Allah is a logical entity.

Mel_Funktion

I gave you evidence as calculating 3 dimensional fractals in realtime can only be achieved by someone with an advanced math knowledge0. But if you refuse to view evidence, because you dislike my personality. what does that say about you, really?

Who will cause the doom? The arsehole willing to listen to arguments given that they are good, nomatter what arsehole comes with them. Or village idiot, that will only listen to sources they like, and think is nice.

The evidence was in the file.

My apologies for jumping in at such a hysterical point in the thread. I've been following the replies and wanted to chip in with my two cents.

Mel Tooting your own (broken) horn will not further your points. Your metaphors and allegories aren't helping either. I have not seen you present a shred of even plausible..'evidence' (as you like to call it) in response of the statements put forth by Neo.

You've gone from running around in circles (i.e. "i disagree" why? "well because I do") to tooting your own horn. Perhaps you'd like to get off your high (relatively)speaking horse and present some credible proof that goes beyond your hippie'world is so preeety and what i see is perfect in my eyes n same to you' nonsense.

I await such evidence, as do the others who are interested in this topic.

Sincerely,
Napalm.

Nice first post. Mod's please check IP

savage_carrot

Peace Napalm and welcome, I could get used to you around here. It's apparently much needed.

Nice first post. Mod's please check IP

First it was hysteria, now it's paranoia lol

Napalm

This is a logical contradiction. If nothing was for certain, then neither is that statement. By making the statement absolutely nothing is for certain youre entering a world of paradox because youre saying on one hand that nothing is absolute, yet youre making that fact an absolute. This is one of the most fundamental contradictions of philosophies based on nihilism where everything is relative.

Oppinion. You are telling me what you think I mean.

No. Read it again 'This is a logical contradiction'. All else he said follows from said statement. It is logical.

First of all, Plato and 2000+ years of academia was not my proof that was to illustrate that the idea of logic being objective isnt a pet idea of mine.

No it is a pet idea of many people.

Quit with the asinine statements. Either that or go and look up the meaning of 'pet ideas'. FYI, I don't think you'll find it in dictionary.com.

Secondly, Quantum physics is built upon observation (important note quantum theory does not state that reality is subjective, it states that our interpretation of reality is subjective);

THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING!!! And there is NOTHING but our personal interpretation of reality. I can not know that you'r reality is the same as mine, but we can agree on certain things, that we observe in the same way.

No. Re-read (or better yet, understand) Neo's points. The points at hand are not our 'interpretations of reality'.

To be honest, it wasnt that many words but youre a math major so I understand that you get lost if I use more than a sentence.

No try and get a bullhorn. We all know that louder is more true. You have used the same old tired circular arguments that I heave heard a million times before. And they are all up for interpretation. This does not make it facts.

The only one who has presented anything remotely circular in this discussion is you. Please learn the definition of 'interpretations' (preferrably from a source not named dictionary.com).

Anyway, Ive given you plenty of examples. Ive asked you to disprove the notion that 2+2 = 5, which you have not.

But what i did prove was that anything, is up for interpretation in its own right. There is nothing silly about large values of a number. What is silly is using it to prove something in "the real world". Because in the theoretical world that is math, it is possible.

Again, please refer to my earlier points in the post.

Ive asked you to disprove Pythagoras idea of objective proof via x? + y? <> z?, which you have not.

What pythagoras forgot was the fact that there are only the framework that we set up to work within, like math. So saying something like a=a and not a^a makes sense since we all agree what a is to begin with.
This is basic and pretty forward stuff. But if you want to follow a specific path of knowledge seeking. be my guest. By all means, limit yourself.

Are you sure you have a degree in mathematics?

Ive asked you to demonstrate that something can come form nothing, which again (to nobodys surprise mind you) you have not.

Within what framework? The world? Natural laws? what?

The 'framework' has already been provided. If you have not discovered it after so many pages and posts, tis not our responsibility to spoon feed it to you.

These are all objective statements that pertain to our reality. Then Ive gone forth to give you a formal argument on why logic is objective, which you have not countered except to say that you disagree. Yes, Im glad you disagree but I dont really care if you dont show why you disagree, in fact no one does. If you disagree, lets see why you do if not, please be so kind to keep your asinine opinions to yourself where it wont pollute the eyes and minds of sane minded people.

ahh, getting worked up are we? Yes i showed you excactly why I disagree. because you want to prove something to me within the framwork of a language, thus use the tool itself to prove that the tool is right. wrong!

You have not showed us anything. I repeat, anything.

That is not a flaw in logic that is a flaw in your premise.

Good catch. finally we're getting somewhere. So if the premis for something is skewed to begin with. Like setting up the framework you want to be within and start to define your own framework, using itself to do so, you are off track?

Again, refer to points made earlier in the post. Stop trying to erect 'frameworks' (i.e barriers/red herrings) in an attempt to disguise your utter lack of understanding of the issues being discussed.

