A simple question or two.

[foundaplanet]

Okay yes sometimes I look on the Daily Mail website and for that I admit I deserve to be shot...

Also I know I am at risk of getting hung drawn and quartered here.

http://www.dailymail...rink-death.html (it does mention quantum and science)

I do not want to bring up discussion about religion and related stuff so I hope we can leave that out please.

I do sometimes wonder in this age where science has helped us so much with the understanding of the bigger whole whether we are giving consciousness a bit of a cold shoulder as a backlash to all those oppressive years of believing we're being watched. Therefore, now entering an age where we feel we should run away from anything that may tend to lean towards there being any underlying weirdness going on.

Science is breaking things down to the smallest of things that help form structures and finding bigger and better ways of doing so. These higgs boson critters, they are minuscule and have been rather awkward to find. Along with bits of stuff that is here or could be there and may be everywhere and nowhere. We have probables and anything is possible.

I have read a bit of Dawkins, I understand the bits about us being nothing more than a bag of appropriately arranged atoms and how all those neuro transmitters work and why we have had a need to feel we must be something important, that it is all nothing more than a fortunate coincidence.

But, putting aside all the ego related stuff and the living forever bit. Taking the obvious pseudo scientists out of the equation. Is it really so ludicrous for science to consider that there may be something bigger lurking in the weeds...? For instance some kind of organic learning universe... Would that really, only be a way for fools to think? Whilst we are broadening our physical understanding is the mathematics behind everything leading us into narrow mindedness?

[JulianO]

Apparently if you do the sums, it seems we're much more likely to be living in a simulated universe run by some massive computer like thing than this life is to be real. Just on the balance of probabilities apparently.

Another thought is that there may be Darwinian selection of universes. E.g., if universes give rise to baby universes with slightly different properties to their parents, then the most likely universes to appear will be those that last long enough to spawn child universes. Hence natural selection of universes.

Some food for thought.

[Tiki]

Whilst we are broadening our physical understanding is the mathematics behind everything leading us into narrow mindedness?

It is in fact the other way round: in an attempt to comprehend the physical universe, mankind has had to resort to mathematics. This recourse pretty much built science and made the technological world possible.

eg. Newton-Gravity-Scientific method. Uncertainty principle-Quantum electrodynamics-transistors etc.

[Ags]

Mathematics is only a beautiful way to unambiguously describe a process. Just like every culture has developed language and dance, every culture has a mathematical system.

[ronin]

Professor Emeritus means retired.

But he hasn't retired as he still at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and the Director of the Centre of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.

Seems that Quantum Mechanics is no where as difficult as every physicist thinks, as anyone in Anesthesiology or Psychology knows more about it then Stephen Hawkin, Brian Cox and the rest of the physics world does. Wonder how much he knows about the field he is supposed to specialise in?

Suppose that even the Mail describe it a "Quasi".

[foundaplanet]

It is in fact the other way round: in an attempt to comprehend the physical universe, mankind has had to resort to mathematics. This recourse pretty much built science and made the technological world possible.

eg. Newton-Gravity-Scientific method. Uncertainty principle-Quantum electrodynamics-transistors etc.

Mathematics is only a beautiful way to unambiguously describe a process. Just like every culture has developed language and dance, every culture has a mathematical system.

Wholly agree with you both and would not argue that mathematics is beautiful and brilliant. I take maths of geometry quite seriously at times when building some pieces of furniture. Early man would not have been able to make basic tools without some understanding of mathematics, yes, it is an intrinsic part of human evolution and most definitely necessary.

I am not suggesting that the two chaps may be right. I just came across it whilst punching in my mums reward points and thought it may be interesting to see what the science minded thought with regards to that 'food for thought' stuff. If, current thinking has reduced all that is down to incidents and accidents, left with no doubt whatsoever that whilst incredible, intriguing and awe inspiring its only a whole load of coincidence. Insignificant.

[Qualia]

...thought it may be interesting to see what the science minded thought with regards to that 'food for thought' stuff. If, current thinking has reduced all that is down to incidents and accidents, left with no doubt whatsoever that whilst incredible, intriguing and awe inspiring its only a whole load of coincidence. Insignificant.

Indeed, it is a great OP and one worthy of pursuit. If person x is 'left with no doubt' on such concerns as you've raised, then either way, they're more than likely dogmatists or ideologues. Disregarding some kind of god-thesis, the validity or truth of such statements as: "no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically or logically" or "no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true" are themselves philosophically inconsistent, for it is quite clear they cannot themselves be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically .

