So what's happening? Am I just inventing a trend? Or are Western societies (or folks) getting sick of their own endless blah? Are we growing tired of always having to share the agora with others? — Olivier5

Pointing at failures of others to read what you wrote ("if you would have read what I wrote"...) merely point at the inability in the west to communucate. There is too much knowledge.

Maybe it's the dualistic approach while adhering to one reality as a measure for all. Yes, the yellow jackets. Burn la Bastille!

Pure poetry! "I am the sea all fish swim in, the cosmos that contains you all"...What state of mind one must have to live that life? :smile:

Are there conditions on the things we can choose to life in? Should they be self contained (so not a galaxy for example, which comprises all kinds of other stuff to life in, like bodies, rocks, etc)?

"Does a tree exist without an observer?". Which can be recognized as a classic philosophical question — Alkis Piskas

The tree still exists. But not in colors and shape and felt structure. Like the sound of thunder is still there if no one hears it. Our dependence is not dependent on counting though. Counting is a human activity Quantization is purely human, and has absolutely zero existence outside the domain of the human mind. Numbers have no counterpart in nature except in the image of physical laws we have. Physical laws are generally spoken mathematical relations between quantizible physical entities. It's the wrong way round to think these quantities have a physical existence outside the domain of math and measurement. But if investigated this way, nature has no other way to respond mathematically. It are forced answers though.



Very true. It seems the subject matter of science, especially physics, leads to such doom. Science claims to know, and those not knowing are usually frowned upon by the advocates of science, and especially physics. This division between so-called ignorance and so-called knowledge is doomed to lead to doom. The ones with knowledge, so loved by science, making the ignorant feel stupid. One of the reasons I studied physics. Nobody can call me stupid. It's stupid though to feel superior because of posossing some stupid artificial physical knowledge.

Sounds reasonable. But choosing a car already presupposes a body. I don't think we can exist independently of the body and the world in and outside us. I do think we will live an infinity of possible life's. A life like rock seems hard.

How can you choose which body to be in if you are that body?

That's exactly what I meant by increasing linearly in the exponential.

It's just in this case I do think there are lots of very strong indications that consciousness is just brute. — bert1

Brute and wild... The problem with structured materialistic explanations is that they take out consciousness firstly and then try to put it back in the system by making the model complex dynamical and containing structùres relating to the complex dynamical stuff it is immersed in, including body. Could be useful in assigning consciousness, but not in explaining it.

It's a matter of fact. 'The number of possible protein sequences is astronomically large. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that there are 20exp150 or the order of 10exp195 possible proteins with 150 amino acids length alone. Only a very small percentage of them exists, or ever existed, in nature.' And also, he's a professor of paleobiology. — Wayfarer

.The point is, there is a limited amount involved. But why should the ones not involved would not be able to support life? Pointing out that they are not used is no proof. They are obviously not, but what if? Stating that with 150 amino acids 20exp150 forms are possible is actually not exactly true. It's half that number, which is still rather big though...Nature could have chosen a lot of proteins! All of them could have started an evolution ("viva la evolution!").

Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately. — Julian Huxley

What needs to be fulfilled? Animals are part of that reality too. Consciousness has not developed to become aware of the process it is based on and it's certainly not man's supreme task task to increase that comprehension (science) and to apply it as fully as possible to genetically modify the course of the process on which his becoming conscious is based, in order for some divine destiny. That thought is one of the about 10exp(exp100) possible patterns of thought, but if he wants to think that... I don't think man is obliged to conform though. It's no evolutionary imperative.

I like the Monk quotation! "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light". Funny!

Vague notions come closest. Reality is like a mist in which shadows lurk, showing their face clearly once in a while.

:smile:

Still, you must have some belief of what exists surely for you. Even when you are not around anymore. Some rock-solid belif. Well, you "must" not, but still. Most people nowadays belief in the reality science propagates. But it's just one among many and quite intolerant towards other worldviews.

Fairly close. I could say you are wrong though. But only if we share the same reality. You could be wrong.

We're drifting of here...

Dendrochronological. What a nice word! Expresses nicely how I feel.

I recall now. The baobab 6000 years old!

Good old Hendrick Lovely not? Dutch skating. On friese doorlopers. Fun in hard times. People were happy though, I guess.

Wise words! It's us who see patterns. Are there trees that old?