And you call yourself math graduate.

yes

Sad.

Napalm

Peace Napalm and welcome, I could get used to you around here. It's apparently much needed.

Nice first post. Mod's please check IP

First it was hysteria, now it's paranoia lol

Thanks .

Mel I've been around much longer than you. I suppose I should credit your amazing lack of understanding and idiocy for bringing me out of the woodworks and putting an end to my lurker status.

neo

Oppinion. You are telling me what you think I mean.

You said "Absolutely nothing is for certain i thought taht was pretty obvious i thought that."

When you say "absolutely nothing" it's an objective statement. I'm not assuming what I think you're meaning - I'm telling you that according to English, that is what you meant. I understand English isn't your strong point but if you want to debate please first learn how to construct statements that imply what you want them to imply.

So what did you mean? That only certain things are uncertain? Or all things are uncertain? Or no things are uncertain? These are the only three possibilitites - pick one and I'll still prove you wrong like I have the last few pages.

No it is a pet idea of many people.

No.

THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING!!! And there is NOTHING but our personal interpretation of reality. I can not know that you'r reality is the same as mine, but we can agree on certain things, that we observe in the same way.

Don't type in capitals, it's annoying and makes you look like a spastic idiot
You obviously fail to discern the difference between reality and perception. It's a fact that we all see the colour green differently - does that mean the colour green changes wavelengths when it enters the retina of certain people? No. Green maintains its wavelength, but our brains precieve it differently; objective and subjective. Reality is objective, our senses are not.

They link. Im happy that you agree with me on M-theory. Loko at what you say. "we have this idea, and belive that at some point we can prove it" is that objective?

Well of course they link M-theory tries to bridge relativity and quantum mechanics, but that wasn't my point. My point is for you to stop obfuscating the topic. I'm not talking about science - I'm talking about logic; they have their differences.

No try and get a bullhorn. We all know that louder is more true. You have used the same old tired circular arguments that I heave heard a million times before. And they are all up for interpretation. This does not make it facts.

If you've heard them so many times why not try to prove me wrong instead of simply saying you disagree? I'm giving you your chance to repair your ego and prove me wrong - do it, if you can.

But what i did prove was that anything, is up for interpretation in its own right.

No.

There is nothing silly about large values of a number. What is silly is using it to prove something in "the real world". Because in the theoretical world that is math, it is possible.

What the hell? I've already addressed this issue and countered it - go back to the last page and stop repeating yourself.

What pythagoras forgot was the fact that there are only the framework that we set up to work within, like math. So saying something like a=a and not a^a makes sense since we all agree what a is to begin with.

a=a makes sense because we know what "a" is to begin with? No. It's because "a" can represent something arbitrary and if something else also represents said arbitrary object then it is also "a", hence a = a. You're a closet nihlist aren't you?

Within what framework? The world? Natural laws? what?

Any framework. Nothing = lack of any attribute. Something = has one or more attributes. Go crazy.

ahh, getting worked up are we? Yes i showed you excactly why I disagree. because you want to prove something to me within the framwork of a language, thus use the tool itself to prove that the tool is right. wrong!

Expand on your "lolz framework" bullshit, please.

So if the premis for something is skewed to begin with. Like setting up the framework you want to be within and start to define your own framework, using itself to do so, you are off track?

There is a logical start to all premises that everyone can agree with and these are logical objectivities (Descartes cogito ergo sum). So again, you've proved sweet fuck all. Try again.

Mel_Funktion

...Bohm is now part of the pantheon, when before prominent physicists had asserted that it is impossible even to formulate an alternative to the orthodox "Copenhagen'' interpretation of quantum mechanics. Indeed, there now seems to be increasing support among physicists for exorcising the notion of observer-created reality from the foundations of physical science. Phd. Eric Dennis

And as with all these guy's I do agree that there are constants. Things like natural law's that seem's locked, or in the words of Bohm

For example, would it be possible for us to choose the natural laws... in accordance with our tastes...? The fact that we cannot actually do this shows that these laws have an objective content, in the sense that they represent some kind of necessity that is independent of our wills and of the way in which we think about things." D. Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, pp. 165, Harper (1961).

So now we have a fixed framwork. Like any other computer interpretator. The rest is interpretation of that framework done by the individual program itself. To ask me if something can be created out of nothing, is so mindless it's funny. We cannot enter a state of nothingness, without leaving the body. And the minute we do that, the very experiment becomes void, due to the fact that we are no longer in the framwork we set out to prove/disprove.

Yes, I am a deciple of the holographic universe idea, I admit so.

But let me ask any of you this. Do we have a soul. If so, where is it?

