What is space, vaccuum, or nonexistence?

[Ocularis]

Lets pretend I'm an all powerful demon and I created you this instant. When I created you I put in a whole host of 'memories' into you. These memories gave you a sense of what the future might be like. Then, demon that I am, I annihilate you in the very same second.

Would your experience of 'now' have been any different?

Let me start by ensuring we have a mutual definition of 'now'.

My definition of 'now' is an infinitesimal instant in time. Applying this to your 'thought experiment' you would end up annihilating me the same instant you created me, in which case I would experience nothing Your argument becomes meaningless.

Your agument depends on the assumption that a second of time would pass. That in fact a past, a present, and future exists. That the consciousness would experience the future becoming now and the now becoming the the past.

The memories you create are irrelevant because they have no impact on the experience of the passage of time. The only important thing is that in order for the memories or anything for that matter to be experienced in the 'now' or to determine that a 'now', even exists a comparison must be made between two moments in time. You can not experience 'now' without a there existing a past and a future.

I agree that consiousness IS a starting point, but I do not believe it can be separated from time, and I do not believe that because it is a starting point that this necessarily requires it to be primary. The existence of consiousness relies on the act of a consiousness acknowledging itself. It relies on its ability to experience itself, to sense itself, to question its own existence. What is consiousness if not this? Take away 'experiencing' and 'sensing' from a consiousness and what have you got? "Poof!" Where does the consiousness go? Can we say the consiousness is primary if it in fact can not declare itself to exist without experiencing itself? And without the passage of time, where does the ability for the consiousness to experience itself go?

Yes, consiousness must exist to be able to experience or question how it experiences itself, but does that follow that it must be primary? This very act of acknowledging the consiousness relies on the predicitability of the consiousness to experience itself. i.e. everytime the consiousness asks 'Do I exist?' it is in fact making a measurment or experiencing itself to be able to declare 'I Do exist!'. In order for the consciousnes to declare itself, it must measure itself by comparing its existence at the moment of asking the question with its existence at the moment of answering the question, which brings up my argument on time with the 'now' the 'past' and the 'future'.

Simply put, I do not believe you can isolate time from consiousness, as neither can exist without the other. The concept of time requires the consiousness to experience itself, to measure itself, but without the the existence of the 'now' the 'past' and the 'future', the consiousness can not experience itself or anything for that matter. My question is how can consciousness be primary if it cannot declare itself to exist without the passage of time?

Just my 2 cents.

 

[PhysiksFreak]

So they don't charge, how noble of them. Still BS nonsense, though.

Nope. It's not. I don't know who fit that into your head, but it works. It's hard for people of science with closed minds to accept that because to them, if a certain thing cannot be explained logically, it doesn't exist. Well, go to a reiki master with some prob you're facing and he'll heal you.

 

[PhysiksFreak]

Let me start by ensuring we have a mutual definition of 'now'.

My definition of 'now' is an infinitesimal instant in time. Applying this to your 'thought experiment' you would end up annihilating me the same instant you created me, in which case I would experience nothing Your argument becomes meaningless.

Your agument depends on the assumption that a second of time would pass. That in fact a past, a present, and future exists. That the consciousness would experience the future becoming now and the now becoming the the past.

The memories you create are irrelevant because they have no impact on the experience of the passage of time. The only important thing is that in order for the memories or anything for that matter to be experienced in the 'now' or to determine that a 'now', even exists a comparison must be made between two moments in time. You can not experience 'now' without a there existing a past and a future.

I agree that consiousness IS a starting point, but I do not believe it can be separated from time, and I do not believe that because it is a starting point that this necessarily requires it to be primary. The existence of consiousness relies on the act of a consiousness acknowledging itself. It relies on its ability to experience itself, to sense itself, to question its own existence. What is consiousness if not this? Take away 'experiencing' and 'sensing' from a consiousness and what have you got? "Poof!" Where does the consiousness go? Can we say the consiousness is primary if it in fact can not declare itself to exist without experiencing itself? And without the passage of time, where does the ability for the consiousness to experience itself go?

