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

If it worked that way we might still be trying out alchemy, and believing that all substances weere made up of earth/air/fire/water in different ratios or that the atom was the smallest indivisible unit of matter.

That the earth is flat, that the sun orbits the earth....the list goes on and on.

There is nothing that isnt worth having a closer look at.



1. Absolute truth is a universal constant.

Well yes if something is true today it stands a good chance of being true tomorrow too. This works quite well in theory the sun came up today and chances are it will come up tomorrow, but as we looked more closely people saw that the earth spins giving the illusion of a sunrise and looking even closer people saw that one day the sun will simply explode into a fiery ball of gas.

Some ideas that look like absolute truth dont las that long...




2. For all intents and purposes, the observable Universe exists, and must be treated as real.

Even if we treat it as a dream we acknowledge the reality of dreaming. Reality is everything we create and then some. The hard part is working out where our self inflicted dellusions end and where objective reality starts. Two people who share a dream can make it reality even if the rest of the world cant understand what is going on.






3. The Universe, in the midst of it's apparent chaos, is orderly and predictable.

See above. Chaos and order are moveable feasts. Even in the bewidering maelstrom that appears to be disorder the materials involved will be acting and reacting in an ordered fashion.




4. The scientific discipline, as follows logically from the above statements, is limited to making observations based on the observable Universe.

What if someone claims to have seen something that no other person has seen? What if two individuals are the only two people to ave seen mutually exclusive phenomena. what do we do when half the world says the skyis a greenish yellow, while the other half say its a yellowish green?






"I think people must accept these basic truths as self-evident (i.e. exercise faith in these points) at least hypothetically before it makes sense to try to reason with them.

Saying "I think" and expecting other people to accept anything is bit much tell us why you think what you think. Then we might think it too.

"This works quite well in theory the sun came up today and chances are it will come up tomorrow, but as we looked more closely people saw that the earth spins giving the illusion of a sunrise and looking even closer people saw that one day the sun will simply explode into a fiery ball of gas.

Some ideas that look like absolute truth dont las that long..."

You might be able to help me clarity that point. When I talk about absolutes, I am talking about the specific kind of truth that the sun came up at a specific time and place. It continues to be true that the sun came up in Earth's skies on February 26, 2008 no matter what day it is. A statement that "The sun always comes up" would not be true.


"Even if we treat it as a dream we acknowledge the reality of dreaming. Reality is everything we create and then some. The hard part is working out where our self inflicted dellusions end and where objective reality starts. Two people who share a dream can make it reality even if the rest of the world cant understand what is going on."

That's not relevant.

"See above."

Where!?

"Chaos and order are moveable feasts. Even in the bewidering maelstrom that appears to be disorder the materials involved will be acting and reacting in an ordered fashion."

That's what I said.


"What if someone claims to have seen something that no other person has seen? What if two individuals are the only two people to ave seen mutually exclusive phenomena. what do we do when half the world says the skyis a greenish yellow, while the other half say its a yellowish green?"

Then the color of the sky should not be treated as a scientific fact.

"Saying "I think" and expecting other people to accept anything is bit much tell us why you think what you think. Then we might think it too."

These are self-evident first principles. I don't agree with "I Think Therefore I Am" because I can write about a fictional character who thinks, and yet is not real. So I had to come up with my own.

I think the key word you are misunderstanding is probably "universal", with which I mean to refer to both space and time. Is there a better word?

"You might be able to help me clarity that point. When I talk about absolutes, I am talking about the specific kind of truth that the sun came up at a specific time and place. It continues to be true that the sun came up in Earth's skies on February 26, 2008 no matter what day it is. A statement that "The sun always comes up" would not be true.

No its a relative and subjective truth.

If you were on the moon the sun wouldnt come up at all.

Im not against using language in its evryday form and understand why certain phrases are confusing in one arena while crystal clear and precise in another.

You are attempting to investigate the universe, then its time you dropped the parochila and looked for definitions that are meaningful in all circumstances not just the ones you encounter.







"Even if we treat it as a dream we acknowledge the reality of dreaming. Reality is everything we create and then some. The hard part is working out where our self inflicted dellusions end and where objective reality starts. Two people who share a dream can make it reality even if the rest of the world cant understand what is going on."

That's not relevant.


OK let me try to make it clearer. If we are to expand our knowledge we need to leave no stone unturned. Even our dreams have a bareing on how we behave, the substance of the dream may not be real but the affect they have on us is real.

To my mind the existance of a creator god or any god is a dellusion but the way that dellusion affects real people is something that is a reality.





"See above. Chaos and order are moveable feasts. Even in the bewidering maelstrom that appears to be disorder the materials involved will be acting and reacting in an ordered fashion."

I was agreeing with your interpretation but also reminding you that what you and I might define as chaos might be considered order by some other observers, while there will be others who take no interest in whether somethings around them are ordered or chaotic.



