Topic: Proof that anything really is possible...

[Morgul]

I read this post by visiting a link that said:

"By Occam's Razor, it is simpler to generate every possible universe than any one arbitrary universe."

Here's the post.
http://forums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.php?p=2130851#2130851

I dunno, I enjoyed it.

--Chris

[Caenus]

"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

This basically says that one should never overcomplicate a situation beyond the simplest explanation.

[Neo]

Holy crap that's deep. I wonder if he thought of that all by himself. If so, daaaaannnnggg. That does expand my horizon a bit. That was intulectualy stimulating, I much enjoyed it.

[CK the Fat]

*Whoosh* way over my head. ;D

[Morgul]

lol. I do have to agree with Caenus.

[Caenus]

Well, surely you would.  What I quoted was the original latin axiom (and its translation) for Occam's Razor.

[Morgul]

Yup.

[ryguy_1617]

Wow....this guy has many of the same ideas that I had actually thought about myself...which I find to be amazing considering that I didnt really think that anyone else might have had basically ALL of the same ideas and wonderings about possibilities concerning these topics as mentioned by him. 

While I didnt think of all this together and do what he did with it, I moreso thought about it in seperate sections but he basically ties everything I thought about into a single article...kindof awesome.  I am somewhat inspired by this to have more motive to share related ideas I think about that are generally about this: existance, creation, actions and reactions, parrallel and other universes and/or dimensions, after death happenings, etc... the possibilities stop no where and there are so many that nobody can rightfully state what is fact unless they know everything influencing that so called 'fact' is fact as well...which ends up leading up to the point where we cant truly know what is and isnt fact.  Therefore, we are most likely only scraping the surface of the mysteries of life and existance...with all of these possibilities, what are the odds that we, our dimension, our universe, and our other 'facts' are all that's out there?


And, I have many thoeries and beliefs concerning religions and such, but I will not discuss any of that here for fear of offending anyone.

Once again though, I'm glad that morgul posted this link...its fascinating to find someone else who seems to touch base with some of my beliefs and ideas here .

[Xentither]

I had thought of this as what I call "personal immortality" an individual experiance never ends, though the nature of it's beginnings are quite clouded, I had a train of thought that asserted human experiance to a sort of video game, an aeonic distraction. In the depths of our immortal soul there could never be a lack of boredom, I imagine much of immortality involves boredom, but at the same time, personal experiance asks questions like, why is one girl so beatiful in one person's eyes while in another she may be less than appealing. Varieties of opinion and the like tend to point to an idea that everyone is living in their own seperate universe, intelinked on this Giant MMO we call earth that shares a set of rules, but otherwise holds a boundless variance.

So, in a way, on all realms of possibility we are experianceing all stimuli at once for an infinite period of time, but naturally, this has to be simplified, given a condensed portion of time and later digested in full when our brains, minds, souls etc. are not so concerned with avoiding semi's on the street or hoping that the guy behind you at the ATM isn't going to mug you, all of which is it's own boundless experiance just waiting to be processed in full.

and in the end, we either find an end to this particular 'living' epoch and find 'true life' on a different level of existance with a different ruleset, or we reach a path where the wildest life extending measures are made and we go on indefinitely to satisfy whatever sensational desires we have to add to our experiance folders.

This is coupled with other theories i have and have head concerning a simultaneous non-parallelled cyclical existance, memory occlusion and the like.

Me personally I'd like to be the first multi-millenia cyborg. That would be fun.

[Caenus]

Heh, you and your theories.  That would be fun though.

[ryguy_1617]

I had thought of this as what I call "personal immortality" an individual experiance never ends, though the nature of it's beginnings are quite clouded, I had a train of thought that asserted human experiance to a sort of video game, an aeonic distraction. In the depths of our immortal soul there could never be a lack of boredom, I imagine much of immortality involves boredom, but at the same time, personal experiance asks questions like, why is one girl so beatiful in one person's eyes while in another she may be less than appealing. Varieties of opinion and the like tend to point to an idea that everyone is living in their own seperate universe, intelinked on this Giant MMO we call earth that shares a set of rules, but otherwise holds a boundless variance.