Mel_Funktion

(A fairly old assignment EDIT By Vivek, one of the most intelligent individuals I know, even though he is very young)
Our conceivable physical universe consists of only mass and energy. Each and every mass particle is fundamentally of the same nature (being formed out of bosons, leptons, hadrons and quarks). Is there any fundamental structural difference between a man and a chair? No, they consist out of the same fundamental particles. Then what really makes them different? Humans can think. Every living organism has the Will Power unlike the inert lifeless objects. What is the origin of this extraordinary unique power? Has this power originated from the complex chemical reactions in our bodies leading to biological adaptation over millions of years? Can mere chemical reactions make us think and let us do what we want to? Does any unknown Supreme Energy thrive within us? These have been the curious questions of man for thousands of years.

From ancient Indian and Eastern philosophy, dating back to thousands of years, we find a very interesting idea about The Reality.

The Eastern philosophers say that our physical world around us is nothing but an illusion, a dream. Whatever we see, we feel, we do and we think are all done in a state of trance. But The Reality is completely different. They also say that there resides a unique energy in every living organism and they call it by the name of The Aatma (The Soul). This soul cannot feel, cannot think, cannot see, cannot perform any work. They do not have any finite shape, nor have any mass, nor occupy any space. They cannot die. They just exist. But they have only one power The Will Power. They take a mortal form only to fulfill a task guided by their Will. Naturally, a question may arise Why does then every living object not perform a great task during their lifetime? This is because the emotions and materialistic yearnings overdo the original Will Power and make them forget about their Task in their very short span of lifetime.

All these may seem very laughable to a scientifically oriented mind. But do all these hold any truth? Let us see.

Let us consider a picture of a sphere intersecting a plane. To any living two dimensional living object on this plane, the sphere will only appear as a circle (which gets projected on the plane). To this object The Reality is the circle. But is that the Absolute Reality? No, the Absolute Reality is the sphere. It is only limitation impressed by space that binds the living object on the plane from visualizing further.

Similarly, our existence may be the projection of an Absolute Reality from a much higher dimension. Our vision, thoughts and feelings may be an insignificant projection of a much greater, nobler cause.

Did the circle have any mass or volume? No. But the sphere did. This is what is meant by The Illusion.

Man has started to think from the first day he was able to take control over his mind. But one can never take Total Control over his mind ----- if he does so, then he would be able to recognize Himself and knowing The Ultimate Truth, he would escape from the Physical Dimensions and enter into The Absolute Reality. This is what was meant by Salvation or Moksha by the ancient Eastern Philosophers including Lord Buddha.

But for a simple common man, the magnanimity of this Reality remains unknown. He tries to reason out what he observes around him and through continuous formulation of axioms, assumptions, postulates and constructing different theories explaining the behavior of things around him, he tries to conceive his reality. Like little drops of rain which add up to a boundless deep ocean, the thoughts of hundreds of men over thousands of years, give birth to philosophy and logic and hence a path leading towards The Reality.

The concepts and theories and thoughts streaming through the human brains give birth to philosophy, which when refined and researched, get established in the rigid form of logic. But when these thoughts and theories get a complete analytic proof, then it takes the form of The Ultimate Truth, the most perfect reflection of The Absolute Reality ---- Mathematics.

"Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitutes the life, usefulness and the supreme value of mathematical science."
(Quoted from 'What is Mathematics?' by Courant & Robbins)

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting and music, yet, sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as the greatest art can show."

"Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world."
(Both the above quotations are from the essay 'The Study of Mathematics' by Bertrand Russell)

Everything in this materialistic world is dependent on space and time. Laws of economics, geography, political sciences and even the worshipped laws of the physical sciences may not hold their present discovered truths one day. But those beautiful equations originating from hardcore logic will always dictate human ways of thinking and techno scientific inventions through all the ages. If in a different universe, Newton's Law changes to F=ma^6 then almost all the present physical laws would break down. But the elements in the set of the Real Numbers will always obey the Associative, Commutative and Distributive Laws, no matter what. This is the only field which is completely independent of the others. It is only logical thinking and hence strong human reasoning and philosophy that has led all the people and the scientists over thousands of years to formulate laws and construct axioms and postulates. Nothing other than the complete annihilation of the human race can cease this process of human thinking and hence advancement of philosophy, logic and mathematics. The truth suggested by them can be reformed but the earlier proofs can never be disregarded or discarded completely.

Emotions are nothing but secretion of different hormones from the different glands and their flow into the brain through the bloodstream. This may sound very unromantic, but this is the most scientific truth acquired from detailed study of the human anatomy. But still these emotions have enough power to make us forget The Truth and push us more and more into the dark world of The Illusion. The hormones like adrenaline, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone do nothing but distract us from our objective in life and make us dwell into our primitive wild nature.

Prove If a + b = a + c then b = c

The Proof

The Field Axiom 5 (The existence of negatives) states that " For every real number x there is a real number y such that x + y = 0 ."

We here choose a number 'y' such that y + a = 0 ...............(1)
Therefore, as it is given that a + b = a + c, we can write
y + (a + b) = y + (a + c) ..............(2)

From the Associative Law (Field Axiom 2) we can write from (2)

(y + a) + b = (y + a) + c ...............(3)

But from our earlier condition (1), it follows from (3). that

0 + b = 0 + c ..............(4)

The Field Axiom 4 states that " There exists a real number '0' such that for every real x, x + 0 = x ."

