I am the lord of the wind...

m4ster r0shi wrote:
You see, there is a level that data analysis can't be conducted, simply because analyzing the data also modifies it (observer-observed principle).

Disch wrote:
That only means that's a limitation we haven't learn to overcome yet.

I was mostly refering to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. In order to measure an electron's position you throw a photon at it. That then bounces off the electron and comes back to you. You measure the time taken for the photon to return and you calculate the distance from your photon source and the electron. The thing here is that part of the photon's energy is absorbed by the electron and changes it state.

I'd like to believe that we will overcome this limitation, but I really can't see how that would be possible. I mean, in order to "see" something you have to throw a photon (or something else) at it. I actually believe that modification of the observed is an inherent part of observing it. Don't be fooled by the fact that when you see the carpet of your room's floor, the carpet doesn't change. It does change. There are millions of photons thrown at it by a nearby light source and then some of these photons come to your eyes and you see it. Its macroscopic state doesn't change, but its microscopic state does, continuously.

m4ster r0shi wrote:
But, you see, the way of producing knowledge like this is reaching (has reached?) a limit

Disch wrote:
This isn't true at all. It is limited only by our existing knowledge, understanding, and technology. However all 3 of those are expandable to theoretically infinite limits.

Allow me to stick to my (and Brian Green's) opinion here. I'd like to also clarify something. The fact that technology is expandable to theoretically infinite limits (I do accept that) doesn't contradict the fact that the knowledge is finite. If we see knowledge as the different kinds of building blocks we can make things out of, and technology as the set of the things that can be manufactured from these building blocks, it is clear that the former can be finite and the latter infinite. It's like you have a vector space whose base consists of a finite number of vectors. Still the vector space itself (the set of all vectors produced from that base) is infinite.

EDIT: A more illustrative example: The keywords and the syntactic rules of c++ programming are finite, but the different programs you can write are infinite.

The guy from the book I read doesn't either agree that you can exhaust the things you can make out of atoms:

Who is to say of all the potentials that exist, do you know that you cannot exhaust the ideas, the things that can be manufactured from atoms? You cannot even exhaust the probabilities of potentials that they can become. And all they are is coagulated ideas in the form of energy. You cannot exhaust it. You cannot think long enough in a lifetime to make them become everything that they have the potential of becoming.

Disch wrote:
But it sounds a little to me like you're contradicting your own statement with this. I mean you basically just said "We are at the end of what we can learn", but then you go on to give a list of active WIP fields of theoretical science... basically illustrating all the new ways we're learning.

No, no, I'm afraid you got me wrong here. What I said is that we are running out of experimental data. The examples I gave are attempts to unify all that experimental data to a single, consistent theoretical model. One is completely different than the other.

m4ster r0shi wrote:
I don't believe it will happen, I know it will happen.

Ok, I admit I chose my words this way to emphasize. So, yes, knowing actually means strongly believing. But there's a reason I choose to say it like this. It has to do with preparing oneself for the worst case scenario. Let's just forget this here for a while (we'll come back soon) and take a look at something else. I have this question to which I do not know the answer: "Do my thoughts affect the reality I experience?" So, what is the worst case scenario here? "Yes" or "No"? It is "Yes", because then, you have to take care of your thinking process, because whatsoever you think, you create. So, even if I don't know what the answer is, I choose to believe, no, I choose to know that it is the one that corresponds to the worst case scenario.

In fact, that's what the guy in the book says:

I had my moment and you will have yours. And in that moment we are suddenly separated from our ignorance and uplifted into a mist of freedom. It is called knowingness. The moment that you know that your focused thought affects life, when you really know that is the moment that you will start to take care to discipline your thinking, because if this runs away with you it will destroy you. [...] So if you have created everything in your life, people, you are responsible for everything you have done for yourself.You are responsible for your successes and your failures, and it was you who determined they were successes or failures. If you were the person responsible for your happiness or your depression, it was you who chose to feel those ways, and it was as simple as that and always has been.

