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Incomprehensible

T

Trausti

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This is a call for speculation. Humans have evolved to have a higher cognitive function than other animals, but surely we have a limit?

A dog can comprehend human commands, but it cannot fathom that a stuffed animal is not real.

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On the other hand, human senses are sub par compared to other life.

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Though we sense stimuli unknown to others.

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So what is there that we cannot know? What is incomprehensible to us? Have we reached the point where understanding the universe is just beyond our ability? If so, are there things we interact with in the universe - like a cat ridding a roomba

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for which our interpretation is simplistically wrong?

:wave2:
 
I jst saw a video on the numberphile youtube channel about platonic shapes (4+D equivalents to 4,6,8,12 and 20 sided dies) in higher dimensions. So can conceive of such things, but are the mathematicians right? If may be that higher dimensional beings are laughing at our errors about these objects
 
repoman said:
I jst saw a video on the numberphile youtube channel about platonic shapes (4+D equivalents to 4,6,8,12 and 20 sided dies) in higher dimensions. So can conceive of such things, but are the mathematicians right? If may be that higher dimensional beings are laughing at our errors about these objects
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Yes, the mathematicians are right, at least if you accept the axioms and logical framework used. Unfortunately, you can prove that you can never prove that your axioms and logical framework are completely sound, so there's that. Any higher dimensional beings would be in the same boat, though...

The basics of higher dimensional geometry, and especially the regular polytopes, have been well understood since Schläfli (and others) developed their theory in the 1850s. The youtube video is necessarily non-rigorous because of its intended audience, but we can prove many things about higher dimensional space that we cannot intuitively 'visualize' at first.

As a homework problem in my linear algebra class, I usually assign students to count the vertices, faces, and cells of a 4-D cube. I usually add two hints - first geometrical: the 1D cube is a line segment, the 2D cube is a square, the n-D cube is two (n-1)-D cubes attached together, etc, and the second is algebraic: the n-D cube is the set of all points in n-D space with all coordinates between 0 and 1. It blows their minds, and gets them thinking about the relationship between algebra and geometry in higher dimensions. Try it, and see if you can spot the patterns that extend to the n-D cube.
 
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I think it is up to physics to show that higher dimensions exist. That is why string theory is such a debatable subject because only math explains how it works. In this case the math is right, but the physics has yet to verify or even find evidence for higher dimensions.
 
ryan said:
I think it is up to physics to show that higher dimensions exist. That is why string theory is such a debatable subject because only math explains how it works. In this case the math is right, but the physics has yet to verify or even find evidence for higher dimensions.
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4-dimensional manifolds are already fundamental to well-established physics.
 
beero1000 said:
ryan said:
I think it is up to physics to show that higher dimensions exist. That is why string theory is such a debatable subject because only math explains how it works. In this case the math is right, but the physics has yet to verify or even find evidence for higher dimensions.
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4-dimensional manifolds are already fundamental to well-established physics.
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But the fourth is time right?
 
Woah, Lucifer is 4D or higher?

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Curtains are 2D shapes in our 3D space. So a 3D curtain in a 4D space?
 
ryan said:
repoman said:
no, another spatial...
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Yes, but I am pretty sure it's the time dimension used as a spatial dimension as is the case with general relativity.
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the (-c*t^2) term puts time into relation with the spatial dimensions. But 4-D manifolds involves just 4 spatial dimensions only and not time, right?

The math of this field is so formal and abstract, holy crap! Not at all like Calculus or Analytic Geometry.
 
repoman said:
ryan said:
Yes, but I am pretty sure it's the time dimension used as a spatial dimension as is the case with general relativity.
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the (-c*t^2) term puts time into relation with the spatial dimensions. But 4-D manifolds involves just 4 spatial dimensions only and not time, right?

The math of this field is so formal and abstract, holy crap! Not at all like Calculus or Analytic Geometry.
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A 4-D manifold is just a space that locally looks like 4-D Euclidean space and mathematically, the four dimensions can correspond to pretty much anything. It happens to be that for the physics of general relativity, spacetime is a special kind of manifold where one of the four dimensions corresponds to time and the other three to space.
 
I'd say that individually we're not very good at perceiving reality as it is. Collectively, humans have a lot of knowledge, but individually people's perception of the world around them is highly tainted by both lack of understanding and social elements.

So I guess for most of us what's actually happening beneath the surface is incomprehensible, or at least usually incomprehensible.
 
Understanding is an extremely relative thing. It is when someone realizes that our old understanding does not really explain the phenomena it supposedly does and offers a new, better understanding - a powerful "AHA moment" for the one who realized the error in the old understanding.

One such realization for Isaac Newton was the sudden insight that the movement of heavenly bodies and falling terrestrial bodies were controlled by the same force, contrary to the old understanding that they were independent. He offered the world an understanding of mechanics of motion that was "truth" for well over two hundred years.

Einstein also had a realization. That realization was that Newton was wrong. Einstein then offered the world a new understanding of the mechanics of motion that has been "truth" for a little over a hundred years.

This raises the question, do we now understand the truth of the mechanics of motion or is there a new understanding to be realized some time in the future?
 
skepticalbip said:
Understanding is an extremely relative thing. It is when someone realizes that our old understanding does not really explain the phenomena it supposedly does and offers a new, better understanding - a powerful "AHA moment" for the one who realized the error in the old understanding.

One such realization for Isaac Newton was the sudden insight that the movement of heavenly bodies and falling terrestrial bodies were controlled by the same force, contrary to the old understanding that they were independent. He offered the world an understanding of mechanics of motion that was "truth" for well over two hundred years.

Einstein also had a realization. That realization was that Newton was wrong. Einstein then offered the world a new understanding of the mechanics of motion that has been "truth" for a little over a hundred years.

This raises the question, do we now understand the truth of the mechanics of motion or is there a new understanding to be realized some time in the future?
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Although I'm fairly comfortable making making the argument that our gains toward more 'relevant' physical knowledge is diminishing. I believe finely understanding evolution, as well as a certain set of physical laws and a sprinkling of neurology tell us the brunt about life on earth. Like if understanding it all is 100%, we're at 92% and the next 8% is going to take us the next 200 years.
 
Our understanding of the universe is at about the 1% point.

All we have are models of behavior. There are huge parts of the universe we don't understand at all, the "dark" regions.

We have no explanation for why behaviors occur or exist. This goes from the behavior of a quark to the behavior of a bee.

Maybe humans will one day get to 2%. Maybe.

Unless some alien life comes and is able to help humans overcome their natural limits, which they may very well be close to.
 
Juma said:
untermensche said:
We have no explanation for why behaviors occur or exist.
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On the contrary. We have explanation of many behaviors and why they exist.
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We witness many behaviors, of course.

You'd have to give an example of a behavior we have explained in full.

Saying an egg falls due to gravity isn't an explanation, it's a label.

Saying gravity "bends space" isn't an explanation, just more labels.

Mathematical descriptions of how gravity behaves aren't explanations of why gravity exists and what specifically it is doing.

It seems like we understand a lot but it takes rare geniuses to explain very little.

The mysteries of existence far outweigh the explanations.

But mysteries are just that, mysteries, they are not all powerful father figures watching over us.
 
untermensche said:
Saying an egg falls due to gravity isn't an explanation, it's a label.
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No it isnt just a label, but this doesnt seem like a rational discussion at all, you seem to deliberately dismiss all knowledge as useless so I leave you to it. Bye.
 
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