Therefore, we can write from (4),
b = c

Hence Proved.

In our common practice we would have just cancelled out 'a' from the left and right hand sides of the given equation and reach the conclusion, but here we have tried to show the rigorous and rigid logical route to this obvious conclusion.

Mel_Funktion

We are sometimes deceived, therefore we could always be deceived!
Have you ever thought you heard something, but there was nothing there? Have you ever thought you saw someone in the corner of your eye, and when you looked there was no person there? Have you ever looked at an illusion and been deceived that one line was longer than the other, but really it wasn't? When you look down from a high building on people, do they, appear small like ants? Aren't there thousands of occasions when we do mis-perceive?

If we are wrong on some occasions, for example, from a height people look the size of ants, is it not possible that we are always deceived? Logical necessity, requires the answer Yes, to this question. It is possible that things as we perceive them are not that way at all!

So what?

We know things are there because science tell's us that

Light hits the retina of the eye.
And this changes the chemical composition of the eye.
And this makes electricity travel along a nerve, the Optic Nerve.
And this goes to a part of the brain.
And then something happens and we see the thing.
That's what happens according to science.

According to science "We do not respond to the thing, but to electrical and chemical events in the brain."
So, do we really respond to a thing? Don't we respond' only the electrical and chemical events, that occur in the brain and nerves, and not to the alleged real object? Therefore, it is not things we are experiencing but chemical and electrical reactions. We don't see things directly. We see via chemical and electrical reactions in eyes, nerves and bits of brain. This appears to be true because

Without eyes, we don't see.
Without Optic Nerves we don't see.
Without certain bits of the brain, we don't see.

So we never directly see what is out there, according to science.

Suppose someone were to put electrodes in our brains, and stimulate the visual part of our brains mimicking the impulses we normally receive. Would we see? Definitely we would. But we wouldn't be seeing what is there outside. We wouldn't be seeing, what is real. We'd be seeing because some electricity was put in our brain, and it would look the same as our real objects!

thread going on this here http//www.free-minds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4301

Of course we can observe, but science tells us that we don't directly experience objects .. and just as we could be deceived by a wicked scientist putting electrodes in our brains, we could be deceived, in the same way, into thinking that science was 'real.'

Therefore, isn't it true that if we accept this scientific account then we cannot be certain that anything exists out there because we can never directly perceive it. Strangely, if this scientific theory is true, we cannot prove it, because we can never perceive anything directly, so we do not know how and from where the experience came into our minds. Even our knowledge of eyes, nerves, bits of brain, is not direct but via electrical and chemical events in our brain!

In the olden days, we thought that there were objects, material things, such as bricks, trees, mountains and goats, which were themselves real and constant in a way independent of our looking and otherwise perceiving them. These were things that had primary qualities which did not change and other qualities, sometimes called secondary qualities, which were our reaction to the primary object, and which did change depending on. These secondary qualities were colour, shape, etc. No thinker suggested that the actual object had these qualities. They were qualities we gave to objects.

For example, a rose might look red to us, but if no one was looking at it, we couldn't really say it was red. We might have said it had the power to elicit the colour red in our minds, but this primary quality of being able to elicit the red sensation was not 'red.' The colour was our reaction to the object. So we assume there was something out there, say next door's cat, which was a real object. However our experience of it, blackness, meowing, shape, etc, were largely our reaction to the real object and not the real object itself.

Have you ever been in a shop to buy something, say curtains, where the colour is very important? Have you heard these stories of people getting home only to find the colour looked different? The curtains were the same curtains in the shop. Their primary qualities hadn't changed, but our experience of them, the secondary qualities, changed when we viewed them under different lighting conditions. Because the length and weight, for example, remain the same, we may be tempted to think these are the primary qualities, and colour is just subjective.

Science rushed off to discover these primary qualities and developed concepts like mass which were supposed to describe the real object. However, pretty soon, we realised that the so called primary qualities were just as much secondary as colour and the rest! Although we can specify conditions and measuring instruments which largely give us consistent results, it is a human being who is perceiving the measuring instruments and their reaction on him or her. We cannot know the real object apart from our perception of it. A question like, 'What does something look like when no one is looking at it?' is clearly nonsense, and unanswerable, as is a demand to prove that something can come out of nothing.

That physical objects might not exist as we naively conceive them is one profound question. But the separate existence of mind and matter is equally problematical.
We naively think things are matter or they are mind. Mental things are thoughts, or ideas. They contrast with matter. The main difference, I suppose is that only I can experience my thoughts, but any material thing can be experienced by anyone with the sense organs, etc, to perceive it.

Real things have mass, size, locations, etc. Whereas mental things do not - although we do say

'This thought is weighing heavily upon me',
'I imagined a big house', and
'I think in my head'.

this may be merely a way of speaking.

