2011 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[MMA_scientist]

Well, I'll give it credit for at least being a coherent idea. In contrast, I'm not sure I truly understand what the word "supernatural" means other than something that basically doesn't exist by definition.

If this were true, it would have to involve completely unknown physics.

Well I think that is the point he is making, basically that people haven't figured out very much in the grand scheme of things... my opinion is that you can observe things that happen and even predict that they will continue to happen... but never really explain why they happen. That is why I lost all interest in science and went the philosophy route. For example, you said earlier all these things about magnetism and light waves... but what I always wanted to know is why magnetism happens. Why are some things positively charged and negatively charged, why does gravity happen? I could get the scientific answers, but to me that was always akin to saying "we know it happens."

[SPX]

I am starting to open to the idea that there are many things in the world and others that we just do not percieve or comprehend, things that just have not entered our consciousness. We observe everything from a box. We talk about time and distance in such a limited way... we can verbalize things, but I really don't think we can grasp some things such as infinity and forever. It starts out when we are 5 and we aks how far does space go and then when we are 12 we ask what was there before the big bang... the answer is always, forever or there was nothing. I just don't think can grasp it and it starts early... 30 years later and I still can't grasp it.

I once read in a book--it was Philosophy for Dummies, actually--an analogy regarding death and the afterlife, and it basically went like this (the author was discussing dualism and confessing that he himself would classify himself as a dualist): The body is merely a temporary vehicle for an eternal and infinitely aware consciousness. And when it is channeled by the brain, it actually limits consciousness, rather than the other way around, so that while we're in the physical form that there are a great many things that are closed off to our awareness.

It is essentially like being in room with boarded up windows. There is a vast universe of existence outside of the room, but we are totally unaware of it. However, when we die, and our consciousness is released from the body, it's like kicking out those windows and accessing the much vaster outside world.

[MMA_scientist]

alright, I have to check out for the evening. Good work today guys. Good work. This will make us all better handicappers.

[poopoo333]

alright, I have to check out for the evening. Good work today guys. Good work. This will make us all better handicappers.

Yeah I am trying to get discussion in the other threads and you fags are just in here talking about fucking kids and colors and stuff

[zY|]

Did you know if you say 'Jesus' backwards, it sounds like 'sausage'?

[MMA_scientist]

I once read in a book--it was Philosophy for Dummies, actually--an analogy regarding death and the afterlife, and it basically went like this (the author was discussing dualism and confessing that he himself would classify himself as a dualist): The body is merely a temporary vehicle for an eternal and infinitely aware consciousness. And when it is channeled by the brain, it actually limits consciousness, rather than the other way around, so that while we're in the physical form that there are a great many things that are closed off to our awareness.

It is essentially like being in room with boarded up windows. There is a vast universe of existence outside of the room, but we are totally unaware of it. However, when we die, and our consciousness is released from the body, it's like kicking out those windows and accessing the much vaster outside world.

That is a nice way to explain our limited thought... If you kick off the afterlife stuff, I buy in. I hope the rest is true, but I haven't gotten there yet.

[MMA_scientist]

Yeah I am trying to get discussion in the other threads and you fags are just in here talking about fucking kids and colors and stuff

Shut the fuck up, poopoo.

[MMA_scientist]

Did you know if you say 'Jesus' backwards, it sounds like 'sausage'?

I did not.

lol. But only if you say it in Ingles.

[Svino]

But is the color itself real? Is there a real red or is it only red because our instrument interprets it that way? If there a better more evolved eye out there, would it still be red? I know that you say you think there is a real reality (I agree, but I do not think we can really even be close to knowing that reality), but when it comes to color only, is there a real reality? I don't what you are saying about optical power at every frequency, you are going to have to dumb it down...

This might come down to a question of how you want to define the word "color".

For example, is a traditionally "white" object illuminated under red light "red" or is it "white"? I guess you could casually call it either as long as you are precise in your definition.

Are you wanting "color" to be a property of an object, a property of the light, or a concept that is formed in your mind? (or something else)

Here is what the spectrum of blue sky looks like. There is a lot of detailed information in there, but all we get is "blue". And we might get the same "blue" with an optical input that is actually quite different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spectrum_of_blue_sky.svg

[SPX]

Well I think that is the point he is making, basically that people haven't figured out very much in the grand scheme of things...

