Philosophy Discussion Forums

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 4:36 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 4:17 pm As far as I'm concerned, "nothing" is a relative term. As far we know there has always been something.

It's more than mere semantics of words. [Infinity] has potential, some properties, if only to hold my consciousness. It's something. "Nothing" is a deceptive illogical concept that affects how people think and "reason" (verb).

The concept of "nothing" is purely relative, for example, 'There is nothing in my bowl' can be a true statement ... as long as you don't count dust, microbes, air, neutrinos, various fields etc. Actual nothingness cannot be a true concept because the fact that something exists precludes the possibility of nothingness being anything other than relative lack.

I admit to not much caring if people have a wrongful notion of nothingness. Does this have ramifications beyond the abstract?

I note that you sifted emphasis from nothingness to infinity. Is this incidental or do you see a connection between nothingness and infinity (beyond the usual divide-by-zero abstraction)?

It's impossible to imagine reality being finite because finiteness implies that something is "outside".

I have a "mad scientist multiverse idea" that matter becomes thinner and thinner at the edges of whatever "banged" 13.8 billions years ago. When things have thinned to the point that there is no baryonic matter at all for a great distance then the mad scientist in me imagines the temperature of space falling to absolute zero, which would effectively create an expanding frozen shell around the "bubble universe".

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm The concept of "nothing" is purely relative, for example, 'There is nothing in my bowl' can be a true statement ... as long as you don't count dust, microbes, air, neutrinos, various fields etc. Actual nothingness cannot be a true concept because the fact that something exists precludes the possibility of nothingness being anything other than relative lack.

I'm fairly confident that the relative meaning of "nothing in my bowl" is obvious in both of our minds, no need for further comment.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm I admit to not much caring if people have a wrongful notion of nothingness. Does this have ramifications beyond the abstract?

Perhaps I shouldn't care either, yet it's interesting in my own mind that I do. Puzzling in a way. It's been my experience, minds accepting the validity of the question: "How can something come from nothing", are incapable of certain things I find obvious.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm I note that you sifted emphasis from nothingness to infinity. Is this incidental or do you see a connection between nothingness and infinity (beyond the usual divide-by-zero abstraction)?

Cliché but everything has a reason, even when I can't identify what it is. My use of infinity in this sense isn't incidental but "obvious", is the best I can find in my vocabulary. It may seem strange but ever since I can remember, certain "things" seem obvious in my mind and I have memories as early as 4 years old and some even earlier. For instance, I vividly remember the first time my mind perceived the difference between color yellow and blue, just because of rotating device with toys, one of which was blue against the blue sealing. I remember an awe, how could I have not seen this before? All different colors became a "thing" and something that made sense. Best I can describe "these things", would be to compare it to someone who naturally can play an instrument from the earliest age and wonder how come others have such difficulty. I'm oblivious to certain "things" that some people seem to "know" but other "things" are obvious in my mind. Perhaps it's some kind of pattern recognition "software" coded in my brain.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm
It's impossible to imagine reality being finite because finiteness implies that something is "outside".

Yes, In my mind I have a "space" for things I can know, I think I know, perceive, imagine and another space for "unknown" but can be deduced by reasoning at some point. Perhaps this could be used as an analogy for finite and infinite.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm I have a "mad scientist multiverse idea" that matter becomes thinner and thinner at the edges of whatever "banged" 13.8 billions years ago. When things have thinned to the point that there is no baryonic matter at all for a great distance then the mad scientist in me imagines the temperature of space falling to absolute zero, which would effectively create an expanding frozen shell around the "bubble universe".

I seek a "mad scientist" mind, so you can be as mad as you wish with my mind, aside from actually insane (Nothingness). 13.8 billion years is what makes sense to some scientists, I would place in a category "they think they know". I like the idea of "thinned" and perhaps suggest an alternative of variability in density. Personally I prefer frequency. However, as far as we "know", our universe is relatively uniform in all these respects within the observable 98 billion light years.

'...would effectively create an expanding frozen shell around the "bubble universe"'. Yes, the dark matter is well above an absolute zero. We're getting into the realm of the obvious, when even as a child I found the concept of "ether" (empty space) idea preposterous. Our universe within the infinity of absolute zero, would in fact seize to exist.

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 8:49 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm I admit to not much caring if people have a wrongful notion of nothingness. Does this have ramifications beyond the abstract?

Perhaps I shouldn't care either, yet it's interesting in my own mind that I do. Puzzling in a way. It's been my experience, minds accepting the validity of the question: "How can something come from nothing", are incapable of certain things I find obvious.