We do think in normal life about mind and matter as being ways to talk about thoughts and objects (or processes). But some thinkers deny the existence of mental events - believing everything is matter. And some deny the existence of material things - believing everything is mind.

The scientific theory of reality might lead us to believe that we can only know 'mental events', but, just as rationally it might also lead us to believe that these are really matter.

The problem of mind and matter.
If mind and matter are totally different - how can one affect the other? How can we think 'I'll go to town' and our material bodies actually go to town? How can a thought which is totally different from a physical event affect my actions? Clearly, it could not. Furthermore, if mind and matter are totally separate, then how could we even know of the other? As 'mind' does affect 'matter' and we do experience both mind and matter, then they cannot be totally separate. That is, what we call mind and what we call matter cannot be totally separate 'substances'.

These are some of the reasons why many thinkers believe everything is either mind or matter but not both. Western society is materialistic, and denies the existence of mind; whereas Eastern society thinks everything is mind.

"There was a faith-healer of Deal
Who said, Although pain isn?t real,
If I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin,
I dislike what I fancy I feel."

Anon.

Materialists say that mind is really matter. Our thoughts are, according to them, electrical or chemical things occurring in the brain. Our thoughts are just as material as objects in our world. So when I think of a 'cat' then this thought is just some chemical and electrical event in my brain. That is, a material thing.

Experience tells us that chemicals can change the way we think. Ever been drunk? Ever seen someone drunk? Clearly chemicals can affect the mind. And medicines can help people with depression or schizophrenia, or at least they change their thinking processes. So experience tells us that what we call physical things - alcohol and drugs - can affect our thinking (which is supposed to be non-material.) There are, therefore, powerful reasons to think that our mental processes are merely chemical events in our brains.

Of course, there are problems with this idea. Suppose I am looking at a 'cat' and a scientist has electrodes in my brain and recording my brain events as I look at the cat. When I am seeing this image of the cat, the scientist is recording chemical and electrical events in my brain.

How can a pinch of brain chemicals look like a cat?

However, the image I am experiencing and the chemical and electrical events in my brain appear quite different (a pinch of brain chemicals never looks like a cat! Nor does a sine wave!) So how can we say images and brain events are the same? (Of course, we cannot.)

Although the scientist might set up a tv and watch the image, he, too, because he or she is human, is watching, not the light and the meters measuring the electricity and chemicals, but an image of these in his or her own brain! (Whether it is possible for scientists to monitor and understand thought or not, is not considered here. It is, however, almost certain that it cannot be done. If it cannot be done, however, it strengthens the belief that thoughts aren't brain events.)

Because of these and other problems, some scientists try to save materialism by denying that we really have images and that our experience of images is just, well, a mistake on our parts. When I have the image of a cat, I am mistaken! However, whether we really see an image or whether we imagine we do, then in both cases we are still having the experience of experiencing an image (a mental event.) So this theory that we don't have images is really a cop out! (The psychologist Watson and his followers, for example, denied mental events.) Their experiments that show our behavioural responses to images is different from our behavioural responses to the real object, show that the image and the object are different, not that we don't have images (otherwise, what were they studying!)

If this and similar arguments are correct, then materialism doesn't make sense. And it is therefore not true that everything is matter.

This type of materialism is also morally repugnant. If I have the thought of taking my granny some flowers, or whether I have the thought of murdering her, then both thoughts are just chemical-electrical events in the brain. The lump of chemical and electricity which occurs when I think of murder cannot be more moral than the lump when I think of taking flowers! One pinch of salt can't be more moral than any other pinch! It would, to follow this reasoning, be no worse to do murder, than to give flowers!

I believe this moral question is a powerful argument against materialism (Even though it appears only to be a protest!)

So if we do not have mind and matter, and we do not have all matter, then there is only one thing left!

If materialism is wrong, and if we have only mind and matter to choose from, then the only possibility that remains is that everything is mind. This is sometimes called idealism in philosophy. The word idealism here has nothing to do with trying to obtain something perfect, but with ideas! Idealism claims that only ideas, or mind exist. There is no matter.

Idealism is probably perfectly logical. The main problem is that it conflicts with common experience that there are real things out there. When we see a chair, we assume and believe a chair is really there.

Yet our reasoning and knowledge tells us that we can only experience ideas and never real things. The immediate object of perception is an idea, or sense impression, and not an object. Common sense tells us when we look at a tree, we immediately perceive the tree. But scientific theory tells us that what is really happening is that the light from the tree strikes the retina and causes an electro-chemical event, which is transmitted through nerves to the perceptual area of the brain. Thereafter, something happens which results in an image of the chair. It is this image that we directly perceive, not the object (the tree).

Take the classic experiment of the three bowls of water one hot, one cold, and one lukewarm. We put one hand in the hot, one in the cold, and then both in the lukewarm. To one hand this feels cold, and to the other hot! The actual lukewarm water cannot be both hot and cold. Although our thinking tells us that there is one object, the lukewarm water, our senses tell us that there are two objects - hot water and cold water! Our perception of things, and particularly of emotions and ideas is not fixed but is dependent on our minds, not the thing itself.

