to believe simple and mysterious seeming things from ancient philosophy and religion. Even in educated western democracies probably 99% of the population are relatively ignorant of science and prefer to believe in all sorts of mystical & supernatural ideas. They think that's more interesting and far easier than putting in many years of hard work to understand how science has shown that all such ancient beliefs from philosophy and religion are untrue, and shown by the actual evidence to be little more fanciful mystical un-educated nonsense (scientifically “un-educated”). Could science be significantly wrong in the way it currently describes the universe? Of course … science, scientists, and people here are not claiming that every description from science is always absolutely perfect to 100% certainty. But that is not a “gap” which can ever be honestly filled either with “God did it” or with a philosopher rushing in to say “quick, fill the gap with our claim that science cannot detect reality!”. |
17th January 2018, 03:42 AM | #535 |
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17th January 2018, 03:53 AM | #536 |
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A non-observational concept have not any evidence in experience, neither direct nor indirect.
“Will” and “fair” are classical non-observational concepts. Any experience you have of what is fair or unfair is decided by a previous concept of fairness. On the concept of observational, see above. It does not matter to our discussion what type of object is designated by a concept. Concepts such as "will" or "deserve" are not observational and therefore not scientific. And you have used them in your descriptions that are not more complex of what I proposed, but add unnecessary things to our debate. For example, it is irrelevant to know whether the judged person had a child or not and what kind of object he stole; what matters is that the judge states he did it "because he wanted to" and "not forced" and he deserves -or not- a punishment. |
17th January 2018, 04:07 AM | #537 |
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"A bit off"? You mean, like, wrong? Either the speed of propagation of gravity is known or it is not. He said it is not, and then added sarcastically that I should be given a Nobel prize for discovering it. Sarcasm is fine, but not when you've just shown yourself up to be wrong.
You have a mass. You vapourise or otherwise destroy that mass; its gravitational field attenuates at the speed of light. If you vapourise a mass that has been in existance for a million years then it will take a million years for that mass's gravitational field to disappear. So the gravitational field clearly exists in the absence of the mass. The question is, if you deleted that paragraph, would its field of pedantry disappear or simply change to a different form? It's ridiculous. If you measure the gravitational field generated by the Earth, vapourise the Earth with a big laser, then come back in four billion year's time would you say, "Oh, there has been no effect on the gravitational field of the Earth" or "The gravitational field of the Earth has well and truly disappeared"? I think we know the answer. g=GM/r2 is kind of tricky to calculate without M or r. Stop talking soft. |
17th January 2018, 04:22 AM | #538 |
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17th January 2018, 04:50 AM | #539 |
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17th January 2018, 05:07 AM | #540 |
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17th January 2018, 05:21 AM | #541 |
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17th January 2018, 05:25 AM | #542 |
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17th January 2018, 05:40 AM | #543 |
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As far as we know, it does. Actually it would be slightly more if you could physically measure the extent, because space-time itself (i.e. the universe) is itself stretching, but that doesn't violate C.
It's more like a distortion of space-time, think of a cannon ball on a trampoline. Remove the cannon ball and the fabric of the trampoline will return to its original state. It's not a perfect analogy as even with an infinite trampoline the distortion wouldn't keep on propagating, but it's similar. |
17th January 2018, 05:51 AM | #544 |
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Nope, exactly like the light beam keeps traveling after the bulb is off the gravity field also does. It really doesn't matter how long the bulb has been on.
If a mass has existed for x years, its gravitational field will have propagated a distance of x light years from the mass. If it disappears the gravitational field right by the mass will disappear and the disappearance of the field will propagate away at the speed of light. This hollow sphere of gravity field will continue propagating and get larger and larger and weaker and weaker, theoretically for ever, it never disappears. |
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17th January 2018, 05:54 AM | #545 |
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17th January 2018, 05:58 AM | #546 |
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No. If the gravitational field is propagating, it will continue to propagate, even after the mass ceases to exist, exactly as it would have had the mass continued to exist. As the wave front is propagating at the speed of light, the information that the mass no longer exists cannot catch up with it.