So, in a way, on all realms of possibility we are experianceing all stimuli at once for an infinite period of time, but naturally, this has to be simplified, given a condensed portion of time and later digested in full when our brains, minds, souls etc. are not so concerned with avoiding semi's on the street or hoping that the guy behind you at the ATM isn't going to mug you, all of which is it's own boundless experiance just waiting to be processed in full.

and in the end, we either find an end to this particular 'living' epoch and find 'true life' on a different level of existance with a different ruleset, or we reach a path where the wildest life extending measures are made and we go on indefinitely to satisfy whatever sensational desires we have to add to our experiance folders.

This is coupled with other theories i have and have head concerning a simultaneous non-parallelled cyclical existance, memory occlusion and the like.

Me personally I'd like to be the first multi-millenia cyborg. That would be fun.

The idea you give about each of us living in our own seperate universes brings me to another idea I had (somewhat offtopic, however ) -- what if we dont all see the same colors?

What I'm saying here is, what if the color I classify as purple appears to someone else as the color I would classify as green, but they learned that particular hue to be known as purple? Or, to go further, what if we all see completely different sets of hues but classify them all with the same names?  Ever notice how it was basically impossible to think of a new color outside of our spectrums?...well, what if others see colors outside of that spectrum but we all classify them under the same spectrum with the same color names. Obviously, for this to work the different hues we all see would have to have the same brightness level and fit with the same amount of contrast among one another.

But so far I havent thought up a way to prove this impossible .

[Xentither]

well, as I've seen tossed around by any number of philosophies is that our sensation of reality is purely fabricated by our brain and the constructs it has built. miniscule differences in our particulate and molecular composition could have dramatic effects from one person to another, and i don't think anyone's really done the reasearch at such a fine scale to determine these differences. The ratio of chemicals and enzymes released from the rods and cones in your eyes could have any number of effects that are both undefined and impossible to prove the final outcome since your only source of information on the final conclusion is coming from someone who, invariably, has been trained from day one to register that particular enzyme release as green, blue, red, etc.

although, by using this same logic, we do know that all protein manufacture and it's variables is rooted in your DNA structure, and given the negligible differences between one strand of DNA to another's, I think it's safe to say that one person's red is also another person's red without too much tangible difference, except, of course, in cases of color blindness, and who, in the end, can really say what they're registering in lieu of those colors since, once again, their perception has been labeled from day one for communication purposes.

What should concern you is the use of color in commercial stimulation, such as restaurants using colors like peach, green, and red to inspire hunger in their patrons. The identification of color is one facet of the ultimate perception of color, what it does to the body, and tangible effects on our neuropathways and physiological changes that occur with their presence.

[ryguy_1617]

Hmm...yeah, I suppose that the similiarities in our overall chemical makeup probably is strong evidence that we all see close to the same thing -- but yeah, the way we each perceive the colors and the effect it has on us is probably different to some extent.

[ignoramous]

although, by using this same logic, we do know that all protein manufacture and it's variables is rooted in your DNA structure, and given the negligible differences between one strand of DNA to another's, I think it's safe to say that one person's red is also another person's red without too much tangible difference, except, of course, in cases of color blindness, and who, in the end, can really say what they're registering in lieu of those colors since, once again, their perception has been labeled from day one for communication purposes.

There are 4 kinds of red classification
1) Wavelength of light causing a sensation.
2) The induction of the qualia (individual's experience) of red.
3) The induction of the linguistic term "red".
4) The induction of emotional response to experiencing red.

It is NOT safe to say that the qualia of red is the same for everybody.  There is a broad region of qualia which gets classified linguistically as "red".  Most of society gets by with approximations in communication, conveying general ideas and vague distinctions. 

Other factores include fatigue in the rendering process, tiredness levels and anything which might result in variation in one's experience.  Take a red sheet of construction paper and stare at it for 2+ minutes.  In my experience the red turns into orange.  The fatigue (stimulus is always on) causes the perceptive system to change.  I think of it like a capacitor running out of juice.  There are also situations where feedback loops develop which cause a change from a single glimpse of input. 

Another factor which many people discount is that each person has their own emotional reaction to seeing red.  I'd argue that the experience of red is incomplete without taking into consideration every residual effect that red has on the perceiving individual, and that includes any psychological and emotional associations/reactions to the color.  Red goes far beyond just being a color.  Its meaning is incomplete without including the associations to red.

In that sense the experience of red is highly individual. 