What you proclaim are self evident first principles are nothing of the sort except to you and some other people. Do the tests, find the supporting evidence because for a long time people thought it was "self evident" that the sun came up each morning...

one love

"No its a relative and subjective truth.

If you were on the moon the sun wouldnt come up at all."

I suggest you go back and read over what I just said again because I answered this. The truth that a specific thing happened at a specific time and place is true not matter where you go. If you're on the moon, or in another solar system, it is still true everywhere (and every when) that the sun came up on the Earth on Thursday morning.

"OK let me try to make it clearer. If we are to expand our knowledge we need to leave no stone unturned. Even our dreams have a bareing on how we behave, the substance of the dream may not be real but the affect they have on us is real.

To my mind the existance of a creator god or any god is a dellusion but the way that dellusion affects real people is something that is a reality."

OK, what you're saying about may have relevance to the thread on objections to God but not to the points on my personal space. So I'm confused as to why you bring this up here

"What you proclaim are self evident first principles are nothing of the sort except to you and some other people."

They are nessicary in order to believe in experimental evidence. If the Universe is completely unpredictable, the whole basis for performing any kind of experiment is gone.

~*~I don't agree with "I Think Therefore I Am" because I can write about a fictional character who thinks, and yet is not real. So I had to come up with my own.~*~

To clarify. That sentence is actually supposed to mean: "I am capable of independent thought, therefore I must exist in some form; even if it's as a brain in a vat."

It's just not quite as catchy that way though.

Any fictional character you write about is not capable of independent thought. All they can think about is what you say they think about, and so the argument doesn't apply.

Any fictional character you write about is not capable of independent thought.
They also believe that they are capable of independent thought. This distinction therefore cannot seperate a real person from a fictional one in any objective sense.

In other words, a fictional character would believe that they are capable of independent thought because the author says so. "I Think Therefore I Am" is therefore rendered meaningless since it can just as easily apply to a fictional universe as to a real one.

No, because they don't "believe" anything; they're just words on paper. And as far computer programs are concerned (the characters from Knights of the Old Republic, for example), "they don't get happy, they don't get sad, they just run program."

If they were actually capable of independent thought they would necessarily also be capable of independent action, therefore I seriously doubt they would consistently let themselves be cut down by the lightsaber every single time they spawn into the game.

"If they were actually capable of independent thought they would necessarily also be capable of independent action, therefore I seriously doubt they would consistently let themselves be cut down by the lightsaber every single time they spawn into the game."

But how do you know you are not more than words on paper? How do you know that your actions are independent? You must assume that it is. "I Think" isn't a big enough assumption to justify "I Am"

~*~But how do you know you are not more than words on paper? How do you know that your actions are independent?~*~

I don't. As I'm sure you would know had you actually /read/ the argument, I can't actually trust any sensory input I have. I could easily be in a tube somewhere receiving electrical stimulus straight to my brain to keep me trapped in a virtual world shared by the rest of the human population all so that an entire species of technological organisms can harness the electrical power of my body. (a.k.a. The Matrix) Therefore the only thing I can be sure of is that I can think. Quite how I can prove that any way other than instinctively I don't know. BUT that I /can/ think /is/ sufficient reason to say that in some way, in some form, in some reality that I may not be able to imagine, I /must/ exist /somehow./


Therefore, since I have know way of knowing one way or another, I'm simply going to work on the assumption that the information I receive is correct; after all, if it isn't, I'll never know.


Obviously I think it would be better to read the physical book, but go ahead and take a gander at this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GSE5qlwGzCAC&dq=The+Matrix+in+Philosophy&pg=PP1&ots=IjaOSBwj-4&sig=aeAtf4lJJT1QvR2TGqbO6AdCGoY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA28,M1

Unfortunately I don't have time to find the exact argument right now, although I know it's in there, because I have to go to Spanish class. I'll come back and find it later for you, but in the meantime I recommend page 28.

<<~*~But how do you know you are not more than words on paper? How do you know that your actions are independent?~*~>>

Just to help out a bit, it's that question that comes closest to getting to the centre of the "I think therefore I am" issue.

Descarte started with those kinds of questions. He employed radical skepticism to dismiss anything he didn't know with absolute certainty as being false. He set out to eliminate everything that was rationally doubtable. That included everything that his senses told him.

He finally arrived at a first principle: the one thing that could not be doubted logically or rationally.

He thought. That is, he asked those questions. Not as a man, not even as a physical being of any sort, but rather a thinking thing, "un chose qui pense"; perhaps even a disembodied, non-physical being of pure thought. Because he was capable of posing the question, he was capable of asserting that he existed at least as a being that could make that claim. He was thus able to prove that at the moment he considered the question of his existence, he existed.

Cogito ergo sum.

Fictional characters have nothing to with his argument. Except perhaps with where he went from there.

Where he went from there - to "prove" the existence of god - was a little less satisfactory, but it is worth remembering that he had been commissioned by the church of Rome to devise a mathematically certain proof for the existence of god. Something about Enlightenment thinking necessarily leading thinking people to secularism.