Nope. Why even go there? We know a little. It's not delusion. It's just not complete. But yeah, our assumptions and the conclusions we draw can be delusional.
Are you also experiencing the missing parts, (ie: the ones that make it incomplete), or are they part of something else which you don't experience? If the latter, then how do you know they're beyond your experience/perception?
How do I know that I don't know everything by experience???? Are you even serious???
I'm asking you to explain so that I understand what you mean - then I can decide whether I accept it.
It matters because we define things according to our experience of them. For example, how we experience the world is very much scale-dependent - we experience the arrow of time and causality, just as we experience temperature, pressure, and the wetness of water, as emergent properties at macro scales, but they don't exist/have meaning at micro scales.
I'm not saying it proves anything - it's an expression of our perception of the temporal sequence of events. As Einstein suggested, it may well be that, "The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion".
But reality does. Yet, it seems science of late is more concentrated on describing the experience of them. Not that it can do otherwise, come to think of it.
It's a rude analogy, but yeah, I get it. As I once said to an uncle of mine, who was involved in AI development, and he agreed, human thinking is part analogue, part digital. We have neither of the ability that God does: to see the completed product, nor to see any of it simultaneous with the rest of it.
That's more than my limited understanding can know, right now. But seems worth thinking about. Thank you. I'm wondering if what I was tempted to say just above this last, is denied in this last: That I am at least glad you seem to agree with me that causation is not necessarily time dependent.
Agreed. (Not sure I agree about the implications different people will draw from it.)
Mark Quayle said:
The principle of least action mentioned earlier in this thread does bring up philosophical questions about reality.
Another good video .. (thanks).
Just a quick note: I saw a similar video by someone using that same thing of a beam of light shining on whatever particular spot we are noticing (the fish) but I don't think it was her. But anyway, the person on the other video made more of the notion of the light choosing, and how did the light know the quickest path, etc etc.. Maybe this is what SelfSim is getting at below, I don't know, but to me the question seems ridiculous. We are the one choosing the object. The light just shines and is refracted at the surface of the medium change. It doesn't know and doesn't care. Ok, I'll continue watching...
Nope. I was only speaking to her broader philosophical enquiries by extending her concept of 'model' to include all descriptions as being models .. (not just the Physics description/model).
A variation to Fermat's principle mentioned in the video is Snell's law.
I don't get it. The light can't do anything but what it does. Attributing "knowledge" to the coincident fact that it is faster to go with the refraction typical of the difference of the two mediums is to ignore the fact that it is the only thing it CAN do. If you want your light beam to shine on the fish, you have to point it at that certain spot on the surface. If you shine it anywhere else, it won't light the fish up. It can't.
Forget about the fish.
My point wasn't the fish. The fact that (serendipitous though it be) the angle of refraction always is also the fastest, is no more invoking of inanimate knowledge or decision than the fact that it can't do otherwise.
You are right light doesn’t “know” which path to take but your reasoning doesn’t explain why this is the case.
Hmm .. just trying to synch up with where you're coming from on this:
I would have said, 'what light does', not 'is'. But yes, it obviously has implications into the nature of the thing.
Also, 'does', with implications into what it 'is'.
I'm beginning to think you are making much of something that is obvious. I'm not sure I'm following what you are saying, though, so....
Maybe you are saying "parts of the MODEL of light are" where I would say "we describe like this, what we observe light to do"
We only know 'what light is' from what we see.
Yes so you're saying 'God' is a model also (with attributes).
In science, the 'thing' which you hold as being separate from your observations, which you're calling 'light', never gets tested. We only ever test, record and incorporate our observations into our model of light. That then becomes what you mean whenever you use the word: 'light'.
Of course. So what? Does that mean that light doesn't exist until we say so?
No, I'm asking if that is the sort of thing you are talking about.
No. That then becomes for some of us what we think we mean. We, some of us, at least, mean to refer to the fact behind what we see. When I talk about God, I do not refer to what I know about him. I refer to the real being that he is. But yeah, it's difficult to do well, because we can only conceive humanly. However, we can conceive of the fact that we don't know the whole thing.
Nor can you demonstrate that light is only a model. Are you the one who told me once that if we can't demonstrate it, it isn't rational?
There is a world of difference between "everything we describe using language", and "everything as it is, quite apart from our descriptions". I won't even say, "everything as it ontologically is" because that invokes the necessary use of concept.