So, back to the life review thing. It would be very good if you could murder and rape and get away with it wouldn't it? Well, you won't get away with it... You'll see it in your next life review. Again, I choose to believe this because of the above mentioned preparation for the worst case scenario principle.

@helios:

If I was a prime number, I would be the biggest prime number of all. But there are infinitely many prime numbers and there's no one that is bigger than anyone other. So, I could never be a prime number :D

@Kyon:

m4ster r0shi wrote:
This life is a school. And in a school there are no losers, there are only quitters. And I don't plan to be one.

Kyon wrote:
If there's only quitters. How come you are not one? 'nuff said.

You have completely misunderstood what I said. I mean that the only way to lose in this school is to quit. If you don't quit, there's no way to lose. I wonder what you'll choose to do...

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"Do my thoughts affect the reality I experience?"

Phrased this way, the answer is obviously "yes". Experience is highly subjective and can vary even for the same person.

So, even if I don't know what the answer is, I choose to believe, no, I choose to know that it is the one that corresponds to the worst case scenario.

Pascal's wager would work if you had to choose between religion and areligion, but that's not the case. Some religions are mutually exclusive, so you can't make a sound decision with the wager. If anything, the rational answer would be to die as soon as possible in order to piss off whichever deity exists, if one exists at all and can get pissed at you, the least.

Now, Disch, excuse for replying in your place. But I can't stand this tangent anymore.

The fact that technology is expandable to theoretically infinite limits (I do accept that) doesn't contradict the fact that the knowledge is finite. If we see knowledge as the different kinds of building blocks we can make things out of, and technology as the set of the things that can be manufactured from these building blocks, it is clear that the former can be finite and the latter infinite. It's like you have a vector space whose base consists of a finite number of vectors. Still the vector space itself (the set of all vectors produced from that base) is infinite.

Disch never said anything about knowledge and whether it's infinite. He said

getting people to better themselves and society through practical and achievable means

How does the supposed fact that the production of knowledge is limited deter you from applying the one you already have?

I assume that when you say practical and achievable means you mean by application of practical knowledge gathered from the observation->hypothesis->experiment->result->theory process. Disch, I am all for this. [...] But, you see, the way of producing knowledge like this is reaching (has reached?) a limit.
[Then the rest is nothing but tangential.]

helios wrote:
How does the supposed fact that the production of knowledge is limited deter you from applying the one you already have?

It doesn't. Where did I say it does? And where did I say that I don't agree that knowledge should be applied to make people's lives better? Now, let me turn that around.

m4ster r0shi wrote:
Furthermore, as Seraphimsan said, there is no way to prove or disprove any spiritual religion. So I really don't see anything wrong in studying physics and trying to ascend at the same time.

EDIT: Ok, I think I understand what you mean. I didn't use this:

But, you see, the way of producing knowledge like this is reaching (has reached?) a limit.

as an argument against what Disch said. I used this (and the following paragraph) as an argument to support what Seraphimsan said.

EDIT 2:

helios wrote:
If anything, the rational answer would be to die as soon as possible in order to piss off whichever deity exists, if one exists at all and can get pissed at you, the least.

Well... then excuse me for valuing the other people living on this planet more than the gods.

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Where did I say it does?
It's implied by the "but".

Disch, I am all for this. [...] But, you see, the way of producing knowledge [...]

It helps if you make it clear who you're talking to.

I was going to edit my previous post, but you've replied already.

The problem is that you can't apply a rational reasoning to decide between irrational options. The wager would make sense if you were deciding between provable outcomes. For example "if I stay where I am, the falling air conditioner will kill me, but if I step off the sidewalk, a car may run me over and kill me, therefore I will step off the sidewalk", which is entirely different from the reasoning "if I stay where I am, a flood may kill me, but if I go to higher ground, an avalanche may kill me; a comet may kill me anywhere. Also, zombies. Therefore, I can't decide what to do". Sure, you can't prove that the legions of the undead won't try to feast on your brains some time in the future, but you also have no reason to think that will happen, to begin with.