Yeah, my use of reality is confusing not? I say there are different realities and then I say physics can discover the fundamentals of reality. I have my "own" view on reality though, of which I think it exists independently. It's material, yes, but contains consciousness at the same time (where others see material processes only). Like physical reality. But you can always ignore that reality. And see a universe with gods, like in ancient Greece. Or you can see epicycles, or astrological facts. Or novels only. Or women only. Or love only. Etcetera. You can't say that some are in the mind and others are real. Of course you can think that. There are obviously things going on in the mind only, but only if you make the distinction in the first place. And there is a distinction. Confusing?

Can't you drive back?

You get me wrong. The external world is not mind dependent. Everyone who claims to have on objective, mind-independent idea on reality is right. There simply is no one and only reality, however western thought based on science makes us believe. I don't say it's all in the mind, I say it's all there. It depends who you ask. Do you think physics doesn't want to explore the fundamentals of reality? I think it can find out.

Are we understanding each other? — Cheshire

Considering the function yes. Though the wave can have the functional form (the square of it). Considering the centrifugal force and distance, yes. I fail to see why the wavefunction is connected with the two examples. What do we leave out of reality with the wavefunction?

It is certainly related to how people think. I think we can discover the ultimate workings of nature, but the very image of looking for causes in a material world is theoretically bound to people. Different people have different ideas about aims of nature. The idea of a nature independent of us is precisely what it is: an idea. Different cultures have different realities. There is no one and only reality, though a realist will say there is. There is more than one reality though and clinging to one makes it in general hard to believe in others (especially the reality based on science, which, if you believe in it, is in fact the same as believing in god). Still, they are there.

the "wavefunction" is a property of the maths. — Cheshire

That's what you think. It could be just as well that the wavefunction is made out of non-local stuff and as such, space itself could be that stuff. What is more non-local than space? Nothing.

We start with experience, the bigger mystery is not "subjectivity", that's given, but the world. — Manuel

That will stay a mystery always. Even when God made it. The problem with gravity is how masses and energies between them make each other know how to move. Posing just a curved space (and thus curved time) isn't enough. How does space know how to curve? Gravitons? But then again, how do they convey their information to spacetime. As gravitons are send out and absorbed by masses, why does spacetime curve?

It can be no other reason than that there is consciousness.

We should and can stop economic growth! The male what she's called has spoken...

Between 950 and c.  1100 Europe experienced a streak of very nice warm weather--good — Bitter Crank

I know about the small ice-age. I always imagined myself living then. There are beautiful winter scenes painted. Very romantic. It was cold though... Untill now I was totally ignorant about the little tropic though. Must have been wonderful. How do they know? It were the "dark" middle ages (but very sunny, apparently!). Trees? No, of course not. HTF do they know?

It is absurd though, as knowledge is not based on structures of zeros and ones being pushed around on wires. At most it can be a poor representation of our knowledge. One might counter the same is going on in our heads, but that's a fundamentally different process.

Donald Trump, possibly, — Bitter Crank

That's exactly what I thought! :smile:

Oe oe, America first! Oo oo oo... knocking himself on the chest.

Photons (or gluons and hypergluons) are the potentiality. Matter is the actual.

As it happens, those 800 years were not terrible for everyone. Life was just very stable. — Bitter Crank

Why can't that hold nowadays?

Seems like you know a lot! An American (?) savant!

You must be thinking of Søren Kierkegaard's family. — Bitter Crank

:smile:

Could humans mix with non-humans? Apparently. Like tigers can mix with lions, I guess. What if we mix humans with gorillas?

Averaging out dead 1 - 5 year olds with mature adults, you get absurdly low life expectancies. — Bitter Crank

Very true! Which goes to show that averaging is an artificial procedure. Wasn't that about a swimmer who drowned?
Who are Denisovans? Danish savants?

A nice comedy would be the play of a group of philosophers pissing on established philosophy, thereby creating understanding and a possible liberation from the establishment.

from the photon's point of view, — Kenosha Kid

There is no photon's POV. The photon works instantaneously. But it looks to us as if it traverse space and time. Which is more or less what you stated. You can compare it with instantaneous interaction in Newtonian space. But since mass and energy must be interchangeable, c is finite.

The upshot is that if it were purely a matter of chance - the 'million monkeys' kind of idea - then the Universe is not nearly old enough to have provided enough time for all of the possibilities to have been realised. — Wayfarer

That depends on the knowledge which proteins can form life. How does he know that most forms can't give life? It's collections of proteins that form life. Later on additional stuff joined the scene.

Yes, I know it's a very non PC idea. — Wayfarer

A non PC idea? Non personal computer idea? Apart from Darwinian evolution there is also Lamarckian evolution. Not genes are central or heritage al la Mendel, but organisms, giving protein life a context.