Just your overall opinion; whatever crosses your mind, nothing specific and everything enigmatic.
It is similar to mine; Eye in the Sky. ...Egyptian scientists of the past, present and future. ...One of the keys to our universe's comprehension (studies).
When it comes to generating testable predictions about specific aspects of the natural world, I'll take Feynman over Latour as well. No problem there. Addressing those kinds of specific, localized questions is exactly what the special sciences (e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, and so on) do best. When it comes to other kinds of questions, however, such as those relating to metaphysics, logic, ethics, mind, and so on, I'll take Whitehead or Peirce over Feynman or Einstein any day.
As for remaining silent about those things about which we cannot speak, Wittgenstein's claim must be taken in its proper context as well (which the person who quoted it failed to do). Wittgenstein's claim arises from and applies only within the very narrow 'picture' oriented model of thought and meaning that he outlined in the Tractatus, a model of thought that Wittgenstein himself later rejected (or expanded upon, depending upon your take) as overly narrow and inadequate. Of course there are lots of utterances that don't seem to make a lot of sense in most contexts (e.g. "It's true that I have a square circle in my hand."), but that's not the kind of thing to which Witgenstein's claim refers. "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" refers to the limits of thought in general, not the particular limits of any specific person's ability to understand.So while some my have a hard time understanding modern conceptions of space (and I include myself among them), there are also some mathematicians and theoretical physicists who are able to think about the kinds of complex equations involved in such conceptions. It follows that we should not remain silent in our attempt to understand such things.
As I noted before, I personally think that we as a society have an obligation to try and make sense of these kinds of issues in everyday terms, as part of a general public discourse. Failure to do this puts the scientist in the traditional, authoritarian role of Priest or Philosopher King, who has a kind of privileged access to a secret knowledge that others cannot hope to understand. Science is very important, but it is simply part of a more general effort to understand the world and our place within it. All too often we see people appealing to claims like Wittgenstein's (or variations on it) as a way of trying to silence those who cannot speak the secret language. This kind of attitude is dangerous and should be called out far more often than it is. It is here that Latour is to be applauded, for he recognizes the importance of restoring the proper place of the sciences within our overall attempt both to understand the world and to try and determine how it is we should try and live within it.
I'm from that similar line of thinking.
Everything unimportant to discuss or not to be talked at all about is relative to our desire's degree to discover.
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No, you got that right.
The experience is also the thirst of discovery of the unknown. ...Without the unknown there is nothing left to know.
And often when we thought that we knew that's when we realize that we were still blinded by our preconceived knowledge.
...Time to re-calibrate our space. ...Multidimensional universe.
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Nicotine
Nicotine mimics acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter associated with learning and smart-ness. 🙂
A doctor once told me something about K receptors as well which I didn't quite catch and haven't looked up.
I have seen a study a really long time ago that nicotine users had slightly higher grades than non-nicotine users in school.
The political climate has been a war on cigarettes for a while now, so any studies on nicotine's link to cleverness or alertness of any kind are simply not acceptable.
There are a lot of topics in modern society which are not acceptable to research.
It's accepted that athletes don't smoke cigarettes since breathing in heavy smoke all day is very harmful to the lungs.
Snus / snuff / chewing tobacco is used by athletes though, which has a higher amount of nicotine than cigarettes. It's popular in Scandinavia and the U.S. I don't think there are any proven adverse effects on health thus far, it's only very addictive.
Controversially, it's been found that even the ancient Egyptians used nicotine!
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Personally, I think low-nicotine snuff (reduced to the amount of cigarettes or lower) subsidized by the government would be a good solution to make everyone quit cigarettes and vastly improve lung health.
It's very easy to move from cigarettes to snuff.
Nicotine mimics acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter associated with learning and smart-ness. 🙂
A doctor once told me something about K receptors as well which I didn't quite catch and haven't looked up.
I have seen a study a really long time ago that nicotine users had slightly higher grades than non-nicotine users in school.
The political climate has been a war on cigarettes for a while now, so any studies on nicotine's link to cleverness or alertness of any kind are simply not acceptable.
There are a lot of topics in modern society which are not acceptable to research.
It's accepted that athletes don't smoke cigarettes since breathing in heavy smoke all day is very harmful to the lungs.
Snus / snuff / chewing tobacco is used by athletes though, which has a higher amount of nicotine than cigarettes. It's popular in Scandinavia and the U.S. I don't think there are any proven adverse effects on health thus far, it's only very addictive.
Controversially, it's been found that even the ancient Egyptians used nicotine!