Yes, consiousness must exist to be able to experience or question how it experiences itself, but does that follow that it must be primary? This very act of acknowledging the consiousness relies on the predicitability of the consiousness to experience itself. i.e. everytime the consiousness asks 'Do I exist?' it is in fact making a measurment or experiencing itself to be able to declare 'I Do exist!'. In order for the consciousnes to declare itself, it must measure itself by comparing its existence at the moment of asking the question with its existence at the moment of answering the question, which brings up my argument on time with the 'now' the 'past' and the 'future'.

Simply put, I do not believe you can isolate time from consiousness, as neither can exist without the other. The concept of time requires the consiousness to experience itself, to measure itself, but without the the existence of the 'now' the 'past' and the 'future', the consiousness can not experience itself or anything for that matter. My question is how can consciousness be primary if it cannot declare itself to exist without the passage of time?

Just my 2 cents.

You've got a good argument there. With this I can agree: Consciousness and time go together.

 

[JoeDawg]

Nope. It's not.

You're a true believer, then? How sad for you.

I'm always amazed by how gullible people can be.
But then, when people are desperate to believe, placebos do wonders... until they wear off.

If your Reeking masters claim they can cure people of real diseases, they are the worst kind of scum.

 

[JoeDawg]

Your agument depends on the assumption that a second of time would pass.

No, it really doesn't.

"Would your experience of 'now' have been any different?"

Would your experience of a millinanosecond be different if it was a demon created illusion?
No, it would be entirely the same.
Whether it is illusion or not, you wouldn't notice much.

 

[MaWM]

No, it really doesn't.

"Would your experience of 'now' have been any different?"

Would your experience of a millinanosecond be different if it was a demon created illusion?
No, it would be entirely the same.
Whether it is illusion or not, you wouldn't notice much.

This argument seems silly at any rate. The evidence points to time existing. Speculating on some all powerful demon is moot.

 

[PhysiksFreak]

You're a true believer, then? How sad for you.

I'm always amazed by how gullible people can be.
But then, when people are desperate to believe, placebos do wonders... until they wear off.

If your Reeking masters claim they can cure people of real diseases, they are the worst kind of scum.

On the contrary, I pity YOU, because you are an ardent believer in Science, which has only lead people to dark corners. It has never been able to give a steady answer, only theories which can be falsified.

 

[JoeDawg]

This argument seems silly at any rate. The evidence points to time existing. Speculating on some all powerful demon is moot.

Evidence is not certainty. Now is a certainty, consciousness is a certainty.
We can derive all kinds of things after we acknowledge this, even past and future.
But those are theoretical, not certain.

Its important because it shows what we can be certain about and what we can't.
Its important because it shows where we can be mistaken if we make 'common sense' assumptions.

 

[JoeDawg]

On the contrary, I pity YOU,

Yeah, I can feel that energy coming from you... oh wait... no that was just gas.

because you are an ardent believer in Science

I'm not a ardent believer in anything.
When science stops working, I will stop using it.
Its got a solid track record though, you wouldn't be able to peddle your nonsense on the internet without it.

Sorry, but your mumbo jumbo energy silliness just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
It's snake oil.

 

[Ocularis]

No, it really doesn't.

"Would your experience of 'now' have been any different?"

Would your experience of a millinanosecond be different if it was a demon created illusion?
No, it would be entirely the same.
Whether it is illusion or not, you wouldn't notice much.

First of all, I find it rather interesting you would rather believe in an all powerful demon that can create illusions instead of the power of the human mind being able to affect reality. Secondly, your argument is now going into the realms of physics and the "limits" of the consciousness to measure or experience itself or the universe.

You could basically make one of two assumptions.

You can assume there are no limits to what the consciosness can experience, but then if that were true I would experience the demon and know it was an illusion.

You can assume that there are limits to what the consciousness can experience and then be forced to ask yourself whether or not a millinanosecond is within those limits.

