Knowing nothing about science.

[Genecks]

Would it be wrong to say, "I don't know" in reply to the question, "What is 1+1?"

What about "I don't know" in reply to "If I hit you with this baseball bat, will it hurt?"

Is it wrong to reply to everything with an "I don't know" statement?

It has be known for people to reply with answers to questions that others have, yet there may always be that possibility that one day a bus goes off its route, that someone decides to not be a vegetarian, that someone finds a new thing in science that disproves all.

Would it be wrong to say I don't know to everything in life?
Do we truly know anything, or is it that we THINK we know.
Thinking is not knowing, it's pondering.

We are constantly in a state of thinking if we never know anything, for those who say I don't think. I would assume those who don't think must be in some type of state where they are possessed, in nirvana, vegetative, or have a complete loss of cognitive processes.

So would it be right to say to everyone about any question they ask you, "I don't know?"

I assume it would piss off a college professor however.

 

[hypnagogue]

Can you be clearer on what you think it means to know something?

 

[Genecks]

I don't know.
I think when someone knows something, they don't really know and are only fooling themselves of the infinite possibilities that something could be.

I think knowing is understanding everything in the universe and there is an infinite way of possibilities for it to be, react, and act in the universe. Not only that but how it relates in infinite possibilities.

Which sums up my idea that all things connect and create science.

 

[hypnagogue]

You must have some notion of what the word means for you, or else you wouldn't have bothered making this thread.

 

[Genecks]

I think I just updated my post once more.

Perhaps knowing that you know nothing is the first step to knowing everything.

 

[hypnagogue]

I think knowing is understanding everything in the universe

Of course no one understands everything there is to understand about the universe-- but surely the point you want to make is not this trivial?

 

[Genecks]

The best way to reply is with questions and I don't know. You seemingly have mastered this art. :)

 

[Genecks]

Well if everything in the universe connects to one another, and you don't know how it connects to one another, and one thing in the universe can not stand alone without everything else, than you can not understand that one thing.

Therefore not understanding everything that comes with that thing means you don't understand anything about it except what you think you know that has closed doors to the others things that implicate and create its current being.

Therefore since no one knows of everything that attaches to something to make it what it is, all things are simply speculation and estimation.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well if everything in the universe connects to one another

How do you 'know' that everything in the universe connects to everything else in such a way as to prevent acquisition of knowledge from investigation of semi-isolated systems or aspects of those systems?

 

[dontbelievthebull]

Hypnagogue if you accept your premise of interconnectivity it would be true that you can never know everything about something in particular, but it doesn't follow from that that you can never know anything for certain. You may not be able to predict how all things will interact but you can know what you can directly observe and measure, otherwise you have to desregard the basic premise of physics. Will anyone ever know everything? No way. Will someone know something at some point? Umm I think so.

 

[Genecks]

However such direct means of measurement were created by man and theories developed from man. Are these the correct ways to measure? Will we be able to measure all things with these means?

1+1=10

in other words.. on+on = on on =/= 2

such things come down to quantum mechanics and physics which we assign numbers to that are man made but may not actually be how everything in the universe relates to. Our system of measurement may be flawed on a very large scale, we can only hope to develop one that fits all systems so that it can connect to everything.

 

[zelldot]

people want answers for everything down to existence, but the truth is, we don't know, 90% of the brain, we don't know, what's at the bottem of the ocean, we don't know, when will one healthy person die, we don't know, what's going to happen tomorow, i would like physics to tell me that, the thing is, people just want to know

 

[dontbelievthebull]

Numbers were discovered by man, not invented. Only the language that we use to describe them was invented.
If you and I are standing in a field with a goat and someone happens along the way with a goat of his own then I observe that there are now 2 goats. How I describe their distance apart, relative motion or anything else is irrelevent. I observe 2 goats and to the best that human senses are capable I now know this one small thing, There are two goats, period. 1+1=2 in any universe that is defined by our physics.

 

[Genecks]

however, you are saying OUR physics. What if we are wrong? What if our physics aren't absolutely true. What if all the things we've discovered could simply disappear with a macro-change in the universe?