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Personally, I think low-nicotine snuff (reduced to the amount of cigarettes or lower) subsidized by the government would be a good solution to make everyone quit cigarettes and vastly improve lung health.
It's very easy to move from cigarettes to snuff.
Your familiarity with the literature on this is fully as complete as your familiarity with cosmology.
Is there really a universe, or your senses and you, create the condition for things to be? I think its a really relevent question.
Physic quantic kinda shows that what you take as solid is pretty wavey with the particle experiement. and that the time/ space continuum isnt really linear as well. and that, when you observe, you change what you observe, creating and changing what you observe thrue your senses.
The implication of what exactl physic quantic means are not enough put forward.
Within the context of my earlier post, due to self-imposed censorship (based on the arguments mentioned in an earlier post, inserted underneath), the unknown would not be investigated, because the first notion "he, it's something I don't know" would cut-off the investigative process.
quote Philosophil:
Quote:
Originally Posted by nezbleu
This is why, when I studied philosophy in university, I avoided metaphysics: it seeks to offer insight into the nature of reality and the universe without ever referring to what we actually know about the observable universe (aka reality). As Wittgenstein said, "That of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence.". If metaphysics makes untestable assertions then it is as significant as the sound of one hand clapping.
And what exactly is it of which we cannot speak?
I find it ironic that you condemn non-scientists who try to reflect upon these kinds of questions while at the same time condemning Metaphysics, a field of study which you yourself confess to having avoided. I've encountered this kind of knee-jerk, dogmatic condemnation of metaphysics (and philosophy) more often that I care to recall and have found that, more often than not, it comes from people who have very little experience in or knowledge of the field.
What I find even more ironic is that all people, including scientists, actually have a working metaphysics that underlies and constitutes their general world view which they uncritically accept as 'true' (e.g. assumptions and presuppositions regarding the nature of existence, the gradations of being, the role of space and time within the order of being, the ontological status of the possible, the ontological status of mind, and so on). The problem is that they are often so deeply immersed within their own 'normalized' metaphysics that they don't even recognize that it's there.
How do we know what we know? ...Because at the very beginning we didn't know much at all.
Through time and experimentation. Then by building our own universe from tools we fabricated, beliefs we believed, manuscripts we read from ancient history, simply by asking questions and looking for answers to them.
Do we take the time to understand the universe? I mean how many light years did we spent analyzing 'a universe' without looking at ourselves first?
Every action, reaction, interaction, is a chain of events in time and space, and us as a human race we have as much to do with it as the universe we are part of.
Everything is related. Everything has an importance. Everyone, every human being, every living plant, everything that is healthy for our planet and mankind should be nurtured as our ultimate goal in the universe of all other universes. We are part of a system that is so huge and small at the same time that every small detail counts.
We are living force of a constant chain reaction in infinite expansion. And beyond it are other worlds we are creating by our actions. ...All within an infinity of universes.
That's my theory.
Through time and experimentation. Then by building our own universe from tools we fabricated, beliefs we believed, manuscripts we read from ancient history, simply by asking questions and looking for answers to them.
Do we take the time to understand the universe? I mean how many light years did we spent analyzing 'a universe' without looking at ourselves first?
Every action, reaction, interaction, is a chain of events in time and space, and us as a human race we have as much to do with it as the universe we are part of.
Everything is related. Everything has an importance. Everyone, every human being, every living plant, everything that is healthy for our planet and mankind should be nurtured as our ultimate goal in the universe of all other universes. We are part of a system that is so huge and small at the same time that every small detail counts.
We are living force of a constant chain reaction in infinite expansion. And beyond it are other worlds we are creating by our actions. ...All within an infinity of universes.
That's my theory.
I do not believe that the observed data support your hypothesis. The nature of the cosmic background microwave radiation is all wrong to be the result of distributed radioactive material, and this has nothing to do with "assumptions". To suggest that the big bang theory came about the same way you "developed" your hypothesis is disingenuous. This is a classic case of "the democracy of ideas", which suggests that all hypotheses are "equal", even if one is backed by rigorous research and scientific consensus, and another is just wrong.
Sorry, I'm not very familiar with the literature on nicotine / snus / snuff and cosmology, you're right, I just read pieces here and there.
When I was visiting in the U.S., I saw large varieties of it, in perhaps every single gas station I visited, I simply assumed it's semi-popular in your country, but I could be in error.
Perhaps I should discuss Nicotine in a different thread. Sorry for the off topic.
I think you know very well what I (and Wittgenstein) meant. Specifically that most of metaphysics consists of nonsensical discourse, what Carnap called "metaphysical pseudosentences".