The philosopher Kant tells us we can know only phenomenon (experience) and never know the noumenon or reality. In spite of common sense, the thing as-it-really-is, the thing-in-itself, as it really exists cannot be known by the senses. Kant was not an idealist, but said that we cannot know the world as it really is, only infer it from our experience. We perceive qualities, not things, and these are dependent on the mind of the observer. We impose our understanding on the world, not the other way round!

We all know that films and television programmes are just light shows. A combination of light and movement. A great illusion! Yet we do watch films and get enthralled with them. For example, we might watch a pretty person and fall in love with them or want to marry them, when all we are seeing is a trick of light. We watch other things and become outraged at the wickedness of the images. We certainly appear to act as if we were seeing something real, rather than a light show! Yet what we are looking at has no substance. It is just a reaction in our own minds, clearly with no reality. Is this what reality really is? A light show? Images and appearances with no substance? Existing in minds only?

Have you ever seen a puppet show where in complete darkness you see a skeleton dancing? You may think that the 'skeleton' is a dancer wearing a black suit with luminous paint. The show is really good and the puppeteer must be highly skilled. And then, at the end, the head dances off, the arms dance off and the legs dance off. Not only is this the work of an expert puppeteer, the puppet is not even one thing, but different parts all working together to give us the illusion there is one thing, the skeleton, whereas it is just parts moving together giving the impression of a whole. The one thing, the skeleton, just doesn't exist! Was the puppeteer demonstrating to us that life is a similar illusion and we group the perceptions together and believe there is an underlying reality?

Psychologists have carried out many experiments to illustrate how we impute causality, movement, and of course mental qualities to things when none of these actually exist! The simplest example is the psi phenomenon. When sitting in a dark room looking at a small lamp the light appears to move when by any other standard it does not.

Idealism is a most exciting idea! If we create our world, then we have the possibility of changing it. By changing our minds, we can change our world!

I am not especially talking about psychokinesis or magical mind over matter here. I am talking about how we are not merely the effect of some materialistic universe, but the cause, to some extent of our own universes, and those we share.

The world, our world at least, may be changed! (This last sentence does not follow logically from what has been said before, but requires further support.)

Yet does this mean that the world as we see it is determined wholly by ourselves as perceivers and there is no objective reality? Is it all subjective?

You see things; and you say Why?
But I dream things that never were; and I say
Why not?
George Bernard Shaw

Naively, we look at something and think, 'This is beautiful!' But is there anything which is beautiful objectively, that is, apart from a person making a subjective judgement? Does 'It is beautiful!' mean no more than 'I like it?' This conflicts with conventional experience because when we say something is beautiful, we imply that everyone would think it beautiful.

Similarly, how do you know that, a tree, for example, exists when no one is looking at it? The question of things and qualities existing objectively is a very old question which humans have been asking since the dawn of time.

This question is not merely philosophical or logical, but has enormous impact on our lives. To some it is morally repugnant. If everything is subjective, then does it not really matter what we do or think? If there is no objective right and wrong, does it mean there is no morality?

Socrates asks "Is anything absolutely good?"
If a picture were absolutely good,
If it had good as part of it (instead of in the mind of the beholder), and
If it made everyone who looked at it perceive the goodness,
Wouldn't everyone really say it was good?

Clearly, this does not happen. There is nothing that everyone thinks is 'good.' So the goodness of a thing must exist in the mind of the perceiver. It is subjective. Does this mean it is merely a matter of taste!

For example, on a perfect planet, with no sentient beings, would anything be good or bad? Would you say it had qualities such as colours, if there was no one to experience them? If you argued, 'If someone looked, they would see the colours,' doesn't it mean the same as there are no colours when on one is looking? Colours are after all subjective, aren't they?

Does anything exist when no one is experiencing it? How could you answer 'Yes!' to this question? How could you know?

I do not like subjectivism in it's normal shape, even though it has won many arguments. I do not think that morals are merely matters of opinion. No living form could tolerate murder, for example, and survive. If we all murdered each other, then there wouldn't be anyone to support murder!

I believe that some concepts are essential parts of certain systems, and some concepts appear to be almost absolutes.

This is better illustrated by considering the importance of honesty in communication. Without honesty, communication is impossible. If we could not rely on what others tell us most of the time, and had to verify every little thing, we would not be able to or be willing to communicate. Communication presupposes honesty, but neither need to be absolutes.

Apart from this, the exciting conclusion is that we create meaning and importance in our worlds and we are free to change what we think is good and bad. This is not an absolute (sic) ability, so we can change our worlds for the better. We can change meanings and experience the world in a much more productive way. For example, if someone had a phobia of cats, then this is due, not to cats, but to the ideas in their minds. By changing the ideas, what was previously bad (cats) can become good. It may be possible to change very basic concepts, such as morals, etc, but if we change them, we would change the world as we know it. Some other things which we desire might no longer exist!

