Galu,
Yes, I feel when out alone that my surroundings are patiently waiting to appear inside my mind to tell me things that need to be known. I no longer feel the need to look for pictures. A picture will wait for me to appear, I halt at the moment of mutual recognition, step inside, and all is revealed. It has taken a lifetime to circumnavigate my own ego, and it is exhilarating.
tapestryofsound
String Theory is a mathematical construct which can never be tested in actual experiments.
My uncle has a PhD in Mathematics which he put to good use working for ESA. He always told me that he can proof practically anything with Maths and it is generally meaningless if not backed up by experiment. Consequently I am somewhat sceptical when it comes to string theory.
I feel this thread is more about philosophy than "cold facts".
Let's have some room for vivid imagination.
If there is such a thing as a soul, it needs nurturing.
ToS
Shouldn't philosophy be based on all the 'cold facts' available?
If it isn't isn't it just wishful thinking?
You are saying that it does not conform to scientific method yet so many Physics Professors are seriously working on it. Perhaps science is still expanding into new horizon we have no clear measurement whatsoever like consciousness and reality.
Never say Never
Einstein predicted many things with the use of Mathematics, GR predicted Space Time, how space bends around large objects. It took about 100 years to prove this theory correct.
It's certainly a refinment of the original question to argue that but same mechanism to claim that about mathematic. It is just a tool we were able to made and that works at our own scale. It could be possible it is just true for us without being the reality, or just our reality.
Thinking things are made for our own scale is an aberation while usefull to live and make things in the environment & scale we can interact with.
We are even not sure what is life, so life and consciousness as a product of it has no importance and surely not the parangon of all things cause here we are in the judgment which is a human abstraction. The questions themselves are a product as already said of our substract as all the tools we apply on it, call it science, math, feeling, beliefs... they are for sure limited by the way we percieve and interact in our environment. So if there was a question (limited by our scale and what we are) it could be not why life exists, but why is there a reality, why there is something instead nothing. Asking oneself why life poped up with the possibility to ask about it is a further result of the first thing.
There are few doubts this question is limited by what we are : limits of our brain and perception so by how we can interact with the reality we are able to percieve.
As I see it, it's reasonable to think that consciousness comes indeed from a life mechanism. In our scale it could reasonable to think that consciousness is an expression of our ontology. This ontology which is a try to describe us seems to look like that : we are able to conceptualize our environment and have a greater hability to question it than to understand it : one could call it consciousness. For what it is made ? Return to this definition and accept the limit but sure our ontology want an answer, halas again we are more efficient to question than answer. There is something very mammal here, have you ever seen your dog watching at you as if it was asking itself something ?
Questioning and answering could be just our ontology as a species but not a proper way "to know" as something universal. Water wet, but this is just true at our scale. Go figure, maybe asking one self what if there is something or nothing is just a result of the way we operate: asking to find answer that stop that process untill next question...
I would be very curious about how "information theory" has to tell about "consciousness".
Btw sorry for the long post, I lake of intellectual tools to work on the original question but it's cool to exchange about that.
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I think we are somewhat in agreement here. Allow me to shape my words and thoughts better.
We do not have direct access to the thing-in-itself. I do not deny nor did I want to imply that there there is no distinction between classes of objects.
Let me start by saying that we know very little about our consciousness. We are not objective and passive observers of reality, like camera let's say, let's consider a camera as a tool that we use to observe the things-in-themselves.
Everything that we observe goes through the apparatus of consciousness that has values and ultimately interprets those, the things that gives us knowledge. The object we get from consciousness is a mental representation-appearance. There is a disconnect between us and things in themselves. Furthermore there is even a disconnect between words and appearances.
Things in themselves are inferred as we have no direct way to verify them.
The gap between things in themselves and us is bridged with appearances, and the gap between appearances and other people is bridged with language.
Somebody in this thread quoted Einstein(pay attention to Einsteins wording)
What is more real? To a person suffering, nothing is more real than that suffering.
That is very interesting, are you perhaps interested in Hindu philosophy?
We have evolved (or been created) to SURVIVE this world NOT to study it.The human brain therefore sees patterns and cause and effect when there is none.Our brains take the most basic input and attempt to draw a conclusion and therefore a reality.Before the development of scientific method and instruments we had nothing but 5 poor senses and imagination.Thats why ideas concieved thousands of years ago in my view have historical relevence only.
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