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29 Sep 2009
by Admin
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DEBATE: DO WE LIVE IN A PHYSICALY REAL WORLD
Posted by: luciusblue
Karma:
10
Metaphysics has been around for centuries, but now with recent advances in science we are beginning to discover that which we see may only be a hologram, which means the things we see may not really be there and only constructs of our imagination, tho be it our combined imagination, this is connected to the age old problem of the subjective and objective, i would like people to put forward there cases arguing for eathier side or maybe a completely new way of understanding the problem.
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DO WE LIVE IN A PHYSICALY REAL WORLD
the problems of light and the subjective experience
If all we can ever see is not the objects themselves but only the light reflecting of said object and onto the back of our eyes, at best all we could ever say that all we see is light.Take the table in front of me just because I can say that it has legs and a surface does not mean that is what it is, its only what I perceive it to be, the colour I could say is a shade of brown. but again the colour brown how do I know I'm seeing the same colour brown that you are as the only way to describe it is with words, word are very subjective in nature as they refer to what I think it is.I could never know for sure that you see the same thing, words are the only tool we have to bridge this divide to reach a level of objectivity.
The problem of whether things are perceived to be the same by different observers is a different question than whether what we perceive has a physical existence in and of itself. It is certainly the case that what we perceive is only a limited part of what exists, science revels that there are even more ways to perceive (e.g. IR radiation) as well as more things to perceive at the smaller scales (e.g. what would be perceived using a microscope). However, the fact that we perceive at all implies the existence of something irrespective of whether we perceive the whole thing or even that thing in the same way as others.Also, the fact that we can create mathematical models of the physical world, and predict the behaviour of it again implies that there is something there to predict about. Especially as mathematical models can predict behaviour or effects never before observed. Importantly, this fact that there are things to be discovered about the external world unknown to any human implies again that there is something there for us to discover things about.Consider this near trivial definitional proof: our eyes are physical and so is the light. Were the tables non-physical there would be no way for them to physically (that is by reflecting and absorbing bits of the light) interact by definition of what it is to be physical. The knowledge of the physicality of our eyes is enough to prove the physicality of the light and therefore the table.Finally, and more importantly, even accepting that everything COULD be an illusion of some form, we have no evidence for this. Therefore, it is illogical to believe that is the case in the face of the fact that we have evidence for the physicality of the objects (such as the simple proof outlined above). It would be equally as rash as believing in Russell’s celestial teapot, or the theory that we are under constant observation by invisible elephants.
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DO WE LIVE IN A PHYSICALY REAL WORLD
If I walk into the table I still hurt myself
Pain is a purely mental process. Our nerve endings gather information from whichever body part and pass it on to our brain which interprets it as pain. That being said, it has been proven that that our minds can be made to tolerate great levels of pain or even imagine pain through hypnosis and some forms of intense meditation. A person can imagine a boil or a bruise when hypnotised and it will be ‘physically’ realised. The belief that this world is physical and that the table is real and that by walking into it I hurt myself realises that thought. The fact that we all believe it and do so, perhaps, inherently does not make the table or the bruise any more real.
We can see atoms, we can measure their movements and how they react, and if the table wasn't real I wouldn't get a big bruise. We have to accept that there is a shared or subjective world, we use this to try to explain our shared experiences and if we share the same experiences we can say that it is a real,
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DO WE LIVE IN A PHYSICALY REAL WORLD
Would a virtual world be too complex for us?
Every day I discover new things, and every day I find myself struggling to understand other things. One assumption about our world is that it is merely our own imaginations creating a virtual reality for us, but if this is the case, how come I can invent the works of Tolkein, but not understand them easily? If this world is a creation of another person, I doubt that they would be able to easily create a world with these complexities which some understand and others do not understand. The only way in which we could live in a non-physical world would be if this is merely a 'copy' of 'the' real world.
DO WE LIVE IN A PHYSICALY REAL WORLD
Matter is energy
Science has proven that at its core matter is energy. Simply put, at the smallest level, smaller than the atom, lie neutrons, electrons and protons which do not act like physical matter that we know of. The infamous double slit experiment, (where light was proven to interfere with itself when passed through the ‘double slit’ forming a pattern of light and shadow), proves that photons and electrons, even when fired one slit at a time interfere with themselves. A parallel example would be, say a bullet fired through a hole. One would expect it to hit a board on the other side. However photons and electrons act as if that bullet went through the hole and hit the board in a recognisable, repeatable pattern of many separate holes. Some scientists argue that these small particles that the ‘real world’ is made of act like waves as opposed to particles and waves do not have substance. Waves cannot be matter. If at the core of what we believe to be physically real turns out to be nothing but energy, then we cannot be in something physically real.
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dhc
|07:34, 16 May 08
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dhc
|07:34, 16 May 08
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dhc
|07:37, 16 May 08
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dhc
|07:37, 16 May 08
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admin
|16:44, 17 September 08
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admin
|08:24, 18 September 08
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