Then it wasn't everyone and everythings physics. That means until we can go billions of light years away and say, "Hey, it works here too." Go another billion, "Here too."
INTO A WORMHOLE.. "yep, here also..." then we can't know until we try OUR "discovered" theory to explain laws that go to the nature we think we know in life. We haven't seen everything in the universe, so we don't know anything.

The idea that numbers were "discovered" is that they are a TRUE system to figuring out something just as binary is. However, binary relates to quantum mechanics which is relates to the universe which is out there. Numbers were a system created by man and passed down until we created such systems as decimal and scientific notation.

However, binary has more of a realistic use because of its ability to be applied to the physical nature around it and obtain a result. You can't push in with graphite the number two with a number into a cpu and expect an outcome. However, with an electron you might be able to manipulate it to do this manifestation of man's number system.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The idea that numbers were "discovered" is that they are a TRUE system to figuring out something just as binary is. However, binary relates to quantum mechanics which is relates to the universe which is out there. Numbers were a system created by man and passed down until we created such systems as decimal and scientific notation.

However, binary has more of a realistic use because of its ability to be applied to the physical nature around it and obtain a result. You can't push in with graphite the number two with a number into a cpu and expect an outcome. However, with an electron you might be able to manipulate it to do this manifestation of man's number system.

What is this thing with binary? It's no more natural than any other base and translating all the constants of the standard model into strings of zeros and ones would't change its nature or predicitions except trivially.

 

[Genecks]

Binary can be used to create things in physical devices such as electronics to emit light of different spectrums.

It is a number system that has many applicable uses to devices and if at anything, one could consider the electron or other sub parts to be the better number system in the universe, however such a thing our human brains can't comprehend at this moment because we can't process as fast a computer, or yet haven't discovered such a cognitive process.

Since we as humans fail to do what many of the non-living things around us are capable to do we think that our system is right. When in fact, perhaps we are completely wrong and that nature is right. Nature's number system is the presence of an electron and the abscence of it.

I don't think our "number system" is the tell all for physics in the universe. I believe if we could base a system off of nature such as electron+electron=11=2=on+on

sure, we have a type of synonym for nature but is it perfect? is what we have absolute? do we know if we are right? could we be wrong? we haven't discovered every part of nature, every part of the universe, we could be missing something. because we are still discovering things, because we haven't found everything, we don't know if we are right or wrong.
So it would be best for us to say we don't know.

 

[dontbelievthebull]

Let's accept the premise of physics being different elsewhere and that our language to describe it would be inadequate. If the different parts of the universe have anything in commen there will be a way to express our simple knowledge in this higher form of physics persent there. Even with nothing in commen, numbers can always be expressed as they relate to our physics. Even though our knowledge may be lesser it doesn't make it untrue. Only in a universe of one will there not be a concept for two. I don't care where you go or what the physics are present, there will always be two goats.

 

[Genecks]

well if the two goats can mate.. i see many goats.
perhaps one of them isn't a goat. maybe it's an alien.
maybe it's a goat that can self-reproduce..

If we had higher mental processes that understood everything about science, we would be able to tell if those were truly, two goats.

Simplifying some with the XXY gene as a woman won't cut it. Just because they have a slender body and gynecomastia doesn't mean they don't have testes.

With complete science understanding we would truly be able to define something as it is. Since we don't understand everything about science, we don't know anything for what we think it is.

 

[dontbelievthebull]

Biohazard I think you missed my point that although there may be higher realms of physics it only makes ours more fundamental. If we could see the 'true nature' of the goats on some higher cosmic level would it make our observation of them any less true? We may be limited by our senses and level of understanding but unless you want to deny the existence of consciousness and reason then we can say for sure that we observed this one thing. If we could look down from our omniscient observation point we could see the event in all it's context and understand our small sense of it. Just because we can't see the entire picture it doesn't logically follow that we can never know anything at all.

 

[Genecks]

Well, interesting points.. but let me tell you this..

I don't know.

MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA
*heart attack* :rofl:

 

[dontbelievthebull]

LoL perhaps you were thinking with your heart too much.