Your millinanosecond relies on some tool to measure this cycle of time, its existence in fact requires a measurement to be made. The act of defining any length of time implies it has a beginning a middle and an end. Try drawing or even conceiving of a line without any end points and you will understand my meaning. The only thing you would be able to draw with no end points is a single point. This point being representing an instant of time which brings you back my previous post.

Now you might assume that you you are creating and destroying me over a series of instantaneous points which I only perceive as spanning a millinanosecond. I ask again, how do you measure the right number of instantaneous points of time to equal a millinanosecond.

Either way, a measurement must be made. Either there would be an infinite number of them or a finite number of them. In either case my consciousness would either perceive them or not. If they were below my ability to experience them, for all intensive purposes they wouldn't exist. If there were enough of them to be perceived then how many would that take? i.e. you have just measured the limit of my consiousnesses ability to perceive time passing.

The fact that you must create a series of instants in effect would make you the creator of time but the fact is time would still exist and the fact that there is more than one instantaneious moment would require there to be a future and past. i.e. how do you determine which moment I expereince when? You have to give them to me in a specific order. If you give them to me all at once your back to a single instant, if you give them to me in any order then you have created a first instant, a middle, and last, you have in effect created a past a now and a future for me to experience but then we get into the concept of free will. If you create the future instant for me to experience than I have no free will, which would bring into question whether or I not I would really have a consciousness. If I have no free will and was created by you, than I would be nothing more than an extension of your consiousness and I would basically only exist within your consciousness, so it wouldn't really matter what I would experience or not.

It is possible that a consciousness does exist that could dicern in that milinanosecond that time is passing, but I know mine would not.

For all intensive purposes the 'now' in that nanomillisecond would not exist because it would be below my ability to measure or experience it, if my consciousness is unable to measure or experience it or its effects, it doesn't exist as far as my consciousness is concerned.

For such a consciousness that could dicern the passage of time in a millinanosecond, it would have more than enough time to recognize the now the past and the future.

On another note, I must admit that I've never experienced a Reike master, and have no opinion regarding their ability to manipulate reality, but I can acknowledge that there are more ways to manipulate reality than just those we experience directly.

You can't directly experience the air yet you experience its effects. You don't experience or measure it directly, but you experience and measure its effects because its effects are within the limit of your consciousness. Whether air exists or not is irrelevent, we experience what we perceive to be its effects because they exist within our limit to experience them.

If you have never experienced something and its effects or are unable to experience something and its effects, you can always declare it does not exist, and as far as your consciousnes is concerned there would be no way to contradict this as it would essentially exist outside your ability to perceive it.

But unlike your demon example, you have plenty of time to experience the effects of a Reike master. Whether the cause is from a placebo or not would be irrelevent. The fact is either the Reike master is affecting your external reality or your internal reality or nothing, and either your consciouness has the ability to experience such an effect or not.

The extent of the effect would be the limit of your consciousness to experience it, just like in the previous example where the experience of the now and the passage of time is limited by the ability of my consciousness to experience it.

It is quite possible the experience could exist outside your consciousness and you would simply be unable to experience any effect or limited to experiencing only a fraction of an effect. However like in my previous example others may have more advanced limits of consciousness and would be able to experience it fully, so unless you are a Demon and are the creator of everything with an unlimited consciousness you should at least acknowledge the potential for things to exist outside your limited consciousnesses ability to perceive them.

Just my two cents...

 

[JoeDawg]

First of all, I find it rather interesting you would rather believe in an all powerful demon that can create illusions instead of the power of the human mind being able to affect reality.

First, I don't believe in a powerful demon. The powerful demon is a thought experiment created by Rene Descartes. Second, he didn't believe in a powerful demon either. Third, I am not making any assumptions, that is the whole idea.

But this is getting no where.

 

[Ocularis]

First, I don't believe in a powerful demon. The powerful demon is a thought experiment created by Rene Descartes. Second, he didn't believe in a powerful demon either. Third, I am not making any assumptions, that is the whole idea.

But this is getting no where.

