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

Entry: The Cosmic Uncertainty Principle - A87774394
Author: RedGemAlchemist - U14997111

This is just me spouting some rather interesting (i think) new-age sciency stuff. I hope this is amusing.

It's a great conversation point, but I'm not convinced it's got much mileage as an entry in the Edited Guide as it stands. There's plenty of room in the guide for philosophy, but you'd need to research and write something about this aspect of it to make this entry readable, in my opinion.

You might like to take a look at some of the entries in C28, and see if they can inspire...

What say others?

So what is an “unsigned writer?”

Are you familiar with the “snowflake” process of writing? If not, look it up.
I ask because it would seem to me that you have an idea that needs detail.
I agree with Icy North.

One other idea is to collaborate with others to develop your ideas.
After an entry is well developed you can submit it to Peer Review.
If that sounds interesting, ask Lil for advice on that approach.

Æ

An unsigned writer is a writer who is not signed up to any specific publisher as of yet but is recognised by the industry.

The innocent response to this is 'How can you doubt it?'

If you can show that, you may have something to show.

New Scientist recently discussed 'What is reality?' but treatments of this question can too easily become facile.

For a start, reality may be credibly contrasted with its modelling in language, yet here we are trying to cover the whole show in only one side of it, namely language.

I do apologise. This is my first time writing an article for - well - anything. Normally, I'm a novellist, and thus I'm not really used to being analytical.

Truth be told, this article, true to the spirit of the Hitchhiker's Guide, was meant to be more comedic than anything else.

I had the same expectation myself with my first entry.
There seems to be some discussion about how to keep newcomers.
Your feelings and thoughts are sought after.

I would like to write for the same intention as you seem to have.
Chat with Lil.

AE

The trick is to channel your humour into a style with which you can bring factual subjects to life. If you can research, for example, great thinkers from history who have argued this, and weave it together in your natural style, then you'll have somehing which appeals much more widely.

This might interest you, RedGemAlchemist:

Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? http://www.simulation-argument.com/

There's a lot more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

I think this could be the start for a really interesting Entry. I must agree that as it is now it's not good for the Guide but take it as a foundation. An Entry should not consist only of personal opinion and you should write a bit more.

You will need to do some research and I suggest the following things:

What did people in history say about this topic? Who said what? How did opinions change over the time?
Don't quote too much but 'tell us'. You can I think add your personal opinions or ask the reader questions or something like that, but make it easily destinguishable from the things you have researched.

What does popular culture say? What do you find in books, movies etc

Is there a difference in how different cultures think about this topic?

I think that there must be plenty of stuff so don't get lost . Only get into detail with things that you think are important and show big differences or similarities.

You could certainly use this as a start for an interesting article.

I would suggest that the question ' do we really know anything about the world around us' goes back along way. Certainly as far as the French philospher Descartes,and arguably as far back as Plato.

The brain-in-a-vat argument is a popular and stimulating one.

Daniel Dennett gives a very reasonable counter-argument in 'Consciousness Explained'. Basically, the amount of fake evidence needed to convince a brain that it was in a real world requires more preparation than the amount of real evidence in a real world.

Similar to the problem of faking a moon landing; it's easier to go to the moon than silence all the bit-players.

The question 'do we really know anything about the world around us' is classically treated by Plato in his most famous scene, the Allegory of the Cave. He has all of humanity chained to their seats in a cinema. One guy suspects this is not all there is to life, escapes, goes out, comes back in and tells the others 'there's a real world outside, this is just illusion' and they kill him for interrupting the show.

Plato, 'The Republic' 8 vii http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html

The question of how, and how much, we can know about reality is a whole branch of philosophy: epistemology.

Thank you for noting this. In factm it was the Allegory of the Cave that gave me the idea to write about this in the first place.

It's all a bit messy, lacks specific detail, and is filled with exhortations ... who knows? ... nobody knows ... who cares?

If you don't know whether to care or not, don't expect anyone else to ...

Have a read of Bishop Berkeley and Johnson's famous response.

ps: there are real limits to what can be computed.

pps: The Uncertainty Principle is well known and well defined.

Bishop Berkeley and Johnson's famous response are covered in A3390554

That is a nice example for Redgem to follow: it is so "substantive" for an entry.

Having read your article I am not sufficiently convinced that Johnson's response was not an adequate response. There is an aspect of perception that is imposed upon from outside. You may not perceive it but it will still trip you over. Furthermore immaterialism is not particularly practicable as a tool in examining the surrounding universe, and smacks of being overly political - assuming we all perceive in the same way.

Immaterialism (not to go on about it) has been taken over by materialism. Matter is no longer the cold inert stuff it once passed for.

That said, Johnson's refutation is not worth the stone it's kicked on, if you follow it through.