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Author Topic:   Science and origins
RDK
Junior Member (Idle past 5269 days)
Posts: 26
From: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Joined: 11-23-2008


Message 31 of 33 (507224)
05-02-2009 11:35 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by onifre
05-01-2009 1:31 PM


Absolutely, but equally, the reality that we experience could just be a figment of our imaginations as well. Would you agree with that?
Yes, but if we took that to be true (or even a remote possibility) then continuing this debate would be essentially pointless, no?
I agree with you, no external stimuli that we can currently comprehend was involved. That is not to say that there aren't any other external features to reality, it simply means that with the use of our 5 sensory inputs, reality offers no other external stimuli that we are currently aware of. But we are limited to just those sensory inputs, so who knows. Would you agree with that?
Yes, I would agree. It is entirely possible that we have not previously developed a "sixth sense", so to speak, for a stimuli that we had not been presented with. That, or, conversely, we have been presented with it at some point and time (or even still are), and there has just been no need to develop a sensory system for it.
Yes, but machines are built by the very species that is limited to it's sensory inputs, so machines are also limited in what they can detect by the very fact that we are limited to begin with.
Up until about a hundred years ago, we knew next to nothing about processes on the atomic level. If your prediction is correct, we should still know nothing about atomic processes simply by virtue of the fact that we cannot view these processes on a macroscopic level.
Comparatively, our eyes suck. Because of this, we developed things--like the microscope--to do our dirty work for us.
How did we know to build a machine to test the data gathered about particles? There was a process of raised awareness about sub-atomic scales. We then proceded to discovery this new "world". But this "world" could not have been discovered had it not been for a collection of sensory functions that humans happened to evolve. At one point in time there was not only an enormous macro world that had not been known, but also a micro world that had not been know to exist as well. Now they are known, and it is all due to the fact that we evolved these sensory functions and a brain with the capacity to desipher all of the external info that it receives via these functions.
But how did, as you put it, "awareness" of these microscopic levels arise in the first place? By machines we invented to help detect them.
Let's say there are no humans, and no other species on the planet with the type of brain to desipher the input received from whatever sensory functions they have.
What type of reality would these creatures assume they exist in, if they could postulate such a thing? How many different external information would they be unaware of?
Lets go one further and say that the species also lacks one of the sensory function. Would you not agree that they would be even less aware of many external features in nature?
What evidence do you have, or anyone else has, that we are at our maximum level of awareness about external features in nature? Could we not be in the very stage of limited awareness that the species in my example was in? If not, why not?
I agree with you here also in the sense that we could be as blind to our surroundings as we may consider dogs to be comparatively blind to theirs. I suppose it's hard to personalize this kind of situation simply because we have to imagine the possibility via abstract conversations--like this one--instead of experiencing it firsthand. There's no good data to fall back on, other than that we know simpler life forms don't have the depth of understanding we do.
Instead, we just have to shoot the shit and contemplate.
Edited by RDK, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by onifre, posted 05-01-2009 1:31 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by onifre, posted 05-03-2009 1:18 PM RDK has not replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2950 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 32 of 33 (507283)
05-03-2009 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by RDK
05-02-2009 11:35 PM


Yes, but if we took that to be true (or even a remote possibility) then continuing this debate would be essentially pointless, no?
Well you asked if the "event" could be purely imaginative, which I agree it could be. But since it came about through normal neural processes, equal to that which you use to perceive the reality that you experience, then anything is possible, even me in a Matrix imagining this whole thing.
But to be more specific with my original answer, yes, it could be totally imagined.
It is entirely possible that we have not previously developed a "sixth sense", so to speak, for a stimuli that we had not been presented with. That, or, conversely, we have been presented with it at some point and time (or even still are), and there has just been no need to develop a sensory system for it.
Cool. Then could it would be safe to assume that there could exist something in nature that we can't evidence using our limited sensory inputs?
Up until about a hundred years ago, we knew next to nothing about processes on the atomic level. If your prediction is correct, we should still know nothing about atomic processes simply by virtue of the fact that we cannot view these processes on a macroscopic level.
I think you missed my point. Granted, machines do help us go where our normal features are limited and can't further investigate, but before the machine is built to do a specific task, like the LHC, much has to be known about what is going to be investigated. The machine is told where to go search because we have very good evidence that something should be there (ie. Higgs Boson).
But how did, as you put it, "awareness" of these microscopic levels arise in the first place? By machines we invented to help detect them.
We had the mathematics before any machines were built, and experiments were conducted without machines. But again, we can only investigate what we "see" with our sensory functions, anything outside of what we can experience with these functions isn't going to be known to us, much less will we be able to built a machine to find that which we don't even know exists.
But, we can be in the process of experiencing it, with our brains at higher levels of consciousness, however, since these experiences are always equated with religious god(s) people reject them off hand.
Maybe this is a bit too presuptuous.
There's no good data to fall back on, other than that we know simpler life forms don't have the depth of understanding we do.
I guess it's all in what you consider "good" data. But you're right, for now we muse, shoot the shit and contemplate.

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by RDK, posted 05-02-2009 11:35 PM RDK has not replied

  
michalina 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5403 days)
Posts: 2
From: nevada,newyork,unitrd states
Joined: 06-12-2009


Message 33 of 33 (511821)
06-12-2009 4:51 AM


SPAM
Science and origins
science is interesting and recycling subject.
Fire Science Degree
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Ain't telling.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Still ain't telling.

  
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