However, this is not a realistic scenario. As has already been said, there is no means by which a mass can simply be removed from spacetime; vapourising it simply changes the phase of the matter involved (vapour has mass), and converting it to energy leaves the mass equivalent of the energy created still in existence. So, unless you can come up with a realistic scenario, your claim that a gravitational field can exist in the absence of a mass to generate it is not substantiated. Dave |
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17th January 2018, 06:28 AM | #547 |
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It's not possible to "prove" it to a solipsist (or to any philosophy students here), but only because it's not possible to actually "prove" anything! Science does not claim to actually "prove" even the most well established theories such as QM, GR or evolution. Instead all we can ever do is look for genuine reliable evidence. And if that becomes so abundant, so clear and unarguable, then it eventually gets accepted as a "Theory". That is all we can ever do. And it's a great deal more than philosophy has ever done. But it's not an actual 100% certain "proof'. However, anyone can make a claim like that to say perhaps the universe is un-real, or to say that perhaps all that exists is just in your own thoughts. But what science has shown is that any claims of that sort are completely worthless unless you can show how the claim could actually be true. IOW, it's no good anyone merely saying "X might be true". If they make a statement like that then the statement is not credible until they explain how it could be true ... how is it possible for humans to be detecting a universe that is significantly different to the way science has detected and explained it? ... what is the viable alternative explanation from philosophy? … how could thoughts arise in a disembodied mind? |
17th January 2018, 06:42 AM | #548 |
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Wouldn't that fit the popular definition of "proof", however? It might not be mathematical proof but when we say "proof" we mean "convincingly demonstrated with evidence and argument" or something similar. I think it's needlessly pedantic to argue about the use of this word.
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17th January 2018, 07:46 AM | #549 |
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We're getting hung up on minutiae here. A vanishingly small remnant, no remnant, OK. The point is that the gravitational force exists after the mass has vanished. You're actually supporting my argument in stronger terms than I stated it originally. I said that a gravitational force can exist independently of mass for <whatever> time-scale. You're arguing that a gravitational force can exist independently of mass for ever. There you go.
That doesn't matter. The point is that the principle is correct. A gravitational force can theoretically exist in the absence of mass. As I already said, if you blast the Earth and convert it into radiation then that gravitational field is no longer being maintained by that mass, by definition. If you dispute this, show me the equate you would use to calculate it. You can argue about how energy has not been lost, of course it hasn't, but that doesn't change the facts as relate to my analogy. |
17th January 2018, 07:50 AM | #550 |
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17th January 2018, 07:55 AM | #551 | |||
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You cannot destroy the mass. You can in principle (and to a very limited extent in practice) convert some or all of it to energy. But energy also has a gravitational field. In fact the amount of energy that the mass was converted into will have the same aggregate gravitational attraction as the mass that was converted. Subsequent displacement of the mass or energy will alter the gravitational field, the changes propagating at the speed of light as gravity waves. The gravitational field cannot and will not disappear.
Quote:
There's an equation that can supply you the M after the earth has been vaporized. (I'll assume that by "vaporization" you mean converted into energy rather than into vapor, even though a laser wouldn't do that, because vapor has mass so M would still be readily at hand.) You might have heard of this equation before. E=MC2. Solve for M (it's not too difficult). As for the absence of an r, I think you're confused. (Hint: r is not the radius of the earth, in the equation you cite, except in one special case.)
Quote:
I think you mean...
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17th January 2018, 07:55 AM | #552 |
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17th January 2018, 08:02 AM | #553 |
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As I said before, science has already begun explaining the mechanism behind many of the phenomena of consciousness: cognition, memory, emotions, deja vu, etc...