I suspect most people are familiar with the experience of wondering how others can't see something so obvious. It's inevitable in a pluralist society that relies on the fact that different people perceive different things. Of course, there's also mistaken ideas based on a limited data set, where what appears obvious with limited knowledge becomes less obvious with added knowledge. "The more you know ..."

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 8:49 pm... I have memories as early as 4 years old and some even earlier. For instance, I vividly remember the first time my mind perceived the difference between color yellow and blue, just because of rotating device with toys, one of which was blue against the blue sealing. I remember an awe, how could I have not seen this before? All different colors became a "thing" and something that made sense. Best I can describe "these things", would be to compare it to someone who naturally can play an instrument from the earliest age and wonder how come others have such difficulty. I'm oblivious to certain "things" that some people seem to "know" but other "things" are obvious in my mind. Perhaps it's some kind of pattern recognition "software" coded in my brain.

That's an interesting memory. An early light bulb moment. I have some baby memories, but they were moments rather than insights, eg. like sitting in my pram scribbling circles on a wall with a pen held dagger-style, and I was both irritated and amused by the bumpiness (of the wall's rendering).

But how do you link nothing and infinity (aside from divide-by zero)?

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 8:49 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 7:19 pm I have a "mad scientist multiverse idea" that matter becomes thinner and thinner at the edges of whatever "banged" 13.8 billions years ago. When things have thinned to the point that there is no baryonic matter at all for a great distance then the mad scientist in me imagines the temperature of space falling to absolute zero, which would effectively create an expanding frozen shell around the "bubble universe".

I seek a "mad scientist" mind, so you can be as mad as you wish with my mind, aside from actually insane (Nothingness). 13.8 billion years is what makes sense to some scientists, I would place in a category "they think they know". I like the idea of "thinned" and perhaps suggest an alternative of variability in density. Personally I prefer frequency. However, as far as we "know", our universe is relatively uniform in all these respects within the observable 98 billion light years.

'...would effectively create an expanding frozen shell around the "bubble universe"'. Yes, the dark matter is well above an absolute zero. We're getting into the realm of the obvious, when even as a child I found the concept of "ether" (empty space) idea preposterous. Our universe within the infinity of absolute zero, would in fact seize to exist.

If you want "mad scientist ideas", I have a fair few. I see no reason to limit my thinking to accepted science, given how much we don't know. Science is just the safe baseline or what we are fairly sure about, and reality obviously has no reason to be limited to the knowledge base of terrestrial simians.

If we live in a multiverse, then what is outside of "bubble universes" will not conform to the physics of those universes. In that case, the space of the bulk could be absolute zero and yet still be active.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 9:20 pm That's an interesting memory. An early light bulb moment. I have some baby memories, but they were moments rather than insights, eg. like sitting in my pram scribbling circles on a wall with a pen held dagger-style, and I was both irritated and amused by the bumpiness (of the wall's rendering).

Great memory, I have a similar memory with textures.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 9:20 pm But how do you link nothing and infinity (aside from divide-by zero)?

I don't. There is no such thing as "nothing". The mathematical zero (0) is just a boundary between two states, the -1 and 1. One can picture it as a sine wave on XY axis, flipping over at the point of XY intersection (singularity). Singularity itself is "something".

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 9:20 pm If you want "mad scientist ideas", I have a fair few. I see no reason to limit my thinking to accepted science, given how much we don't know. Science is just the safe baseline or what we are fairly sure about, and reality obviously has no reason to be limited to the knowledge base of terrestrial simians.

If we live in a multiverse, then what is outside of "bubble universes" will not conform to the physics of those universes. In that case, the space of the bulk could be absolute zero and yet still be active.

I like "bubbles", a living cell is a bubble. What would be the bubble (membrane) that protects the heat and energy from being syphon off from the new nascent universe at the moment of "Big Bang" or our current universe?

Personally, I think the infinity is a fractal. There was no "big bang"

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 10:53 pm Personally, I think the infinity is a fractal. There was no "big bang"

Interesting. I think there's a lot of quasi-fractal activity that is not much acknowledged because they are not exact fractals.

What's your angle on this?

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2023, 2:06 am

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 10:53 pm Personally, I think the infinity is a fractal. There was no "big bang"

Interesting. I think there's a lot of quasi-fractal activity that is not much acknowledged because they are not exact fractals.

What's your angle on this?

Our sensory perception in bound to the physical body existing in 3D + spacetime. We can only observe partial puzzle without the insight into the full "God's view" picture. Our universe definitely isn't an outcome of random patterns or mere probabilistic outcomes but some profound underlying pattern I call [Reason], which seems to propagate through different dimensions of "consciousness".