PS: You're all invited to my bunker provided that you bring your own shotgun shells and can answer a simple math question.

EDIT:

Well... then excuse me for valuing the other people living on this planet more than the gods.

Well, now your logic is inconsistent. Christianism would ague that yes, God is more important. What if it's right?

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m4ster r0shi wrote:
Well... then excuse me for valuing the other people living on this planet more than the gods.

You mentioned earlier:

Everything you cast into the river comes back to you. Tenfold. So, ultimately, the only reason I am being polite here is to protect me from myself in my next life review.

These two affirmatives can't both be true. It's either one xor the other.

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helios wrote:
Well, now your logic is inconsistent. Christianism would ague that yes, God is more important. What if it's right?

Why? If Christianism is right then I believe I'm also covered for this case. If I make sure that I don't kill people and rather help them in order to have a good life review, then if life review does indeed happen I'll have a good life review. And if instead I come face to face with Jesus Christ then he'll give me a ticket to heaven for the flawless life I lived. I believe that the hope for afterlife (I mean, the fact that you never cease to exist in some self-conscious form) and the 'prepare for the worst case scenario' principle dictate that the best thing you can do is lead a life enjoying it as much as you can, provided you also respect those around you.

helios wrote:
You're all invited to my bunker provided that you bring your own shotgun shells

Count me in.

helios wrote:
and can answer a simple math question.

Is this so that you can tell us from the zombies? :D

EDIT:

filipe wrote:
These two affirmatives can't both be true. It's either one xor the other.

That's not true. They both have as a basis respect to other people. The first one (in the order you've written them) is obvious. The second, implies that there exists a mechanism that punishes you for doing harm to other people, and also rewards you for doing good to them (it actually multiplies what you do to them and turns that back to you).

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They both have as a basis respect to other people.

I disagree. Remember, you said:

So, ultimately, the only reason I am being polite here is to protect me from myself in my next life review.

Given that, one can consider that everything else are means to a achieve a goal. From that perspective, it doesn't sound like respecting others is important because it's the right thing to do, but because there are advantages to be gained. Which is not valuing other people, in my opinion of course.

Oh, yeah, it might have sounded like that. I used the word 'only' in order to emphasize that I don't do it for the two previous reasons I mentioned:

I don't do it because I want other people to say that I am polite. I don't do it because I'm afraid that if I don't I will be banned from this forum.

EDIT: Now that I think about it again, it might have been a bad idea... Let me go scratch that...

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I see, and I'm glad you don't think like that :)

If Christianism is right then I believe I'm also covered for this case. If I make sure that I don't kill people

Ahaha, it's not so easy. Certain interpretations can land you in Hell for just not being baptized or missing one day of mass. And being baptized probably lands you in Muslim Hell (although I'm not really sure at the moment).
And we're assuming there's at least one religion that got it right. If the truth is something else entirely (e.g. everyone who's never gone to a specific island in the South Pacific, sung any song by Jonathan Coulton while standing on one leg, then went back home, gets to burn. No exceptions), you're probably screwed.

I believe that the hope for afterlife [...] and the 'prepare for the worst case scenario' principle dictate that the best thing you can do is lead a life enjoying it as much as you can, provided you also respect those around you.

No. That's what you believe is the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that each and every one the choices in front of you are utterly wrong, and that the right answer was something you hadn't even considered. Which one is the "least wrong"? Well, you can't know that because you don't know the constraints that define what the right answer is.
I said earlier that the rational solution is to die as soon as possible, but a god that punishes you for early death isn't unthinkable, so there's literally nothing you can do (including nothing at all) that doesn't have a chance of angering a smiter, so why bother with anything in particular?