What science cannot do (and I suspect, this is what a lot of people expect it to do, as a consequence of being able to explain it) is predict which way is a given fom of consciousness going to behave with 100% accuracy. But because of its intricate complexity, a given form of consciousness will not follow any predictive rules. It has a life of its own, so to speak. I think of it as, say a sport, like soccer. You can explain soccer to someone. You can describe how the game works in detail, what are the rules of the game, etc... But as soon as a soccer match starts, any infinite number of interactions can happen, and you're always up for a surprise. It's a living entity with its own random behavior. That's what makes it impossible to predict (and that's what makes the sports fun) Likewise, with consciousness. I think no matter how good science gets at explaining every part of its internal mechanism, there will never come a point where we can explain its function so well, that we can predict exactly how an individual is going to behave at any given time, or what processes is his mind going to go through, etc. That said, science can make a lot of predictions about consciousness, in terms of its mechanism. We know that if we deprive the brain of certain chemicals or connections, it won't be able to perform specific functions. For instance, Capgras Delusion is a "circuit break" between the temporal cortex and the lymbic system in the brain, depriving the individual from a specific "cable" that send the "emotional signal" to the brain when they see a subject such as their mother, creating the illusion in their brain that the person they are observing is not their real mother, but rather an impostor. Many similar experiments have been made, such in cases like the Capgras Syndrome, proving that every single time such "circuit break" happens, the symptom pops up automatically. These kind of experiments are the ones that have shown us that the brain, magnificent as it is, is no different from a computer. A much much complex computer, but still, subject to changes in functionality based on lack of proper connections, just like a computer. Science has made an amazing amount of progress explaining the brain's circuitry (and consequntially, the consciousness that arises from its connectivity) and will continue to do so. How far it will get in accuracy is something that only time will tell. But I doubt we will ever be able to entirely predict every single behaviour from any given form of consciousness, even if it's a form of consciousness we ourselves create (Artificial Intelligence) The whole "point" of consciousness is that it is unpredictable. It has a life of its own. |
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17th January 2018, 08:05 AM | #554 |
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Unfortunately philosophers would claim that it's not at all an independent test, because the only way you could know anything about any computer results is through your own mind telling you what you believe the computer had shown. You are still entirely reliant upon your own mind/brain/senses. It's really just pointing out that if intelligent beings of any sort (even any super-advanced aliens from planet Zog), have any personal/individual means of awareness at all, then everything they ever detect will always have to be known to them entirely through that method of personal awareness. E.g., even if the Aliens from Zog had something very different to our brain & sensory system, so that they detected and “understood” everything through a means called “X”, then philosophers could still claim that whatever the Zogians thought they experienced was still only an image inside of X, and that any external reality (or lack of any such reality) could be totally different from the way it seemed inside of X. |
17th January 2018, 08:31 AM | #555 |
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Getting back toward the original topic, that analogy is a far better one than vanishing mass-energy and gravitational fields. If I regard my conscious experience as the creation of an ongoing narrative by a massively powerful ongoing computation in my brain, I must (after careful observation) also conclude that that process and the resulting narrative construct is far from self-contained. Most of its elements are actually a bricolage of inputs into the computation, sometimes (but not always) rearranged or transformed in various ways. The inputs come primarily from the outside world via my senses; and less directly from past interactions with the outside world via my memories. In both cases, most of "me" (the narrative) is actually made of the world—the things I've seen, the books I've read, the people I've met, the environments I've lived in. The effects of that computation, pieces of that ongoing constructed narrative, in the form of my words and actions, also emanate into the world and inevitably feed into a lot of other ongoing computations and feature in other ongoing narratives. If I had been vaporized by a big laser just after posting the paragraph you referenced above, the paragraph would still have been there and your response would have been the same as if I were still a living person (assuming you weren't also in the AOE of the big laser!). If the paragraph had been deleted just after you'd read it, the pedantry within it would still be in your conscious thoughts and evoking your reply, now a part of your narrative. That concept is crudely recognized in the ancient, crude, and common idea of "immortality through fame." But chaos theory and computational theory put a much finer polish on it. Fame, notoriety, victories, great deeds, great works; these are all significant perturbations in the interactive web of the world, but no strand is irrelevant; in the long term the butterflies matter as much as the hurricanes. You don't need to bring in unevidenced "consciousness fields" to make a case that the individuality and transience of the self are largely cognitive illusions. |
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17th January 2018, 03:56 PM | #556 |
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There is no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of a brain. And dualism separates the mental from the physical
but the mental is merely the physical at a more subtle level. The demarcation exists not because it is real rather because of the human need to categorise and compartmentalise everything. The map is not the terrain just an approximation of it |
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17th January 2018, 06:26 PM | #557 |
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17th January 2018, 06:45 PM | #558 |
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17th January 2018, 10:44 PM | #559 |
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17th January 2018, 10:47 PM | #560 |
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