For example, if it were possible to change light (a basic concept) so we could no longer see shapes, colours, distance, etc, then we would no longer see ugliness, but we would no longer see beauty either, and we wouldn't be able to seethe way home! This might be more than we really wanted. Clearly, really basic change changes the system too!

(insert missing , .'s and remove them where needed)

Mel_Funktion

Btw. I'm so sorry for my pissy way's. This is not what I am like, I just had some stuff to deal with that made me overly sensitive, and reading backwards, unbearable obnoxious. neo, carrot, really, I have been a complete idiot, and made an ass of myself. I hope you will forgive me. Especially Carrot, because I really did go way over the line, wich was totally uncalled for.

My sincere appology to the both of you. From now on the debate will take a structured shape instead of this hoohaa. And I hope you will be able to "meet" me all over again so to speak, and forget about this little farce.

unknownuser

We are sometimes deceived, therefore we could always be deceived!
Have you ever thought you heard something, but there was nothing there? Have you ever thought you saw someone in the corner of your eye, and when you looked there was no person there? Have you ever looked at an illusion and been deceived that one line was longer than the other, but really it wasn't? When you look down from a high building on people, do they, appear small like ants? Aren't there thousands of occasions when we do mis-perceive?

For a mathemtician you really write execellent prose!-)
And the content of the writing was very engaging...hope to read more soon -)

Regards,

Mel_Funktion

We are sometimes deceived, therefore we could always be deceived!
Have you ever thought you heard something, but there was nothing there? Have you ever thought you saw someone in the corner of your eye, and when you looked there was no person there? Have you ever looked at an illusion and been deceived that one line was longer than the other, but really it wasn't? When you look down from a high building on people, do they, appear small like ants? Aren't there thousands of occasions when we do mis-perceive?

For a mathemtician you really write execellent prose!-)
And the content of the writing was very engaging...hope to read more soon -)

Regards,

I will tell Ken Ward who wrote those words the next time that I speak to him. )
The text is part his, mine, a few other people, and famous quotes to make it appear more intelligent. P

neo

So now we have a fixed framwork. Like any other computer interpretator. The rest is interpretation of that framework done by the individual program itself. To ask me if something can be created out of nothing, is so mindless it's funny. We cannot enter a state of nothingness, without leaving the body. And the minute we do that, the very experiment becomes void, due to the fact that we are no longer in the framwork we set out to prove/disprove.

Thus "something can't come of nothing" is a logically objective statement.

BTW, I hope your friend Vivek cited his work because otherwise there are so many blatant acts of plagarism there it's not funny.

neo

But let me ask any of you this. Do we have a soul. If so, where is it?

Define "soul" first. Every single person seems to have their own definition of what a "soul" is so I can't really answer that unless you tell me what you think a soul is/entails.

neo

And after reading that essay

it's full of contradictions
it's typical eastern relativistic philosophy made to confuse rather than answer
it's built purely upon conjecture
it's pseudo-science
it's another tool to obfuscate the topic at hand.

So I implore you once again to remain on topic and not post essays about things that work real nice in movies (The Matrix) but have no relevance to reality. Thank you.

savage_carrot

And I hope you will be able to "meet" me all over again so to speak, and forget about this little farce.

Okay no problem. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask you to reply to questions in your own words, and not cut and pastes. It's highly annoying to be carrying on this 'debate' or reading it, when a question is asked and the answer is bzzzt fttt mel funktion cut & paste . If you have read all these articles, you must understand them right? Otherwise I'll just email the person who wrote the article if I'm that bothered. Thank you for your understanding.

Mel_Funktion

it's full of contradictions
it's typical eastern relativistic philosophy made to confuse rather than answer
it's built purely upon conjecture
it's pseudo-science
it's another tool to obfuscate the topic at hand.

Could you bring forth some of it?

So I implore you once again to remain on topic and not post essays about things that work real nice in movies (The Matrix) but have no relevance to reality. Thank you.

It was written in 98. and now the table just turned. you will have to prove why it doesnt. I have stated my oppinion. And according to your own rules, it us unaccetable just to state that you disagree. and that is all that you do here.

Mel_Funktion

Otherwise I'll just email the person who wrote the article if I'm that bothered. Thank you for your understanding.

Please do, Ken loves mail and he will confirm instantly who was involved with the project it is taken from.

savage_carrot

Please do, Ken loves mail and he will confirm instantly who was involved with the project it is taken from.

Does Vivek love mail as well? You perhaps missed the point, but nevermind. Thanks for the help.

neo

The Eastern philosophers say that our physical world around us is nothing but an illusion, a dream. Whatever we see, we feel, we do and we think are all done in a state of trance. But The Reality is completely different.

Conjecture.

They also say that there resides a unique energy in every living organism and they call it by the name of The Aatma (The Soul).

Conjecture.