My point is that you shouldn't rationalize what you do. It's not rational because you're not working with any information you've acquired through rational means, just your gut feeling and your idea of "moral". You do it because you want to, and that's all there is to it. Saying otherwise is just hypocrisy.

Ah, I have a lot to say on this, but I'm going to sleep now. I'll do it later.

Kyon (912)

+1 Helios.

Ok, I'm back. [song (^_^) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccsuXKdyeuo ]

helios wrote:
Ahaha, it's not so easy. Certain interpretations can land you in Hell for just not being baptized or missing one day of mass. [...]

I can't imagine a god that would send you to hell just for not being baptized. Most things in ancient religious texts were written from people who sought to use fear to enslave other people. A more interesting model would be that you get positive points for some actions and negative points for some others. e.g. you get -50 points for not being baptized but if, let's say, you help a classmate study for a really difficult lesson you get +100 points. I can also imagine actions that grant you instant access to heaven, e.g. protecting a man from being shot by taking the bullet yourself instead (+oo points). On the other hand, I can imagine actions that instantly condemn you, e.g. slaying someone without reason (-oo points). But what if you do something that gives you -oo points and something that gives you +oo points? The life review model doesn't have this problem, you just get to feel what you made other people feel and that's that. Afterwards, you get to move on, or come back here if you feel like you want to do better.

Student: Is it true that I chose to come back into a body?
******: Who else would choose for you?
Student: Then can you tell me why I chose this time and this place to come back to?
******: To experience life in this time and this place.
Student: But was there some special purpose that I came here to accomplish and that's why I chose to come back here?
******: The special purpose, master, is the privilege of experiencing life.
Student: So it can be anything?
******: It can be anything. But it is no specific thing. You came back here simply to experience life. You chose you, and why not you? You chose this time, and why not? This is a wonderful time. Life is in bloom now. You are in bloom now. [...] Your purpose, master, is simply to live. Whatever you do thereafter will be an extension of your beauty and a contribution to the overall expansion of life. When you realize that living is the most important thing, that that is how you gain your points, as it were, and that you are here because you desire to be here - you want to be here, that you of your own being found it a pleasurable place to return to - then everything else will be understood. [...] If you truly did not want to be here, you would not have come back. The life force within your being is here to experience this life in order to learn and gain happiness from it. Do you think that you are a higher entity who came here only to find this a miserable place to be? A higher entity finds happiness wherever he is.

helios wrote:
No. That's what you believe is the worst case scenario. [...]

helios wrote:
My point is [...]

I understand. I've been looking at this for a while and I ended up in the conclusion that there really isn't something we should be arguing about here. In trying to answer the question "what's the worst case scenario?" you choose to give an objective answer, maybe because you are rather pessimistic, while I choose to give an answer somewhat in favor of humanity, because I am rather optimistic. So, this difference in stance is what produces the difference in the answers. I do respect your stance, as I expect you to respect my stance, therefore I do respect your choice to give this answer, as I expect you to respect my choice to give that answer.

However, allow me to believe that I have an example that demonstrates what hypocrisy is better than what you say here.

You know, master, in this very moment you can cease time completely and live in the foreverness of this Now, if you so choose, for is time not an illusion? Who has seen it? A great hypocrisy exists here because you refuse to believe in the unseen, yet you wholly worship and are enslaved to time. You have the power right within you, right where you are, to reverse the age of your embodiment back into youth and to live on and on and on. How? Simply through your attitude. If you do not want the body to age and die, change your attitude. Let your attitude say that the body will live forever, and so it will.

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A more interesting model would be that you get positive points for some actions and negative points for some others.

while I choose to give an answer somewhat in favor of humanity, because I am rather optimistic.

I always thought mathematicians were taught to avoid wishful thinking. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
But seriously, though. I'm baffled how someone who's received any kind of training in logic can think like this. It boggles the mind.