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 11th, 2023, 3:10 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2023, 2:06 am

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 10th, 2023, 10:53 pm Personally, I think the infinity is a fractal. There was no "big bang"

Interesting. I think there's a lot of quasi-fractal activity that is not much acknowledged because they are not exact fractals.

What's your angle on this?

Our sensory perception in bound to the physical body existing in 3D + spacetime. We can only observe partial puzzle without the insight into the full "God's view" picture. Our universe definitely isn't an outcome of random patterns or mere probabilistic outcomes but some profound underlying pattern I call [Reason], which seems to propagate through different dimensions of "consciousness".

That would tally with another of my mad scientist notions. In this one, there has not been one big bang but many,, maybe billions. In at least some of these universes, some intelligent entities manage to keen solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents and, after quadrillions of years they have evolved to survive on the energy of space and their/its presence has some influence on the next big bang - the "reason" that lies behind the scenes, possibly in another dimension/s. When more "gods" evolve, they join the original, kind of like the melding of black holes.

Speculative? Just a bit haha

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2023, 4:11 am That would tally with another of my mad scientist notions. In this one, there has not been one big bang but many,, maybe billions. In at least some of these universes, some intelligent entities manage to keen solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents and, after quadrillions of years they have evolved to survive on the energy of space and their/its presence has some influence on the next big bang - the "reason" that lies behind the scenes, possibly in another dimension/s. When more "gods" evolve, they join the original, kind of like the melding of black holes.

Speculative? Just a bit haha

Note: I use [] brackets on concepts that reside in that "unknown" mental space I mentioned earlier. I often use "" quotation marks on words that either have multiple meanings or designate a known but ununderstood concept "consciousness".
[We] are addicted to the sensory perception of our body, which definitely experiences vector of temporal displacement (aging) & causality (finite). Yet our "consciousness" "exists" in a realm of the past memories, present "perception", and future imagination. The mind can also reason the causality & manipulate this "reality", with no difficulty to imagine "Klingons" or "Santa Clause". Yet "reason" is also capable of comprehending the logical inevitability of [Infinity]. How to combine all these different "dimensions" into something that makes sense?

'When more "gods" evolve, they join the original, kind of like the melding of black holes'. I like that. The exponential expansion of space beyond the speed of light and E = mc² implies a simultaneous convergence and divergence of our universe. From a singularity to a black hole (-1 <> 1)

Errata: 'manage to keen solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents' should be 'manage to keeP solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents'

When considering dimensions, I think of the mental domain as another dimension of reality, even if this is not considered technically correct. If humanity succeeds in digitising minds, then personalities will be effectively living in the same realm as dreams - able to traverse space and time without restriction. Might advanced aliens be able to hack into an Earthly VR network and instigate first contact? (more likely Vulcans than Klingons hehe).

Yet this would seem to be a subsidiary rather than fundamental dimension, such as the dimension/s that produced the energy of the big bang, the only example of the second law of thermodynamics being violated.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2023, 4:35 pm Errata: 'manage to keen solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents' should be 'manage to keeP solving the existential problems that an ageing universe presents'

When considering dimensions, I think of the mental domain as another dimension of reality, even if this is not considered technically correct. If humanity succeeds in digitising minds, then personalities will be effectively living in the same realm as dreams - able to traverse space and time without restriction. Might advanced aliens be able to hack into an Earthly VR network and instigate first contact? (more likely Vulcans than Klingons hehe).

Yet this would seem to be a subsidiary rather than fundamental dimension, such as the dimension/s that produced the energy of the big bang, the only example of the second law of thermodynamics being violated.

When I write that we're addicted to materialism, I refer to our sensory perception of physical "reality", which is less than 5% of the visible universe.
27% is Dark matter and 68% Dark energy is unknown to physics. What we perceive is the E = mc² where c = 299,792,458 meters per second and for most people it's extremely difficult to think outside of these parameters. However, can energy exist in a different state? What if c where to be 378,563,973 meters per second, could we perceive such energy? Even Dark energy and Dark matter are well above absolute zero & saturated with gamma radiation (hypothetically from the Big Bang) so it must be part of our universe (not [infinity]). We can postulate that "consciousness" is just an illusion manifested by physical matter (brain) as an electromagnetic field (electric impulses). But this wouldn't address myriad of puzzling regularities in the evolution of the universe or that energy can consciously change itself. Then there is the realm of [infinity] that can't be known but it must have an influence on our universe and [Reality].