Right.

We always think we know everything. We don't give our predecessors much credit, but we think the world of ourselves and our current level of scientific knowledge, like, okay, FINALLY we've pretty much got it all figured out, we just have to work out some of the details.

Consider the advances in our scientific knowledge from ancient Greece to the Enlightenment to today. It could be that we've still only barely scratched the surface and that our modern understanding of the universe is still a massive joke.

I could get the scientific answers, but to me that was always akin to saying "we know it happens."

This is kind of where I'm at, too.

[Svino]

For example, you said earlier all these things about magnetism and light waves... but what I always wanted to know is why magnetism happens. Why are some things positively charged and negatively charged, why does gravity happen?

I guess it depends on the level of answer you're looking for. If you are looking for proximate answer to a question like "why is there magnetism", science may have one, or be able to find it. But if you are looking for an ultimate answer, then science cannot help you.

(And neither can philosophy or theology, IMO. But they won't tell you that.)

I don't know that I would consider something like "Why does the universe exist?" a meaningful question.

[SPX]

That is a nice way to explain our limited thought... If you kick off the afterlife stuff, I buy in. I hope the rest is true, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Well I think there is at least a good amount of evidence to suggest that your consciousness can act independent of the body in the form of out of body experiences in which people have brought back information that was later verified to be correct.

If you just extend that to our consciousness being a form of energy that continues to exist even after the body is dead, then the afterlife is not really a religious notion so much as a scientific one.

[MMA_scientist]

Are you wanting "color" to be a property of an object, a property of the light, or a concept that is formed in your mind? (or something else)

I don't want it to be anything. What I want to know is in any of those circumstances, is the thing actually objectively a color. Is the sky actually blue, or is it the rods and cones shortcut only? Is there an actual such thing as something that is blue, or is it only an animal perception? The more I think about it, I think I am asking you the visual version of if a tree falls in the forest and no one observes it does it make a sound... I don't think you can answer me.

[Ludo]

Okay, well here's a question. We know that, as humans, there are things that we cannot normally detect.

For instance, we can't see infrared light. And we can't hear sound that is at certain frequencies. Etc. . .

What do you think of the idea that beings that we deem supernatural--angels, for instance, or ghosts--are in fact creatures of the natural world that simply exist of a substance or material vibration that we can't normally detect and that only, occasionally, somehow break through to our awareness?

Given how little we understand about the world and about ourselves in the grand scope I don't rule it out as a possibility. Like anything else that hasn't been proven for a fact by science in the sense that it can't be recreated on a whim there are skeptics and believers and some who are inbetween and even some who are indifferent. It's kind of like what lies at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody knows what is and isn't down there because nobody can go down there to see for themselves. We have people who swear they have experienced things otherwise unexplainable if not by supernatural phenomena. Even by a strictly scientific outlook it's hard to exclude certain anomalies in nature, especially things like deja vu, creativity, and out of body experiences.

I am starting to open to the idea that there are many things in the world and others that we just do not percieve or comprehend, things that just have not entered our consciousness. We observe everything from a box. We talk about time and distance in such a limited way... we can verbalize things, but I really don't think we can grasp some things such as infinity and forever. It starts out when we are 5 and we aks how far does space go and then when we are 12 we ask what was there before the big bang... the answer is always, forever or there was nothing. I just don't think can grasp it and it starts early... 30 years later and I still can't grasp it.

Perception is hindered by relativity and therefore is the only absolute we know other than death. We can only perceive what is directly around us or through some form of proxy to a lesser extent what may be around someone else. We have to experience the world in a box because there is no other way to rationalize anything above a level of base instinct. The human condition demands that we must place things into categories, groups, clusters, anything to compare something to something else thats already familiar. The thought of being unable to explain something terrifies us and while some strive to prove the unproven others resign themselves to faith in the absence of proof. Forever is a foreign concept because nothing to us is permanent. Even children grasp the concept of death, and that while they may not understand why it happens, that it does indeed occur.

[Svino]

The more I think about it, I think I am asking you the visual version of if a tree falls in the forest and no one observes it does it make a sound... I don't think you can answer me.

Yeah I think so. It depends on what you want to define "color" to be. Analogous to the fact that the tree falling might depend on how you want to define "sound".