My apologies for incorrectly stating your belief in demons. I would like to comment though, that you are contradicting yourself because the whole thought experiment relies on you making the assumption that a demon exists in the first place or at least some sort of ominopotent deceiver whoever the culprit might be, but I must agree that it is going nowhere, though it was thought provoking while it lasted.

 

[Sean Torrebadel]

Try Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Wherein he attempts to define substance. He speaks about the matter as the underlying thing which changes from potential to actuality. That matter becomes substance, leads to a contradiction since substance is therefore matter. He was more interested in the change, the ability of matter to somehow become the form, the body.

 

[JoeDawg]

you making the assumption that a demon exists

No, I wasn't. The 'possibility' exists that I am being deceived by a demon.
So I cannot be 'certain' that reality is what I think it is.
Reality as I know it, COULD be an illusion.

Descartes wanted to know what one could be CERTAIN about.

Consciousness, that he was thinking about something and therefore was a thing that thinks, is something he could certain about. Other types of knowledge, about causes of perception: objects and 'the past and future' are not certain things, because they are a step removed from consciousness.

 

[MaWM]

Evidence is not certainty. Now is a certainty, consciousness is a certainty.
We can derive all kinds of things after we acknowledge this, even past and future.
But those are theoretical, not certain.

Its important because it shows what we can be certain about and what we can't.
Its important because it shows where we can be mistaken if we make 'common sense' assumptions.

What youre not seeing is that I don't agree with you. Now is very much not a certainty. Our experience of now requires information and processing. There is no such thing as a "direct" experience. All experiences are indirect and rely on some sort of interpretation by our minds. Our present experiences and our consciousness itself can just as easily be altered by the all powerful demon as our memories. The fact that we experience them subjectively does not somehow make them immune. This puts "now" and "five minutes ago" on almost the same footing.

 

[baywax]

Our experience of now requires information and processing. There is no such thing as a "direct" experience. All experiences are indirect and rely on some sort of interpretation by our minds.

Here's where I disagree. The "interpretation by our minds" is a direct experience. Just ask Descartes.

 

[MaWM]

Here's where I disagree. The "interpretation by our minds" is a direct experience. Just ask Descartes.

we know a lot more about the way the mind works than Descartes ever did. The mind is an essemblage of chemicals, orgainized in a very particular way, but still susseptible to mechanical tampering. As such, our subjective experiences are hardly absolute.

 

[baywax]

we know a lot more about the way the mind works than Descartes ever did. The mind is an essemblage of chemicals, orgainized in a very particular way, but still susseptible to mechanical tampering. As such, our subjective experiences are hardly absolute.

No they're not... there are no absolutes. Absolutes are as elusive as singularities.

I didn't say our subjective experiences are absolute, I said that they are experiences... and they are direct. Our interpretations are usually incorrect but the result of the interpretation is that they are direct experiences.

These direct experiences are an indication that existence is an actuality. Not an illusion. In fact illusion requires the existence of a neuronet no matter how you look at it.

 

[JoeDawg]

Our experience of now requires information and processing.

No, placing a value on that experience requires processing. You either feel pain or you don't feel pain. If its pain, you can't tell me its not.

There is no such thing as a "direct" experience.

Prove it.

All experiences are indirect and rely on some sort of interpretation by our minds.

You're distinguishing between mind and experience. How can you have a mind without experience?

 

[JoeDawg]

No they're not... there are no absolutes.

Absolutes are artificial constructs, like math, they are abstractions from reality. They exist in so far as they are 'generalizations' our minds make, but they are, quite ironically, a sign of the limitation of our minds.

 

[baywax]

Absolutes are artificial constructs, like math, they are abstractions from reality. They exist in so far as they are 'generalizations' our minds make, but they are, quite ironically, a sign of the limitation of our minds.

So, we could say absolutes exist as a chemical mixture of neurotransmitters and other chemicals, in our own brains. But does this apply to singularities? I don't know because of my regrettable lack of physics education. The search for a singularity is like the search for the holy grail or the great white hope... a "theory of everything" or a purity of some kind. It reminds me of the abstract, mathematical absolute you're talking about.

