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Paradigms of reality: Metaphysics vs Science

Juma said:
Represents? Why? We know perfectly well whatbit signifies. But represents? Why should ask what it "represents"?

steve_bnk said:
And C is not absolute in the sense you infer.
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C is same for all. In what other way can it be absolute???
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Maybe Steve is one of those creationists who believes that the speed of light was a different value in the past in order to explain why we can see stars that are over 6000 light years away?
 
Oooh! I know! I know!

When light passes through matter (say glass or water), every so often a photon will be absorbed by an electron, which then becomes excited, then emits another photon in a random direction when it returns to its original energy state, thus altering the average velocity of the group of photons passing through. Maybe he figures that this counts as a change in the speed of light even though it is only the average that changes?
 
Juma said:
Fits with my view: "truth is what works best" (which requires a definition of "works")

rousseau said:
With the depth of what the scientific world has discovered I'm comfortable saying that I have a pretty good view of objective reality
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Really? I think you would be suprised of how much of that "objective reality" that is just something your brain has created.
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No doubt there are unknowns, but there are also a lot of knowns about it too.
 
I thought metaphysics was the branch of philosophy that tries to describe non-spatio-temporal objects.
 
rousseau said:
Juma said:
Fits with my view: "truth is what works best" (which requires a definition of "works")

rousseau said:
With the depth of what the scientific world has discovered I'm comfortable saying that I have a pretty good view of objective reality
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Really? I think you would be suprised of how much of that "objective reality" that is just something your brain has created.
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No doubt there are unknowns, but there are also a lot of knowns about it too.
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Not "knowns", only "pretty sures". "Knowing" is a feeling that doesnt really refers to anything real. (Knowing means that we have a belief that is true, buåt we can never know that a belief is actually true)


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Juma said:
rousseau said:
Juma said:
Fits with my view: "truth is what works best" (which requires a definition of "works")

rousseau said:
With the depth of what the scientific world has discovered I'm comfortable saying that I have a pretty good view of objective reality
Click to expand...
Really? I think you would be suprised of how much of that "objective reality" that is just something your brain has created.
Click to expand...

No doubt there are unknowns, but there are also a lot of knowns about it too.
Click to expand...

Not "knowns", only "pretty sures". "Knowing" is a feeling that doesnt really refers to anything real. (Knowing means that we have a belief that is true, buåt we can never know that a belief is actually true)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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I'll revise your 'pretty sure' to 'sure enough'. :D
 
Juma said:
steve_bnk said:
Einstein’s formulation of relativity nitially had more of an impact on philosophy than science.


For us on Earth there can be noabsolute motion.


Standing on Earth we say today the Earth goes around the Sun, but the Sun also goes around the galaxy, and TheARE in motion relative to us.


IF you take the reference point, inertial frame of reference, as Earth then it is correct that say the Sun goes around the Earth. The old mathematical models based onthe Earth as center could predict motions of planets and stars.


Any theory can never be true nor false in any absolute sense. We have no absolute point of reference.
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This is Newtonian mechanics.
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Yes, maybe I'm wrong but I thought Galilei got there first.
EB
 
Juma said:
Knowing means that we have a belief that is true, buåt we can never know that a belief is actually true
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That's just the view of not even all philosophers and also maybe most scientists but there is really no good reason to accept it. For example, I know pain whenever I am in pain. Here I don't know pain because my belief that I am in pain is true, it's just that I know pain and, sure, you could say that I may also believe I am in pain. Belief is a more complicated thing than this kind of knowledge. It is conceivable that somebody knows pain (when in pain) without believing he is in pain.

Knowledge as you define it may not even exist. I certainly don't know that it does and I don't know of any good reason to even believe it does.
EB
 
none said:
Juma said:
Speakpigeon said:
For example, I know pain whenever I am in pain.
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That is not knowing. You feel pain. What is there to know?
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the knowing I guess would be the knowledge that there was not always pain.
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Excellent point but clearly this bit is a belief. You're in pain but you seem to remember you weren't in pain five minutes ago or ten years ago. Is your memory accurate though? But how would you know? All you have is your memory. You can go back in time and check that you weren't in pain then. So, you believe you weren't in pain five minutes ago or ten years ago but the pain you are in now you definitely have to know it.
EB

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ryan said:
I agree with Speakpigeon; why can't we know our own pain?
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I knew it! :cool:
EB
 
Juma said:
Speakpigeon said:
Why is feeling pain not knowing?
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To pain is the knowing.
So you know that you are in pain in the same way as you know that you know that the name of the capital of france is paris.
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How can we be certain of our knowing? If I see an apple and know about it, I think that is real.


In fact, light is striking something and entering our eyes. Our brain then interprets it in the form of an apple.

Similarly, when we hold an apple, its our 'sense of touch' that comes into play and sends signals to our brain. The brain then interprets whether its round, hard, smooth etc.

It's the same like when somebody is not seeing an apple, we can't be sure whether the thing that is there is really an apple or something else. It's only when our senses and brain come into play that we interpret this 'something' as an apple. Some other life form may interpret an apple as green, of square shape and with thorns on it.

Even worse, some alien life form may not be able to receive any signal from our 'apple' and then this apple would be non-existent for them (together with our planet, sun, matter, energy and universe). It may be possible that right now these life forms are moving through us and we are moving through them as we cannot receive 'signals' from each other.
 
Grasshopper: Master Po, what is a pain in the ass?


Master Po: Grasshopper, you and yourquestions are a pain in the ass.


Grasshopper: Master Po, how is it that you know that?


Master Po: Grasshopper, how is it you do not know?
 
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