Also there are some women who have 4 chromatic receptors, normal sight is 3, color blindness is 2.   The extra input from the 4th receptor is going to cause a different experience of red. 

Part of the problem in identifying whether or not two people are seeing the same red is that the region of color which generates the red linguistic term is broad.  We could try to get two people to callibrate on true red (pure red wavelength) and judge degrees of distance, but then the problem of fatigue creeps in where each person's perceptual system might fatigue in different ways. 

I think its safe to say that we're all have very different experiences.    What matters more than the exact color is the number of distinctions (identifiable boundaries).  The boundaries between colors allow for object identification and concept formation.  People can get by with variation in the exact color because the number and kinds of distinctions are still preserved. 

[ignoramous]

My take on the link that was provided:

There is a real problem when it comes to contemplating "reality".  The original poster on the other side of the link is aware of the problem but I think he comes to the wrong conclusions.  You see, you can't know about reality beyond your personal perceptions and experiences of reality.  The original poster is willing to postulate that infinite realities exist but this is ultimately unvarifiable because, as the original poster states, you can only be aware of the reality which intersects through your experience.  To me, speaking about anything beyond my personal experience, and more importantly, my current awareness, is just plain bollocks.  I am deeply aware of my thought processes and I have come to realize that there is a severe limitation to conceptual thinking.  Concepts are built on top of percepts.  In this way I cannot adequately conceive of anything which I have not experienced.  Imagination is just a recombination of memories.  I have never imagined anything which I did not previously experience.  So no feat of mental gymnastics or weaving of concepts is going to get me closer to understanding a reality that is ultimately beyond my own experience of it.  I personally have abandoned trying to tame understanding the universe with my mind and have gone back to simply experiencing the universe that I live in.

In that sense there is only one universe.  This universe.   The universe of my/your current awareness.  The idea of other universes are simply in your/my imagination.  Unless you have a direct experience of them through being the Subject or Witness of them, then they are just concepts within your own current universe. 

Now let me point out that at the end of the original poster's indulgence in mental masterbation there was a message about how to personally conduct yourself.  As far as I can tell, the whole point of his/her endeavor in mental gymnastics seems to be to motivate the golden rule.  Now I don't know about ya'll, but to me the golden rule is self-evident.  I don't need to motivate it at all.  I can tell from the quality of my experience that when I am nice to others, I feel nice and I get niceness in return.  The fact of the matter is, we're all basically mirrors, we reflect what gets put into us, and we feel what we put out into the universe.

Sirrah, I like to pick my nits, especially when topics require some epistemology.

[CaptBewil]

String Theory is an interesting exercise in the problems of science and establishing the 1:1 ratio with the universe that is required.

String Theory was intended to unify all of the major Laws of Physics and for a while, it did.  String Theory predicted that there were tiny strings at a deep sub-atomic level even beyond quarks that vibrated in a harmonic manner.  While an interesting prediction in itself, the original theorist had no mathematical proof.  This is where it became even more interesting and astonding.  As they began to plot out the math to prove their theory, they began to run into road blocks.  One of the solutions to getting around these road blocks was to assume that extra dimensions existed beyond the usual 3.  This opened up the math and allowed them to proceed further until they hit another road block.  "Well there MUST be another dimension!"  In fact, they ended up assuming around 4 extra dimensions existed beyond the usual 3, 7 in total (IIRC).  This was amazing and they were on their way to winning the Nobel Prize!  Then others began attempting to varify by duplicating their work.  The only problem is that the results, while mathematically provable indepandantly, were slightly different.  In fact, between the 6 or 7 mathematically provable String Theories, they predicted all sorts of different shapes and between 6 and 9 different dimensions respectfully.  Surely, 7 Mathematically Provable theories, each with their own unique result, could all be right, could it?  Of course not.  String Theory became the laughing stock of the Scientific Community (ironically, where it started from).

The one thing I think String Theory did prove (or teach us) is that just because you can prove something mathematically, doesn't mean that that's the way it is (even by approximation).

Unfortunately, some did not learn this lesson.  There is currently a group effort to unite all 7 of the String Theories into what's now being called M-Theory.  Last time I checked, they were up to around 23 dimensions in the math (IIRC).  "There just MUST be another dimension!"

[Caenus]

Heh, 23 mathematically proven, 60 computationally.

i.e.  we've proven 23, but can perform calculations involving up to 60 dimensions.