I do respect your stance, as I expect you to respect my stance

Honestly, I've never understood what people mean when they say "respect X", X being some position or opinion someone holds, and I suspect the people who say it don't know, either. The only way I can think of of disrespecting an opinion is taking whoever holds it and brainwashing them into holding a different opinion, but I don't think that's what they mean.

is time not an illusion? Who has seen it? A great hypocrisy exists here because you refuse to believe in the unseen, yet you wholly worship and are enslaved to time.

Well, who has ever seen space? And thought? Have you even seen a thought? Or a number?
You can't perceive time (circadian rhythms notwithstanding), but you can arrive rationally to the conclusion that it exists in some form. Motion is defined as the change of position of an object relative to another (we'll ignore for now that it occurs in time to avoid circular reasoning). Without time, there can be no motion, since bilocation is impossible. Since motion appears to exist, we can conclude that there must be a fourth dimension though which space moves. Now, unless you want to get into an ontological debate with someone else (because I'm not going to), I think this is a pretty solid proof of the existence of time.
I won't comment on the rest of the quote or I might get an aneurysm.

Kyon (912)

Seen time, no. Time is not an illusion, still. Time is a conceptual unity, to be used in Physics formulas. It's been defined as seconds. Now, please define god for me.

Kyon wrote:
Now, please define god for me.

God is you. God is me. God is helios.

What is this religious figure called God, that infinite mystery that man has desperately searched to find for eons? It is thought and its ability to receive itself and, by receiving itself, to become and expand itself. That is all God is: the totality of thought, the eminence of life. And right within your own being you have the power to become God completely — completely — for if the full spectrum of your brain were in use, you would be this moment to the ends of forever; you would know all that is known; you would be the hue of the sun, the depths of the sea, the power of the wind, and the star upon the horizon.

What keeps you from knowing and becoming the totality of God? Altered ego, because altered ego cuts God off by refusing to accept all the thought frequencies that God is so it can live safe and secure, out of harm’s way. That is why the altered ego is indeed what is termed the Antichrist, because it denies that you are the son of God. It does not allow you to accept the thought and to realize that you and the Father are one and the same, that you are the divine and immortal principle that has the power to create forever and the power to create death.

The Antichrist is the altered ego and its kingdom is social consciousness. It is that which does not allow unlimited thought; and its dogma is fear, judgment, and survival. The Christ is man wholly expressing the power, the beauty, the love, and unlimited life of the Father that lives within him. It is man realizing that he is divine and becoming that realization, transcending dogma, prophesy, and fear, for he knows that beyond social consciousness lies the unlimited vigor called God.

I tell you, you have the ability to know everything there is to know. And you also possess the ability to manifest everything you ever want. You also possess the ability to live forever in your body, if that is your desire. But to all these things, the altered ego says, “Nay.” So for that you will know who man is, but God will always remain a mystery.

Kyon (912)

The only thing that continues to stir me is that time has been proven to exist or so much to show that we are right in calculating and interpreting with it in our studies over time (mind the pun). God is a concept, since it's an abstract entity that we know not off, that has whatsoever still not been defined in my eyes; you state that we are god, yet tell that altered ego (or common sense, as I like to refer to it as) cuts this off at the same time, therefor we would not understand what we are, yet we DO know who or what a man is. We also have the ability to know all, yet not what God is. You are contradicting your contradiction here.

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@m4ster r0shi: these aren't logically valid arguments. It's just wishful thinking. For instance:

What keeps you from knowing and becoming the totality of God? Altered ego, because altered ego cuts God off by refusing to accept all the thought frequencies that God is so it can live safe and secure, out of harm’s way.

Do you see any rational, logically correct arguments backing up this claim? All I see is "it is so because I say so".

helios wrote:
I'm baffled how someone who's received any kind of training in logic can think like this. It boggles the mind.

I feel the same way. I always assumed someone used to logic would be rather immune to this kind of thing.