 

[JoeDawg]

So, we could say absolutes exist as a chemical mixture of neurotransmitters and other chemicals, in our own brains.

There is a real problem with using a word like 'absolute' because it has a history that has nothing to do with 'scientific observation'. There is nothing absolute in science in the sense that science is about agreement and consensus in observation, not direct knowledge of an underlying essential reality... which is what religions have tended to mean when they talk about absolutes.

Physics has another problem with regards to the uncertainty principle. The problem of observation relates to the understanding what the essence of a thing is, and even whether a 'thing' as we understand it; or the mental construct of a thing, has any meaning with regards to the world 'external' to the self.

We see things in a limited way, based on how we evolved and we evolved based on what was useful in a very specific context. Which is why physics is so difficult for most people to comprehend even on a basic level.

 

[baywax]

There is a real problem with using a word like 'absolute' because it has a history that has nothing to do with 'scientific observation'. There is nothing absolute in science in the sense that science is about agreement and consensus in observation, not direct knowledge of an underlying essential reality... which is what religions have tended to mean when they talk about absolutes.

Physics has another problem with regards to the uncertainty principle. The problem of observation relates to the understanding what the essence of a thing is, and even whether a 'thing' as we understand it; or the mental construct of a thing, has any meaning with regards to the world 'external' to the self.

We see things in a limited way, based on how we evolved and we evolved based on what was useful in a very specific context. Which is why physics is so difficult for most people to comprehend even on a basic level.

Yes. And uncertainty seems to be the only absolute.-)

 

[Owen Holden]

Yes. And uncertainty seems to be the only absolute.-)

What, you are absolutely certain that you are uncertain??

Surely this is self contradictory!

 

[Phred101.2]

Lots of things are self-contradictory. Like trying to "define" an infinite set.
There is no complete or absolute (information) that we know about. However our logic can conceive of such.
Why is this considered a problem (by anyone)? Why is it so difficult to accept that "information" is always uncertain?

 

[JoeDawg]

Its a linguistic contradiction only, created mainly when we move concepts around and apply them where they don't really apply.

Its similar to the word "nothing".
The word itself is a noun. We can talk about having nothing.
But by definition a noun is a person, place or 'thing'.
So we have created a word that describes 'no thing' as a thing.

The word infinite is a finite description of something endless.

The word absolute, by definition, describes something that cannot be contradicted.

Of course just because we can create a word to describe something, doesn't mean it has much meaning. Absolute Zero, has meaning by definition, be we can still 'describe' something colder. Doesn't mean things can get colder.

Its all word games.

 

[Phred101.2]

Yep, it's those word things alright. I had a "scientist" who apparently is or was a teacher tell me last week that
"Heat is not a '"thing"', it is a process".
So heat is a process that isn't any "thing", ...I "see".

 

[keinve]

Energy is the ability to do work. And matter is something that takes up space and has a measurable mass. Does that answer satisfy you?

the matter thing is not always true. i mean a singularity is infinitly small, so it doesn't take up space.

 

[Sean Torrebadel]

You guys have really gone off the deep end with this thread, demons... come on. There is a philosophy that attempts to define the nature of matter, void, and existence. It is called metaphysics. Ancient Greek metaphysics from Thales of Melitus to Leucippus, and then democritis, there is a linear progression of philosophers one after the other who attempted to define the nature of substance. Aristotle, in his metaphysics, took the works of these philosophers and attempted to construct a grand metaphysical scheme that would define the nature of substance.

In his attempt to define the nature of substance he was faced with several contradictions. First, he defined substance as the whatness of a thing. And in that respect it was the body that defined substance more than anything else. He argued that substance was something that was generated, so he proposed that what was generated was the 'body' of substance. The problem is that he argued that matter was the underlying material of the change, that during the change matter did not change. Change was suppose to be between contrary states. From a potential to an actual body. The contradiction was that if matter becomes substance, that substance is matter-and he was never able to make a clear distinction between the two.