This soul cannot feel, cannot think, cannot see, cannot perform any work. They do not have any finite shape, nor have any mass, nor occupy any space. They cannot die. They just exist. But they have only one power The Will Power.

Contradiction.

Let us consider a picture of a sphere intersecting a plane. To any living two dimensional living object on this plane, the sphere will only appear as a circle (which gets projected on the plane). To this object The Reality is the circle. But is that the Absolute Reality? No, the Absolute Reality is the sphere. It is only limitation impressed by space that binds the living object on the plane from visualizing further.

Plagarism. See Flatlanders.

Also, by confirming an 'objective reality', he's agreeing with logic being objective. !

But one can never take Total Control over his mind ----- if he does so, then he would be able to recognize Himself and knowing The Ultimate Truth, he would escape from the Physical Dimensions and enter into The Absolute Reality.

Conjecture.

But for a simple common man, the magnanimity of this Reality remains unknown. He tries to reason out what he observes around him and through continuous formulation of axioms, assumptions, postulates and constructing different theories explaining the behavior of things around him, he tries to conceive his reality. Like little drops of rain which add up to a boundless deep ocean, the thoughts of hundreds of men over thousands of years, give birth to philosophy and logic and hence a path leading towards The Reality.

The concepts and theories and thoughts streaming through the human brains give birth to philosophy, which when refined and researched, get established in the rigid form of logic. But when these thoughts and theories get a complete analytic proof, then it takes the form of The Ultimate Truth, the most perfect reflection of The Absolute Reality ---- Mathematics.

"Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitutes the life, usefulness and the supreme value of mathematical science."
(Quoted from 'What is Mathematics?' by Courant & Robbins)

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting and music, yet, sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as the greatest art can show."

"Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world."
(Both the above quotations are from the essay 'The Study of Mathematics' by Bertrand Russell)

Everything in this materialistic world is dependent on space and time. Laws of economics, geography, political sciences and even the worshipped laws of the physical sciences may not hold their present discovered truths one day. But those beautiful equations originating from hardcore logic will always dictate human ways of thinking and techno scientific inventions through all the ages. If in a different universe, Newton's Law changes to F=ma^6 then almost all the present physical laws would break down. But the elements in the set of the Real Numbers will always obey the Associative, Commutative and Distributive Laws, no matter what. This is the only field which is completely independent of the others. It is only logical thinking and hence strong human reasoning and philosophy that has led all the people and the scientists over thousands of years to formulate laws and construct axioms and postulates. Nothing other than the complete annihilation of the human race can cease this process of human thinking and hence advancement of philosophy, logic and mathematics. The truth suggested by them can be reformed but the earlier proofs can never be disregarded or discarded completely.

Emotions are nothing but secretion of different hormones from the different glands and their flow into the brain through the bloodstream. This may sound very unromantic, but this is the most scientific truth acquired from detailed study of the human anatomy. But still these emotions have enough power to make us forget The Truth and push us more and more into the dark world of The Illusion. The hormones like adrenaline, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone do nothing but distract us from our objective in life and make us dwell into our primitive wild nature.

Prove If a + b = a + c then b = c

The Proof

The Field Axiom 5 (The existence of negatives) states that " For every real number x there is a real number y such that x + y = 0 ."

We here choose a number 'y' such that y + a = 0 ...............(1)
Therefore, as it is given that a + b = a + c, we can write
y + (a + b) = y + (a + c) ..............(2)

From the Associative Law (Field Axiom 2) we can write from (2)

(y + a) + b = (y + a) + c ...............(3)

But from our earlier condition (1), it follows from (3). that

0 + b = 0 + c ..............(4)

The Field Axiom 4 states that " There exists a real number '0' such that for every real x, x + 0 = x ."

Therefore, we can write from (4),
b = c

Hence Proved.

In our common practice we would have just cancelled out 'a' from the left and right hand sides of the given equation and reach the conclusion, but here we have tried to show the rigorous and rigid logical route to this obvious conclusion.

Argues for my point, not yours.

Mel_Funktion

But let me ask any of you this. Do we have a soul. If so, where is it?

Define "soul" first. Every single person seems to have their own definition of what a "soul" is so I can't really answer that unless you tell me what you think a soul is/entails.

Now why would everyone have their own defintion of something most agree that we have? could this be because what we have is a consensus reality more than anything else?

To continue our debate.

Look. Science has to use their subjective tools, to define an objective matter. Even IF there is an objective reality, wich I'm not ruling out is possible along a line of other possabilities. Does it matter? All we have to check it out with is subjective senses.

Science has to redefine their understanding of everything constantly. Why?

So to claim that somewhere down there where science can go no further, and the final definition of something has been found, there is objective reality is no more real than the socalled "eastern philosophy"

30 years ago everybody knew that the theory of relativity was true. In fact it was iron clad. Now people aren't so sure anymore.

In other words, due to our subjective nature, talking about an objective reality is futile because we only have subjective tools to see if it is so or not.