A simple question about absolute death

What if reality is constructed "on the fly" as we observe it? And when we stop observe something, it's obliterated from existence until someone will observe it again. What if when we look at the stars, we see only rough "low-detailed image", like in a video game, but when we look closer with our telescopes or if we travel there by space ship, that region is constructed in much more detail because we observe it. What if we live in virtual reality? Many people working in the field of physics and philosophy rate this possibility as highly probable, and for a good reason. What if all particles in the universe are just projections of each other? Quantum entanglement is real, it's not a theory anymore as it was proven - two particles in different regions of space can influence one another without any conventional connection. They act like they are a projection of a single particle. Doesn't it prove that reality is much more than what we are capable to see with our eyes and hear with our ears, even enhanced by microscopes and other tools? Yet you settle on what your brain deems intuitive as the only answer.

Multiverse, String Theory ... so many theories, so many scientists and philosophers try to understand the true nature of reality, driven by curiosity built into us by this same reality. There's much more to just a cat in a box. I also heard words "pointless" and "wild speculation" in this thread. Well, it's a shame, but you have your own point of view on philosophy and I respect that.

Happy New Year, by the way

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Your disgust to those things is grafted onto you by evolution - all those things you mentioned are a potential hazard to your health, so the nature made you avoid them. The disgust you feel is just enforced onto you as a beneficial survival strategy. Inherently, they are just things - a matter made of the same chemical elements as all other things.

If trees could think, they would be disgusted in the same way about weed, for example, and would see your feces as a yummy yummy nutritions (minerals). Misanthrophy based on disgust to our natural wastes is pointless.

Yes, our cells and bacteria are all individual organisms. This it not disgusting. In a sense, it's beautiful, all this intricate biological machinery. You only see it is disgusting because nature made you hate bacteria for the same reason as above.

 

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And a great Happy New Year to yourself weither it be reality or otherwise

I also heard words "pointless" and "wild speculation" in this thread

My guess is you will continue to hear such comments. It's fine to have wild speculation and to take it on board to hear pointless. The way around the situation is to provide a version of reality which is constant with observations

Think you will have problems with proving reality is constructed on the fly. To prove such a situation you might need two large groups viewing the same region and a non sentence record of what is being observed by the two groups

If both groups agree with the record I for one would be happy that was reality

If one group nailed it and the other way off that would trigger investigation

Sure reality is more than we, as a sentinent being can perceive. Doubt very much it is more than equipment can perceive. THAT would carry some very very serious implications for physics as it would be pitting physics against itself

OK for concessness to have disagreements amongst then as they are flexible with interpretation

Physics is fixed in all realms so arguments against itself are impossible

Need coffee

Chat more later

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IMO, the interpretation that things cease to exist when you are not able to observe them is merely a metaphor for the fact that when we cannot observe something it ceases to exist for the observer, but does not cease to exist as a physical thing in physical reality.

Example, do physical things cease to exist for a blind person? Of course not, the blind observer still has other senses by which to confirm physical existence. Touch, taste, smell, sound can make up for lack of vision very easily. The brain is an extremely flexible organ which can create "images" from these sensory substitutes.

In fact many animals use sonar to create mental images of their surroundings, sometimes with astounding detail. Fishermen use "fishfinders" to see schools of fish up to several hundreds of feet down and would be completely outside any of our normal sensory abilities. A whale (using long wave sonar) can "see" several thousands of feet and create an accurate map of possible obstacles and even communicate with other whales by relating the echoes it receives and paint a sonar image of it's surroundings.

I saw a program once of a totally blind person who would ride his bike daily along a narrow winding tree-lined road.
He had developed his auditory system to such refinement that while bicycling he would whistle and from the "gaps" in the echoes of his surroundings, he was able to visualize any bend in the road and was quite able to navigate this road. A excellent example of the flexibility of the brain's interpretive abilities.

But it is true, that the brain of each individual might experience its own approximation of physical reality . Sighted people can experience the color red, but individually, they see a slightly different red than the next person. It the depends on the individual sensory interpretation of the brain.

 

Spell predictive text and to quick a review. It should read non sentient

Sorry bout that

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What's more, time dilation is a thing, so under right circumstances you can experience in a minute what for me would be an year.

Yes, I agree that some random thing like a fluffly unicorn popping in and out of existence at random unobserved parts of the space-time cotradicts our understanding of reality. However, assumptions like the falling tree question and "non-exclusivity" of our consciousness are fitting the understanding of reality that we currently have, i.e. they challenge, but do not contradict anything.

What is existence for a living being? A slow, measured traversal through the axes of space and time? Then, if we stop time, do we continue to exist? And if there's no one to experience time, how can we know the time continues to flow without living beings observing it? Yes, we have information about what have occurred during this time, but whether it existed or not (as the meaning of word "existing") is also open to interpretation, and that also doesn't contradict the current scientific postulates.