Evidently, science or any other discipline for that matter, merits no exclusive monopoly over dealing in knowledge, experience and understanding, for humans do not operate within such narrowly self-defined terms. We, as a species, are capable of so much more as is evident from the ontological, epistemological, normative and aesthetic knowledge, experiences and understandings we have gained from the arts, the political, the economics, the ethical, psychological and philosophical, and so on.

Indeed, it is a rather impoverished world view and living experience if one confines themselves solely to what can be counted, measured and weighed, for such an impossible stance would surely banish forever such intersubjectivities like love and hate, triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom.

it really so ludicrous for science to consider that there may be something bigger lurking in the weeds...? For instance some kind of organic learning universe... Would that really, only be a way for fools to think?

To this I cannot answer, but I'd suggest that we must constantly be on guard of any kind of dogmatism which maintains that only a certain set of statements or disciplines have the absolute potential to be authoritative, certain and true.

The view that one does not know for absolute certainty is consistent with the idea that it makes sense to strive to know, and thus, if one entertains the thesis of say, an 'organic learning universe' (something perhaps analogical to Aquinas notion of 'intelligent design' - which itself is philosophically unstable), then herein is a worthy hypothesis to enquire into and investigate and should not be cut-off a priori by any other movement be this religious, scientific, political or what have you. Critical-thinking, must be protected from all such ideologies.

This ideal has nothing to do with not having strong opinions, merely the humility to appreciate one’s own and other people’s fallibility, that in any given case there is often a preponderance of evidence supporting the probability of one position other than another, but no more.

[sologuitarist61]

Are we beginning to see the universe in the same terms as James Lovelock originally saw his theory of Gaia I wonder?

[foundaplanet]

I only have a very loose understanding of Gaia but maybe along those kind of lines?

I do think that one day in our search for our understanding of the universe that physics biology and chemistry will all end up coming together in some form physchemology or something .

Our current trend towards understanding (this unified theory thing) is a little, everything's kinda dead really, what with Cox and Hawkins and Dawkins its all a bit bleak . Ultimately the universe will die, never to return, and consciousness, well that's just your time and a figment of your imagination. That's all fine but what about time and imagination.

Will it really be a case of simply crossing the t's and dotting the i's, writing another book about it for us all to believe in. We have gone and found the higgs, that's grand for the academics who function in unreachable realms of the average joe, but for a creative head it all seems a bit bland and obvious. Of course there is stuff that makes matter work because it is. Of course all the great scientists that have led us down this road are right that's why their great. And yes it is marvelous that we have proved it. Maybe I would just like to hear a new great scientists that gets the attention of all the others.

It's the part that goes, in the beginning and with the passing of time so shall it be in the end, with entropy and all that. It's like the same old song in a different language .

[Qualia]

Ultimately the universe will die, never to return...It's the part that goes, in the beginning and with the passing of time so shall it be in the end, with entropy and all that. It's like the same old song in a different language...

Just as a "ruddy human life now turned to a green shoot" could in poetic form claim that it did not die but was merely transformed, perhaps, in like manner, on that final moment - on our universe's rite towards death - it could laugh to itself and say, "do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die."

If you follow my meaning

[jnb]

Taking the obvious pseudo scientists out of the equation. Is it really so ludicrous for science to consider that there may be something bigger lurking in the weeds...?

Of course it wouldn't be ludicrous for science to consider that there might be "something bigger" but the fact that we can ask such questions and admit that we don't know everything is not a licence to make stuff up and that article falls largely into the making stuff up category.

[Guest]

I guess statistically, if you wait long enough something will happen! There was a branch of thought a few decades ago that the universe was just a statistical glitch (this was based on virtual particles and the fact that you can "borrow" energy for a very short period of time to create a particle and it's anti-particle from nothing and then let them annihilate each other hence restoring balance). The theory went that in an infiinite timescale the possibility of large numbers of virtual particles being created is greater than zero.

I've never really bought into that theory because for the universe to exist in its present state requires a net input of energy. So whether a "god" said let there be light, some weird entity pressed "run simulation" on his computer or whether the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing is all equally probable in the way that we cannot PROVE/DISPROVE any of the 3 theories. We can of course have opinions on the 3 theories but cannot absolutely prove them (for now at least)