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We are unAble2Know

 
 
aperson
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 07:31 pm
We live in, as Dawkins puts it, the midworld. Neither big nor small, fast, slow, hot, or cold, but somewhere in between.

It is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for us to comprehend how big the universe is, how small an atom is, how fast light is, how slow our nails grow, how hot the sun is, or how cold absolute zero is. It simply cannot be done. We, as humans, are limited to a certain range of understanding. While we may have some vague idea about these things, we can never fully understand them.

But our ignorance does not stop at simple variables. No, there are many things we have no idea of - quantum physics being an excellent example. Neils Bohr told us:
Quote:
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

But the truth is that we can never actually understand it. We know what happens at a quantum level, but we don't know why or how.

There are many areas of physics and other science like this. We can expand our understanding by pushing the boundaries of our minds. We can even break out of some mild ideas such as egocentricity, however, some concepts are completely unfathomable. We cannot begin to comprehend what Space without its partner, Time, would be like, or vica versa.

On quite a few occasions I have stretched my mind into almost unbearable zones. Call me crazy, but I actually have a physical sense of chaotic confusion and illness when I dive deeply into such matters as nihilism, existence and scale. And I'm talking about deep deep. My mind simply cannot cope with the strain. Maybe I'm alone. Maybe not. The point is that we don't have the brain capacity to handle these things.

We are truly unAble2Know.

aperson
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 995 • Replies: 15
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 12:57 am
....which leads some philosophers and scientists to speculate that the "Why-How" paradigm is a product or epiphenomenon of language and human consciousness. Even the "we" in your own argument is subject to philosophical deconstruction thereby rendering "our understanding" non-axiomatic.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 09:21 am
Quote:
Here's a sample passage by anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. It's from his essay called "The Hidden Teacher."

. . . I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing. Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her prey.

Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist.

We are spiders too.
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 04:37 pm
Nice one rosborne.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 05:45 pm
fresco wrote:
Nice one rosborne.

Eisley is one of favorites.

Here's another sample of his thoughts...
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aperson
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 08:16 pm
Excellent anecdote.

Yes, Fresco, humans try to find a thing called reason, or meaning, which unfortunately doesn't exist at certain levels. Perhaps those levels include quantum physics, existence, etc.

One of the things that can get me into a state is existence. Nothing should exist. It's hard to explain - you really have to get into a state yourself - but nothing should exist. Existence is paradoxical.

Maybe things do make sense, but not to us...

Maybe there is no reality, only that which we perceive...

Help me out here.
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aperson
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 08:22 pm
rosborne979 wrote:


That is an amazing piece of writing.
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SkeptikosExaminer
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 07:01 pm
aperson wrote:
humans try to find a thing called reason, or meaning, which unfortunately doesn't exist at certain levels.


Does reason really not reach to certain levels because of some kind of incompatibility, or is the human understanding just to limited to fallow it all the way it could go? Just because a Pentium I. with 100Mhz can not play HD videos does not mean that computers are generally unable to work with high resolutions content. Being not able to discover a meaning in an object or system is not the same as a true absence of meaning and reason.

You only find what you are able to understand!
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Mame
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 07:25 pm
aperson, welcome back from Spring Break. I missed you. You are a precocious cutie-patootie and I love your threads.
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hingehead
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 07:31 pm
Re: We are unAble2Know
aperson wrote:


We are truly unAble2Know.



How can you be sure?
0 Replies
 
aperson
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 07:32 pm
Why thank you Mame. No spring break, I just decided to spend some time down on earth for a while.

Skepi,
Yes that is what I am speculating about - whether there is no meaning or whether we just can't understand the meaning.
0 Replies
 
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 07:48 pm
Our universe only extends as far as our imagination. Mine is vast, and in it, I am everywhere and everything.
0 Replies
 
real life
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Apr, 2008 10:58 pm
Re: We are unAble2Know
aperson wrote:

We are truly unAble2Know.

aperson


Yeah, what hingehead said.....how do you know this?
0 Replies
 
aperson
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Apr, 2008 02:13 pm
I provided many examples of where we are unAble2Know. My potential knowledge of this fact is not one of them.
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aperson
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Apr, 2008 02:15 pm
My point is that we have a small range of knowledge, not that we don't have any knowledge.
0 Replies
 
aperson
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Apr, 2008 02:18 pm
Cyracuz wrote:
Our universe only extends as far as our imagination. Mine is vast, and in it, I am everywhere and everything.


Yes, this is similar to the statement - I live forever, because my whole life experience is living.
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