I have never condemned philosophy, indeed I spent four pleasant years studying it, and many more reading for pleasure. I also spent some time in university studying math and science.
Well then, if scientists get to have metaphysics without reading Heidegger, I suppose nonscientists are entitled to their own science without studying math or physics!
When it comes to generating testable predictions about specific aspects of the natural world, I'll take Feynman over Latour as well. No problem there. Addressing those kinds of specific, localized questions is exactly what the special sciences (e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, and so on) do best. When it comes to other kinds of questions, however, such as those relating to metaphysics, logic, ethics, mind, and so on, I'll take Whitehead or Peirce over Feynman or Einstein any day.
As long as we're name-dropping, I'll take Russell, GE Moore, and AJ Ayer over Whitehead and Peirce. 😀
Good heavens! When I quoted Wittgenstein on metaphysics it was not an attempt to silence discussion about science, more an attempt to gently steer the discussion away from meaningless, unverifiable speculation not grounded in observable reality. In fact I strongly encourage people to talk about science, real science, and learn a bit about it. What I find absolutely painful is how many here are quick to dismiss real science and scientists, and announce that their own uninformed navel-gazing gets closer to Truth than hundreds of years of rigorous work.
If I had to describe what I thought what time looked like as a visual analog, it would be a tube of fabric with the ends sewn together.
You can make a scale model yourself, simply cut your right sleeve off and partially roll it inside out so that you sew the cuff to the shoulder part.
All kinds of neat things can be done with this model.
Particles of different masses all originate from the point inside the tube.
The heaviest theoretical or "fastest" objects will stand still time wise, being stuck in an infinite orbit around the interior perimeter of your sleeve.
This is why nothing can go through the speed of light, yet can be faster "time" wise, because "Lighter" particles can escape the inner-tube and spiral orbit around the outside eventually making it's way back to it's origin. These are the "faster then light" particles, aka Tachyons.
They are "lighter(mass) then light(photons)"
I am using "Tachyon" as a term to describe a nature of a particle, rather then a specific type of particle.
With this model you have what appears to be an origin of something, which can also be the ending of something, depending on how you are looking at it.
The spiral path of these particles through time could be viewed as waves with a frequency, if you were looking at it from the side cross section.
You can make a scale model yourself, simply cut your right sleeve off and partially roll it inside out so that you sew the cuff to the shoulder part.
All kinds of neat things can be done with this model.
Particles of different masses all originate from the point inside the tube.
The heaviest theoretical or "fastest" objects will stand still time wise, being stuck in an infinite orbit around the interior perimeter of your sleeve.
This is why nothing can go through the speed of light, yet can be faster "time" wise, because "Lighter" particles can escape the inner-tube and spiral orbit around the outside eventually making it's way back to it's origin. These are the "faster then light" particles, aka Tachyons.
They are "lighter(mass) then light(photons)"
I am using "Tachyon" as a term to describe a nature of a particle, rather then a specific type of particle.
With this model you have what appears to be an origin of something, which can also be the ending of something, depending on how you are looking at it.
The spiral path of these particles through time could be viewed as waves with a frequency, if you were looking at it from the side cross section.
Alright then, I accept chewing tobacco has ruined the life of many baseball players and I wish them all the best.
Statistics say the male population in Sweden has the lowest rate of lung cancer in the world, so I assume there is a healthy side to it as well.
Regrettably, tobacco usage in any form (Cigarettes, Cigars, Pipe, Dip, Snuff, chewing tobacco...) is carcinogenic.
inhalation results in either lung cancer, throat cancer, and ultimately respiratory distress.
Oral usage results in absorption through the mucous membrane bringing not only nicotine, but a hoast of known (and unknown) carcinogens. Net results is mouth cancer, degeneration of the gums, and throat cancer.
My granddaughter dips snuff. I've tried for years to get her to quit but sadly I have had no impact on her habit.
Many teenagers (in the south at least) dip and think it won't cause problems. Truly a sad situation.
I understand how difficult it is to quit, as I smoked for many years (over two packs a day at one time).
Sorry for the OT.
inhalation results in either lung cancer, throat cancer, and ultimately respiratory distress.
Oral usage results in absorption through the mucous membrane bringing not only nicotine, but a hoast of known (and unknown) carcinogens. Net results is mouth cancer, degeneration of the gums, and throat cancer.
My granddaughter dips snuff. I've tried for years to get her to quit but sadly I have had no impact on her habit.
Many teenagers (in the south at least) dip and think it won't cause problems. Truly a sad situation.
I understand how difficult it is to quit, as I smoked for many years (over two packs a day at one time).
Sorry for the OT.
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