 

Time dilation is a exercise in relativity

Time does not exist

Nobody travels through time

Existence, for life in the context you appear to be expressing, (What is existence for a living being?) is having a physicality with the ability of reproduction. Life and non life only exist in a NOW Universe

If no-one exist it only means no-one is present to AGE. Matter will continue, and AGE. And before you comment AGE is not the same as TIME (which does not exist)

However, assumptions like the falling tree question

Which as I explained define, and agree on the same definition, what sound (or version of sound) you wish to determine its existence or lack of existence

whether it existed or not (as the meaning of word "existing") is also open to interpretation,

Only if you like to redefine meanings of a few hundred other words. Your definitely walking around the edges of Lake Stupid with a good chance of falling in

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Well, you already threw Erwin Schrödinger there and I doubt he was stupid

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So you believe that the equipment invented so far can gather information about all there is to reality? Even though the humanity, with all of it's brain power and technical prowess, may have scratched only the surface of understanding reality?

Is it? How can you know? Do you know how much "realms" are there? Or how deep each realm go? What give rise to the laws of physics in the first place?

We have theoretical smallest building blocks of reality such as plank length. But it's still a theory, we don't know how far down a rabbit hole goes and if we'll ever build a machine capable of reaching the bottom.

 

it's disgusting alright. most all of it is. there is just no choice.

 

Well, your disgust is just your subjective point of view. There is no such thing as objective disgust. I do not feel disgust for humans, even when I see Muslims killing each other for such pointless thing as a religion. All I see is just a sentient collections of particles going about their business.

 

Since you do not appear to be debating or defending any sort of position I think we are done here
If you only come back with more questions which appear to be posted in a credulous fashion I am not going to spend time in constructing a reply
I think I have given you at least 2 Pings and your last reply was the third. Which is my normal upper limit

Byeeee

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I would try to defend the notion that we, as inhabitants of this universe, only scratched the surface, but it's probably won't going anywhere and I understand it gets tiring fast.

Anyway, enjoyed arguing with ya. So long!

 

well, that is also a subjective point of view. lifeforms having to harm and kill eachother or just for gratuitous reasons construed as just going about their business is a point of view that just omits everything except the technical, in order to not be off-put by what we cannot often control. the idea that one accepts it is a practical issue, not an entirely objective one because there is no proof this is an absolute truth that it must be and even if it were, that would be beyond terrible/sad if this was the only truth or type of existence. it just is as far as these laws of the universe and as far as we know. just the fact that we can recognize it as needing improvement or change (in my book) indicates that there is a better or higher truth.

 

You do realize that Schrödinger created the cat thought experiment as an example of reductio ad absurdum, right? It was to show how stupid the idea is.

 

I think you have this backwards. If everything stopped, time would become irrelevant. There would be no difference between infinite time and now.

But I have always wondered that if everything depends on the quantum function and everything stopped, if all of reality would instantly disappear.
Perhaps somewhat similar to a binary computer where functionality exists by the combination of dynamical bits of "on and off" states. If we turn the computer off (stop its dynamic energy), all "ons" would instantly disappear and the entire computer would be in an "off" state, without any dynamical computational function.

 

Even those who discard traditional folk and institutional beliefs still replace them with other schools of thought born in opposition to those, conceptions which similarly regulate and filter their cognitive abilities. A general property which each worldview exhibits or imparts to the holder / advocate of it is the confidence that it and its conclusions are the valid ones, buttressed by the rote learning of that thought-orientation's various defenses and the evidence of its sovereignty (justifications / arguments / claims which eventually become part of the proponent's predictable furniture, scant on novelty).

As much applicable to local and special-domain standards as global ordinance: "Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Orwell

- - -

 

It could be said, maybe, that even Orwell was Orthodox; he was a sort of dogmatist, of a certain "typology".

 

From Andrew256 Post 1

Your first statement seems to exclude a lot of cogent arguments.

Your question seems to require that the discussion of a complex issue be limited to one statement.

The above constraints seem to rule out almost any cogent argument.

I will ignore the constraints you place on this complex issue.

Your first Post also includes the following

Your mention of infinite space time does not support your conclusion. Note the following.

The set of all integers is infinite & includes no duplicates.

The set of all real numbers is an even higher order infinite set which includes no duplicates.

The set of all subsets of the integers is an high order infinite set which include no duplicates.

Calling on infinite space time is not sufficient to support your conclusion. ​

Consider identical twins or triplets.

When born, they do not have the same fingerprints or the same retinal patterns. I suspect that a biologist could identify other differences.

When adults they have further differences, allowing relatives & close friends to distinguish one from the other without relying on fingerprints or retinal patterns.

In addition to the above mentioned physical differences, their minds have different memories.

If so called identical twins & triplets are not really identical, how could persons less related or unrelated individuals to be identical?​

 

Correct. But, if we use integers to mathematically describe any process or phenomenon that occurs in the universe, we will use a set of integers that, assuming the universe is infinite, will undoubtedly repeat itself.

By the way, I suggest to transfer this conversation to this thread:
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/have-you-existed-before.159773/page-10

I should have started posting there from the beginning instead of creating this thread because it's basically the same topic. I try to further defend my "credulous" point of view there and would be grateful for your arguments

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I'll leave it up to you to detect the inherent contradiction in this statement. (I highlighted it in order to give you a hint.)