Does anyone else think this article is complete baloney

[ougnala]

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

 

[diazona]

Yes. Unfortunately typical, though.

 

[philnow]

"The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves."

Do our ego's need a check or what?

 

[HallsofIvy]

Actually, it seems to me an appeal to "Platonic Realism"- that is, our concept of the universe is as much dependent upon how we perceive the universe as upon the "real" universe itself. So my interpretation of this is that when they say "life creates the universe" they are simply saying that "life", i.e. us and the spider mentioned in the beginning of the article, create the universe we perceive.

Not "complete baloney" in that sense. (I was tempted to say "there is salami, also"!)

 

[protonchain]

"The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves."

Do our ego's need a check or what?

I read that quote and I was thinking they were all doped up on weed or something.

"Duuuude the universe is like sooo inside of all of us maaan".

"Like totally duuude. Pass the bongg man"

 

[Pshock92]

I can understand the point they are trying to make: we see the universe as our bodies are meant to. There could be total other things around us, but our eyes are incapable of seeing them.
It's like, whose to say that an apple is red? Would red still exist if we all suddenly went blind? Or, are we seeing the apple incorrectly? Maybe the apple is really blue, but our eyes see it as red.

That article is 100% philosophy.

 

[Math Is Hard]

That article is 100% philosophy.

I agree. I'm moving this to the Philosophy forum.

 

[WaveJumper]

They could have used other arguments - that reality is made up of mathematical point 'particles' with no apparent physical size. Or that the universe's size through the 'eyes' of a photon would be zero. Or that the singularity that gave birth to our universe, according to our present understanding, is not expanding into anything but into itself(don't try to imagine this, you can't). But if they are going to make such an argument, how is "we create reality" better than "our universe might be a simulation", given the fact that the very universe we perceive, appears to have existed long before humans showed up?

 

[philnow]

I can understand the point they are trying to make: we see the universe as our bodies are meant to. There could be total other things around us, but our eyes are incapable of seeing them.
It's like, whose to say that an apple is red? Would red still exist if we all suddenly went blind? Or, are we seeing the apple incorrectly? Maybe the apple is really blue, but our eyes see it as red.

That article is 100% philosophy.

Red isn't a thing, it's just a word to describe what humans perceive when photons of wavelength ~625-740nm enter our eyes.

Blue is ~440–490nm, so I'm going to have to say that a red apple isn't really blue...to humans, that is. I'm sure a dog doesn't see a red apple the same way we do, but the range of wavelengths of the photons is still the exact same, now we're just using different perception machinery.

 

[TSfelix]

"That article is 100% philosophy"

-- and very outdated...18th and 19th century 'serious' theories. The problem (one of them...besides that its very unclear what is actually being said) is that folks take these 'big metaphysical' theories and try to intertwine them with science. There are serious philosophical questions...that article gives them a bad name. I get the feeling such folks are much less concerned with truth and much more concerned with convincing someone that they are a deep thinking genius.