"I think of the mental domain as another dimension of reality, even if this is not considered technically correct. If humanity succeeds in digitising minds, then personalities will be effectively living in the same realm as dreams - able to traverse space and time without restriction".
I'll go even further and ask: can anything exist without "consciousness"? Perhaps "consciousness" and its different dimensions is more "real" than materialism?

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 12th, 2023, 10:17 pm

I think of the mental domain as another dimension of reality, even if this is not considered technically correct. If humanity succeeds in digitising minds, then personalities will be effectively living in the same realm as dreams - able to traverse space and time without restriction

.
I'll go even further and ask: can anything exist without "consciousness"? Perhaps "consciousness" and its different dimensions is more "real" than materialism?

Maybe, but I doubt it. Otherwise evolution would not move from simplicity to sophistication. Rather, it would start maximally sophisticated and then consolidate to simpler forms.

Of course, Gouldians deny the blatantly obvious fact that evolution is progressive, moving from simplicity to sophistication. The evidence of this is right before our eyes, the results of almost 4 billion years of natural selection. The occasional anomaly, like cave-dwelling fish losing their vision, does not change the general situation that the Earth was once only populated by microbes and progressively more complex beings have evolved since then to today's complex milieus.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 13th, 2023, 4:03 pm
Maybe, but I doubt it. Otherwise evolution would not move from simplicity to sophistication. Rather, it would start maximally sophisticated and then consolidate to simpler forms.

Of course, Gouldians deny the blatantly obvious fact that evolution is progressive, moving from simplicity to sophistication. The evidence of this is right before our eyes, the results of almost 4 billion years of natural selection. The occasional anomaly, like cave-dwelling fish losing their vision, does not change the general situation that the Earth was once only populated by microbes and progressively more complex beings have evolved since then to today's complex milieus.

I didn't phrase my sentiment properly before. Also, we didn't really conceptualize "consciousness" into a working model, outside of the obvious human perception of "consciousness". Let us substitute the word "consciousness" with "information". In this context, I often use an example of just three marbles "existing" in an otherwise empty space. One marble is moving at some velocity with given vector to the second that has zero momentum, and a third is a photon traveling at the speed of light. From the reference point of each marble, we obtain three sets of information about self relative to the other 2, with a total of 9 dimensions of information. In this context, the evolution of "consciousness", which clearly isn't "random", appears as you stated to increase in complexity well beyond the simple materialism of Newtonian physics. [We] are the same "stardust" as a common pebble on the ground, made of same "energy". Yet the human brain went far beyond the simple collisions in space, to not only contemplate its own existence but to actually actively change itself.

Ranvier wrote: ↑March 13th, 2023, 5:27 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 13th, 2023, 4:03 pm
Maybe, but I doubt it. Otherwise evolution would not move from simplicity to sophistication. Rather, it would start maximally sophisticated and then consolidate to simpler forms.

Of course, Gouldians deny the blatantly obvious fact that evolution is progressive, moving from simplicity to sophistication. The evidence of this is right before our eyes, the results of almost 4 billion years of natural selection. The occasional anomaly, like cave-dwelling fish losing their vision, does not change the general situation that the Earth was once only populated by microbes and progressively more complex beings have evolved since then to today's complex milieus.

I didn't phrase my sentiment properly before. Also, we didn't really conceptualize "consciousness" into a working model, outside of the obvious human perception of "consciousness". Let us substitute the word "consciousness" with "information". In this context, I often use an example of just three marbles "existing" in an otherwise empty space. One marble is moving at some velocity with given vector to the second that has zero momentum, and a third is a photon traveling at the speed of light. From the reference point of each marble, we obtain three sets of information about self relative to the other 2, with a total of 9 dimensions of information. In this context, the evolution of "consciousness", which clearly isn't "random", appears as you stated to increase in complexity well beyond the simple materialism of Newtonian physics. [We] are the same "stardust" as a common pebble on the ground, made of same "energy". Yet the human brain went far beyond the simple collisions in space, to not only contemplate its own existence but to actually actively change itself.

Interesting thought experiment, though I've always been a sucker for multi-dimensional matrices. Still, remember the fact of the marbles. There can be no information without the stuff to configure. So I see matter and information as inevitable sides of the same coin.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑March 14th, 2023, 12:13 am

Interesting thought experiment, though I've always been a sucker for multi-dimensional matrices. Still, remember the fact of the marbles. There can be no information without the stuff to configure. So I see matter and information as inevitable sides of the same coin.

How do you imagine the "multi-dimensional matrices"?