h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, is the statement 'nothing is "Absolutely true"...' not absolutely true, then?

This question will be the subject of a forthcoming Guide entry, but the long and short of it is, absolutely not.

Actually what has come up here is a cognitive paradox, and cognitive paradoxes are the basis of the study of ontology. There are many forms of them, such as the zen koan, or the strange loops alan turing studied. Here are some examples:

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

or

All statements are false, including this one.

or

Practice all things in moderation, especially moderation.

or

I know that I know nothing.


A cognitive paradox is also at the center of the debate over quantum uncertainty, and such paradoxes are one of the main objects of study by experts inthe field of 'trivalent logic', which asserts that in addition to the 'yes' and 'no' of greek bivalent logic, the universe also contains a 'maybe'. This, of course, can be used as an entry point into discussion of information theory and many-worlds quantum theory.

The bottom line here is that all knowledge is relative, including this knowledge of this. In other terms, many things can SEEM 'true' or 'false' but it all is a matter of perspective. Rather, perspective and observation are what allow things to be 'true' or 'false'. It is a bit mind bending, and probably the reason I tend towards a view of 'relative meaning' when dealing with assertions of macro-scale metaphysical principles. A chair is a chair.. but is it?

Sorry to bring the debate down to my scabby level, but Bart Simpson answered the 'one hand clapping' thing for me. I think I will just apologize again and then go. Sorry.
BCNU - Crescent

Putting aside Bart Simpson for a moment. A chair, if such a thing exists, is only a chair by common consent, we agree that a given object is a chair because we share similar conceptual views of the attributes required by a chair. Sorry if this is not expressed very well, I'm a bit rusty

I follow what you mean, and I believe that to be true. Without someone to see it it is only photons bouncing from matter (the whole tree falling in the forest kinda thing)
BCNU - Crescent

Ooops, sorry if I mis-lead you with the ',if it exists,' bit, but the argument I was trying to put forward was along the lines of: If I call it a chair, and you call it a chair, its a chair. Our conceptual models of the world touch at that point, they may fly off in different directions at other points . It's all a matter of negotiation and enrolment.

The 'Does a tree falling in a forest make a sound if no-one hears it?' thing is a whole different, but equally interesting, ball game .

Hope this has clarified things a little, but if not, carry on posting. In fact, carry on posting anyway, I haven't had a discussion like this since I was at Uni. and that was a loooonnggg time ago

Actually, the tree falling in the forest bit is another zen koan unless im mistaken, and what all this really leads to is 'observer participancy', the funky notion that you participate in the actualization fo reality just by watching it happen (which is a form off interaction, really). This is a notion that spans a variety of disciplines from Jung's views on synchronicity to Aleister Crowley's views on magic to mystical knowledge of the all to the quantum physicist's attempt to resolve the 'action at a distance' riddle that remains persistently annoying.

I get it now. I used to argue these out at Uni, normally late at night after something mind altering . Sometimes I enjoyed it sometimes it really irritated me. It ended up that I couldn't see any practicle application for these speculations and basically stopped participating with them. Is there one?
BCNU - Crescent

Possibly. I suspect that free minds and free spirits will tend towards living better lives. My guess is that a new cosmology needs to emerge as part of our evolution as a species, because our species is entering very dodgy territory right now, and by clinging to outmoded notions of reality we risk being swamped by the forces of change we are setting in motion. It's not that the old way was worse, or better, it's just that it's not entirely applicable anymore, and we need to really get our heads out of our asses and stop acting like superstitious little monkeys, because now we can not only throw monkey feces at each other, but nuclear weapons as well. A new world, a new paradigm; humans united by the realization that God is within them, and accepting concurrant responsability. But you know, maybe we just need to wear more hats.

On the "chair" thought, If I use a chair as a table, is it a chair, a table, both or neither? I, who need somewhere to lay my lunch while looking for the TV remote control, choose to think of it as a table. A visitor, looking for somewhere to sit will argue that it is a chair. Lawrence Llewelyn-Jones might argue that it is a piece of junk. Many contradictory beliefs can be brought into simultaneous being just because I'm a slob.

Indeed, and human slovinliness is in fact one of the really big issues threatening to make things unpleasant for everyone if in fact we don't make room for some new ideas, and fast. Too much time gets spent guardedly defending academic reputations and courting government grant money and denying that a problem even exists, while entire ecosystems are decimated. The UN actually released a pretty hysterical report in September accusing Western nations of 'fiddling while rome burned' for the last ten years or so. It's kind of funny how UN policy is basically the Word of God on military issues of interest to the United States, and in the same breath is a bunch of dirt munching druid hippies when a call is made to change our lifestyles somewhat.

Back to the chair thing, one notion worth investigating is the 'objective structure of subjectivity'. In other words, if you think a chair is a chair, then that pattern of chairness exists as a subjective association within a wet-wired computer of meat and bioelectricity, and basically therefore the universe (of which that computer is an extension) does in fact recognize the 'chairness' of a four-pronged piece of wood, at least partly. So yes, it IS a chair, the universe says so, but it may be a lot of other things depending on its relative positioning within the frame of said universe. Process theists call this 'the consequent nature of God' I think, the idea that all things are eternally part of a superdetermined whole, eternally (so to speak, except linear time sort of breaks down as a sensible way of making observations about things on this scale).

