An interesting concept:

[Michali]

I was thinking about what "objective reality" really is, when I questioned our method of "reductionism".

As we reduce a system (let us say, "an apple") we find that the apple is not "as" real as that which it is comprised of. (Forgive me for using degrees of reality, but you get my point.) The apple is made of atoms. But even the atoms are not as real as the quantum particles that make them up. This reduction continues until we come across "raw energy". Supposedly, "raw energy" is as objectively real as we can get. And forgive me if I am wrong, but M-theory might delve into the cosmic "strings" of infinite dimensions (or something)... regardless

But what is energy? To my understanding, it is a potenitality of a physical object. But if a physical object is made of energy... gah...

Alright, if it is not a potential to do work, it is the very process of the working. So, holding an apple, is like holding "movement". It would be like grabbing a "run" instead of a leg, or a touching a "laugh" instead of a face.

But my real inquery is, why does something appear more real when we delve into the "small". When reduced in only three dimensions, we get smaller. But if we were to include the fourth in this reduction, we would get younger.

This energy, this "movement", would reverse. And we could not just reduce a single object, because the object would have to rewind all of it's causal relations with everything it came into contact with. The apple that we were reducing would have to be taken up by the hand that placed it down. In other words, the entire universe is the only thing that could undergo this reduction. And, of course, when it is completely reduced, we end up with our objective reality. Our one and only real thing. (no implications intended)

 

[dredgtone]

i have no idea how to answer your question but i see what you're saying and it is quite interesting. This whole energy thing...

Like, what are my thoughts? Are they energy? Why do my thoughts seem less real than the energy that flows through my brain when i interpret sound? Are my thoughts even in sound? Are my thoughts an illusion made up from all the elements that make up my existance recognizing the fact that they exist? Am i therefore nothing more than a monkey with the illusion of self-identity? I'll take that.

 

[Received]

And Michali has proven yet again why I chose not to major in philosophy

 

[Zoot]

Holding an apple is not like holding a movement, because you are also a "movement", and the action of holding is a movement, etc., etc. Everything is flux. For a start, why draw the lines that you do between the apple-movement and the not-apple-movement?

 

[Achilles_]

Yeah, too much thinking would make you nuts.

It's hard to explain what energy is. Energy is the ability to function. With these abilities to function, we get the smallest subatomic particle, which brings us to questioning our perception of reality and matter. I have a hard time dealing with just staring at my keyboard, and carefully inspecting my current five sense. I sometimes completely blank out and feel like an alien from a completely different... universe.

What is that pen made of? In another place, will it exist at all? What is existence? Why is the pen the way it is? These questions probably can't be answered, as Buddha said. I wouldn't worry about it.

Find the middle way between Reason and Ignorance. Too much of either is harmful.

 

[Zoot]

Received, that's madness. You'd love tertiary philosophy.

 

[Zoot]

But my real inquery is, why does something appear more real when we delve into the "small". When reduced in only three dimensions, we get smaller. But if we were to include the fourth in this reduction, we would get younger.

You can't fully describe the apple without fully describing the entire universe.

 

[Michali]

Holding an apple is not like holding a movement, because you are also a "movement", and the action of holding is a movement, etc., etc. Everything is flux. For a start, why draw the lines that you do between the apple-movement and the not-apple-movement?

Actually, I knew that.

 

[Michali]

You can't fully describe the apple without fully describing the entire universe.

Like I said...

But my entire point to this thread, is to posit a reason why there is only one objectively real thing. All apparent "things" are merely attributes of the universe.

The apple, you see, is a result in the 4th dimensional extension of the universe. Just like it's heigth, width, or depth; it's appleness, Michaliness, peice-of-grassness is an attribute of the universe and it's extension in the 4th dimension.

 

[Zoot]

But my entire point to this thread, is to posit a reason why there is only one objectively real thing. All apparent "things" are merely attributes of the universe.

The apple, you see, is a result in the 4th dimensional extension of the universe. Just like it's heigth, width, or depth; it's appleness, Michaliness, peice-of-grassness is an attribute of the universe and it's extension in the 4th dimension.

Firstly, there's no possessive apostrophe in "its". "It" is the exception to that rule. (I have added this to the spelling and grammar thread OP).

Anyway, again, when you talk about "the apple", you've already gone several steps into performing your own cutting up of the universe. Its height, length, depth, appleness, and especially its extension in the fourth dimension (duration) are all arbitrary lines drawn and applied by yourself. I'm not sure I'd even go so far as to call them "attributes of the universe". They are properties of events in the universe - events of perception-of-the-apple.

 

[Michali]

Firstly, there's no possessive apostrophe in "its". "It" is the exception to that rule. (I have added this to the spelling and grammar thread OP).

Curse English and it's inconsistencies.

Anyway, again, when you talk about "the apple", you've already gone several steps into performing your own cutting up of the universe. Its height, length, depth, appleness, and especially its extension in the fourth dimension (duration) are all arbitrary lines drawn and applied by yourself. I'm not sure I'd even go so far as to call them "attributes of the universe". They are properties of events in the universe - events of perception-of-the-apple.

Actually, you're correct here. Which has become of sudden interest to me:

How can the universe have dimensional value? I suppose I am speaking of everything in the universe, except the universe itself in the OP. But still, how can the universe expand in any dimension, when dimension is only meaningfull within it? Have our theoretical physicists made a semantical mistake?

 

[Zoot]

How can the universe have dimensional value? I suppose I am speaking of everything in the universe, except the universe itself in the OP. But still, how can the universe expand in any dimension, when dimension is only meaningfull within it? Have our theoretical physicists made a semantical mistake?

I've never looked into the expanding universe stuff, though I assume that objection is so obvious they would have addressed it. Maybe someone else can enlighten us both.

You ask how the universe can have dimensional value. A better question would be, how can the universe have any value at all? Value is founded on distinction and division, contrast and comparison. The universe is by definition that against which there is no contrast, with which there is no comparison.

 

[David Gould]

They can work out that the universe is getting bigger simply by measuring the distance between things within it. Many physicists suspect that if our universe *were observed from the outside it would appear to be very, very small (probably smaller than the planck length). So this means what we mean when we say that the universe is getting bigger is that the distance between any two points within it is getting larger.

So in regards to this, they do not need an external comparison. Indeed, an external comparison would not provide them with the interesting information that every day the edge of the visible universe is getting further away from us.





*(and here english gets more interesting because we have distinctions between universes, which is by definition impossible and yet done all the time because we named what we could observe as the universe without thinking that there might be something beyond that - the same thing happened with the word 'atom')

 

[Routerider]

this thread sucks at 2:57 am....I'm going back to bed.

 

[Zoot]

David, does your post still make sense if you define "universe" as "everything"?

 

[Michali]

David, does your post still make sense if you define "universe" as "everything"?

"Everything", like "nothing", might only be a conception, and not applicable to reality. But it would seem strange not to have either, wouldn't it?

 

[Zoot]

Well, they are applicable to reality, since "everything" is just "all things that are", and "nothing" is just "no things that are". Though if my original point is taken to its logical extreme, there is only one thing, usually referred to as the universe.