The fact that our science incorporates the notion of matter, means that we are left with this same contradiction. So if you look up a definition of matter in a dictionary, it will state that it is substance and visa versa. In the realm preceding Aristotle, there was a theory called 'monism'. Philosophers proposed that all of existence was composed of one material, called the aiperon, intelligence, etc. There was also the schools who proposed contraries, the limited and the unlimited, the body and the void. Monism suggested that the two were the same material.

In modern terms, it has been accepted that a substantial body is composed of matter. The problem being that this leaves the space between substance empty and non-existent. It also leads to certain contradictions concerning the nature of force, in that a force has to act through a distance. Even Newton understood that force at a distance, through a void, was impractical. He simply had no way to solve the puzzle, and was more concerned with the empirical nature of his physics.

The idea of an ether in electromagnetics tried to introduce the concept of nonlocality, by introducing the idea of a prevading material between substance. This worked in a classical sense to explain the nature of how interference and such things, the wave nature of substance might work- but the model was vague and it was disproven by Michaelson and morely. The concept of an ether should not be confused with the ancient greek concept of an 'aether'- the two are completely distinct.

If you are having a hard time understanding the difference between energy and matter, you are not alone. The problem rests with the philosophy of science, the scattered interpretation provided to us by Aristotle. It is important to understand that matter is the foundation of what we perceive as substance, it is the fundamental construct. Consider that adding the concept of energy to that foundation, is philosophically unqualified. You can't just add a new 'eternal' without explaining how it is related...

Yes Einstein argued that matter and energy are interconvertable, but there is no model to show how that occurs. Epsitemologically speaking, Science in its present state is concerned with the knowledge 'that occurs' and has no way of explaining 'how that occurs'. The end result is that we are left with the same contradictions that Aristotle found, in many new and strange ways-the same problem exists now as it did then...

From my perspective, classically speaking, energy is defined as the motion of a body or the potential to move. In that respect, it is created by a force, and is not a force. However, during a collision, the energy of one particle can transfer to another, and that represents a force. Really, the momentum of one is transferred to the other. It may be arguable, that if energy as an incorporeal entity exists, say as a photon, where the particle nature of the photons is obscure and potentially nonexistent, that this represents a motion as well. Given that each photon has a linear propagation that is incorporeal, ie, not particle in nature, but an energy that is related to the wavelength- it may be possible that the photon has another internal motion that we are unable to appreciate.

The question that evolves is what a particle is? Is it a body, with a physical size and is that a constant? Aristotle argued that substance, as a body, is generated. It follows that if there is a process which generates the body, that the process is a constant, whereas the body may be a variable. The question then becomes, what happens if the body is a minimum? Does the process vanish or does it still exist, and do we now treat the virtual state of a particle in terms of energy alone, since the definition of a particle no longer exists.

Well at least I am trying to contribute...

 

[Phred101.2]

(excellent contribution, Sean, IMO)

This is from something I posted about mass and masslessness on a different forum:

It depends which view you take. Cosmologists refer to energy, so do particle physicists.
The thing about energy is that it's something mass (particles or matter-waves) can have (due to inertia, let's say), and it can also be something that is a result of matter and charge changing their own moments, and transferring this change to another bit of charged matter.

This 'interaction' occurs only between 'charged' bits of matter; it carries the (quantised) momentum as a kind of wave-packet, with just 2 components (scalars) that rotate (and it has another spin which is independent of the momentum transferred by the particular change in the electron's --atom's-- quantum energy state: the sum of its quantised moments). We know that the transfer itself is not dependent on the distance (number of oscillations), but that the momentum arrives 'all at once', like a wave collapsing on a shore. Other waves behave like this too (they 'carry' momentum independently of the medium they 'travel through').

Ultimately you are able to describe the whole show in terms of this transfer "function": the photons of individual momentum transfer to other bits of matter (which has inertia). It's all to do with harmonic motion and resonance (and allowed and forbidden states). Energy, spin, momentum and charge, are all conserved quantities, and fundamental measurements we can observe.