I am not sure trying to make people change the way they think is the best solution, you are arguing for a few 10 000 years of intellect to hopefully overcome thousands of millions of years of evolution. I reckon it is an uneven chance, most of the people I meet will not walk further than the front door to their car, even if they are going 100 yards to the shops. The way forward is to change peoples enviroment, place them somewhere that they were designed for. People are not equipped to be in huge conglomerations, they are designed to function in smaller groups, possibly up to a couple of 100 (a whole village mentality-or maybe more tribal). We are not equipped to decide where our evolution is going, or rather the ones that will decide it are already the ones in power, and that thought just makes me shudder. Lets get back to realising what we are, just a domestic primate. Hmmmm, rant finished for the mo'
BCNU - Crescent

Agreed, we are domestic primates. Probably we just need to wear more hats, eh?

I tend to hold out hope (not belief, mind you) that maybe we can make the necessary adjustments short of an all out war or massive plague to decimate the current population. It's pretty daunting to contemplate splitting a city of 12mil or more people into 100 person villages.

My thinking runs along these lines; North America is responsible for consumption of about 2/3 of the world's resources, even though it comprises maybe 1/25 of the world's population. They are not likely to stop doing this any time soon. But part of the aforementioned evolution as a species involves the arrival of communication technologies which allow ideas to flow and collide with a lot more freedom; i think it is entirely feasible for a grass-roots understanding of the problem to eventually have an impact on the world stage, if people in general really want that. So I'm trying to use that medium to spread the word of an 'evolution revolution'; I think we have a great destiny before us if we rise up and seize it. Just like Bucky Fuller said.

Of course, this might be way naive. I'm not blind to the fact that America is in fact a corporate oligarchy with the trappings of a democracy. American military might serves the almighty dollar and not the will of the people, and American propaganda methods are probably the most devastatingly effective ever devised; an educated person knows propaganda, in say, China, when he hears it; not so in America, however. The illusion of freedom obfuscates the chilling reality.

Americans might not recognise local Propoganda, but that didn't stop the rest of the world recognising Bill Clinton's recent "state of the union" speech as a contender for "Best US comedy (without a laughtrack)" since "Frasier"...

The only way that I can see working IS a catastrophe, and it will happen, the last worldwide catastrophe that changed the whole human face of the world was in 536 AD (volcano apparently) The metropoli will become necropoli (sorry I am a science student, and male, so I think that word play is clever Only those who have prepared will survive. The thing is to make sure people who think like you are prepared. So your percentage of the population will be higher, giving a better chance to change the world
On another note I like the official Chinese name for USA and their allies - Capitalist Running Dogs, I don't know why just pulls the strings fer me
BCNU - Crescent

Just so.

I think you forgot the black plague We'll have another one of those sooner rather than later... last I heard we are expecting a global superflu in a few years. And then of course there's AIDS.

The black death was nasty, but didn't really change the world order (as far as I remember) it just sort of made all the world players contemplate their own navels for a while The volcano in 536 started a whole catalouge of problems, the amount of sunlight reaching earth dropped considerably for 10 years, the lowering temp caused all sorts of probs. An out break of the plague and the problems with the crops basically set up the Roman Empire for toppelling (sp?). The roman plague was then transmitted to their trading partners, basically wiping out the Celts (who couldn't cope with this and crop shortages), allowing the Anglo's and the Saxons their foothold. The vikings colonies overseas in Greenland and poss. North America were unable to survive and withered. The advanced tribes of Native Americans at that time were also wiped out which basically set the stage for Maya, Inca's et al. This was the catalyst that allowed the New World Order that we see today. As the Boy Scouts say 'Be Prepared'
BCNU - Crescent

Two unrelated thoughts....
(1) I read an interesting article which said that there is not a single shred of evidence that "Celts" actually existed and it is all romanticism of the King Arthur kind. Was this wrong?

(2) The kind of people who go around preparing for nuclear war / comet impact / alien invasion etc. are not the kind of people I want as my only companions for the rest of my life therefore I choose not to be prepared for any of it. Basically the worst possible outcome is that only the survivalists survive

The Celts as a people did not exist, but a set of tribes or clans all descended from the same stock, with very similar social organisation, philosophy on life, in northern europe did exist. It is easier in modern times to lump all these people in together as the Celts, rather than name them all by tribe These tribes probably considered themselves totally different from one another, but through the distorting mirror of time these differences have all but disappeared

The view of survivalists that you have is very narrow. It seems only to include the American Militia model. Being prepared is not the same as constantly preparing for the worst Having a plan of what to do if it does all go pear shaped seems like commen wisdom, having at least some of the stuff you may need and knowing what to do with it seems the same. Choosing to live somewhere to minimalise the impact of some thing catastrophic is obviously a personal thing. I happen to like the middle of nowhere, so it is no bother to me , but some people are courting problems by choosing to move to earthquake zones, live on the slopes of volcanoes, make sure they build their homes beneath steep snow covered mountains. How far it is taken is, again a personal thing. Eventually I will be moving from the coast to a place slightly higher (7000 years ago the whole east coast of Scotland was devestated by a tidal wave, when an underwater cliff collapsed in Norway) It is only a matter of time before something like those mentioned above happens (again), and knowing my luck it will be during my life time. I want to live, not to be a bloated, drowned corpse bobbing up and down in the ruins. TVM for listening to my rant
BCNU - Crescent

I over-generalised on survivalists, but I think that people who build nuclear fall out shelters whilst not improving their diet or giving up smoking etc. are touched by the doolaly stick.

I live in a country that has never had a recorded earthquake whatsoever, but does have amongst the highest suicide and heart disease rate amongst young men of approx. my age in western Europe so my time is best employed in avoiding commiting suicide and giving up the smokes rather than shoring up my house and practicing earthquake drill.
(Does this opinion come from a career working on IT systems for insurance companies I wonder?)