Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum The meaning of life

I hear that there is going to be a new forum board for 'whacky' science. In turn making the science board for TRUE science only, and this one for philosophy and most of the time, drivel.
Howdya like this then;

WE are mere ATOMS on a universal level - doing natures bidding! Have you SEEN people from a height? seen how they organise themselves - how they move. The are ANTS I tell you - ANTS! There are rules for walking - oh yes! PROGRAMMED into our minds. The rules of society - the rules of NATURE AND SCIENCE! The complex thoughts, worries and woes of mankind become INVISIBLE when you view them from above. From above -they are NOT the sentient beings we see them as - they are CELLS. No doubt cells are looking at atoms and saying the EXACT same thing. And no doubt ATOMS are looking at QUARKS and what-not and THINKING how quarks are not sentient -and how they are just building blocks operating on a set of rules. GALAXIES are not aware of US, you see, though there is reason to believe that galaxies are indeed... aware.

Just a thought...

Hi Rob:

I guess you couldn't wait for the new Forum!
jjw

If quarks are aware and Galaxies are aware, then we are just the awareness in the middle.
I wonder if you put the smallest quark at one end of the scale and the largeness of the universe on the other, where does the size of a human being fall? Are we in the middle? Where on the scale are we? Closer to the smallest thing or closer to the largest? I really wonder about this. Does anyone know?

As a wild guess I'd say we're bound to be on the smaller end of the scale. Lots of things are bigger than humans. Horses and cows and hogs are bigger, when you think about it. And compared to the size of the universe, we are really minute.

Rob: "Have you SEEN people from a height? seen how they organise themselves - how they move. The are ANTS I tell you - ANTS!"

REP: While you are up there, take out your binoculars and look down again. Can you see Shakespeare writing Hamlet, and is that Van-Gogh creating beauty in his madness?

Now stand above an ants nest and take out a magnifying glass. Is that an ant writing a sonnet? Is that another little critter writing about ***** envy in young ants? Is that another ant in love, ready and willing to lay down its life for her mate? No, probably not.

You have to get quite far away from humans to reduce them to the level of ants, and it doesn't matter how close you get to ants - they are still of an entirely different order of existence to humans.

Blacknad.

"If quarks are aware and Galaxies are aware, then we are just the awareness in the middle.
I wonder if you put the smallest quark at one end of the scale and the largeness of the universe on the other, where does the size of a human being fall? Are we in the middle? Where on the scale are we? Closer to the smallest thing or closer to the largest? I really wonder about this. Does anyone know?"

Amarnath, there is no proof yet that things can't get infinitely smaller. Therefore, humans are on no level since you cannot find an average when infinity is concerned.


Blacknad,
You can look at films, music and plays as a way to get 'cells' -people to act in a certain way. Some films make people angry, and make them rebel, it is a lot more complicated to us because we empathise for each other and are blinded.

Rob,
I was going on the basis of what we have been able to observe up to this time. I thought quarks were about as far as one could go. My bad.

Quarks are are the of the line Rose. To the best of our knowledge, both theoretical and experimental they can not be subdivided.

In that case I am sorry. But only on the condition that these experiments have proved that there can NEVER be a way to sub-divide quarks.

Well, have they?

Ok so quarks are smaller than 10 to the -18 meters (but just for fun lets say they actually are that size)

and the Universe is somewhere around 15 billion x 5.9 trillion miles.

where does that leave us? generally speaking? an approximation?

Don't be silly, the universe is infinitely big!

Universe is infinitely known by technology but finitely realized in practice.

Are you trying to say that through technology we can know that the universe is infinite, but what we can actually explore is limited?

I'm not convinced dvk knows what dvk is saying. It is seemingly a puff of smoke ... a chimera without substance.

No doubt an apparent statement of fact lacking in supporting evidence as well as substance.

Rob:

If the universe is infinitly big dose that mean there is no space/area/time left for anything else? Or do you suggest there can be more a thing larger than infinity? Sounds interesting.
jjw

No, infinity means everlasting/immeasurably big/immeasurably small. Basicaly everything.

Everything means -well everything. Take it literally.

I got the sense that the Universe does have a size and that it is expanding, and possibly slowing down. But the quarks as particle points have no size. So no matter how small or large the Universe is...as long as it has a size, then we are on the large end of things.

If both Universe and quarks are infinite then we are in the middle as the observer like you said in another post, Rob.

Justine wrote:
"If both Universe and quarks are infinite then we are in the middle as the observer like you said in another post"

We are, it would appear, definitely in the middle. But to claim that quarks are infinitely small would be a mistake. The definition of a quark includes a finite, in theory measurable, dimension.

I never implied that quarks are infinitely small. I implied that they are infinitely divisible.

Let me expand on my theory of being in the middle. Say I were to be alive at the time and observe Marilyn Monroe. Since we're already talking fantasy say I were to download all my consciousness into an atom on her lip, I would be seeing what can only be described as a landscape. All that she is saying and thinking would merely be movement in the atoms. Sound is a wave through particles, I would be part of that wave.
On the other hand I could become as big as a planet and now she would be a single shiny grain of sand on a beach. Once again I would not hear anything she has to say. How can one person contact the world? How can one atom contact a person? The answer is it cannot. That is why the only way you can talk to her would be if you were at that exact same level -our level -we do not have a name for it. There are other levels, cells, quarks solar systems, enzymes, societies, networks...
Each of these levels are in the middle, from their point of view. If I were an atom I would be in the middle, If I were a person -observing an atom, I would be in the middle and the atom would be below me on the scale.

P.S. My theory on infinite divisibility has support, I am sure that you are aware of this. Real scientists believe in it also so I am not talking rubbish.

Reality is fascinating.

This link says quarks are elementary.

http://www.desy.de/f/hera/engl/chap4.html

I guess even if the Universe has a size and a quark has a size....they are so extreme they may as well be infinite.

And I like your description, Rob of the levels and perspectives of reality It still works whether or not quarks are infinitely divisible.

Ok, forget my crappy 1ast attempt to explain my theory. Here's a much better one. Put the universe on a graph. First of all we have infinite matter so we draw a y-axis. Then, on every level of consciousness we draw an x-axis because time only matters when we have consciousness. Here is my rough idea of the orders from smallest; ????, quarks, sub atomic particles, atoms, molecules, advanced molecules (DNA), cells, tissue, organs, systems, our level, societies, communities, cities, states, countries, continents, the world, solar systems, galaxies , galaxy clusters, universes, universe clusters, ????

So you see there are many origins on this one axis, all operating at their own levels. What I think you meant earlier on when you asked where we were on this scale was where are we from the one true origin - the ultimate origin. There is no such thing as this ultimate origin because we are dealing with infinity. Sorry.

What about on a scale between cells and our galaxy? Or the scale between the smallest thing we can see with our naked eye and the largest thing we can see with our naked eye?

Well, you can work that out yourself, but to be very specific you would probably need to speak to a scientist or something. Personally, I don't think it's worth the trouble, why do you want to know this anyway?

Well, I guess I was just thinking that if we were exactly in the middle. And as human brains we are the most complex thing in the middle. And we are the only self-aware complex thing.
....Well, it just makes us seem important somehow.

It makes reality possibly a backdrop for self-awareness.

"And as human brains we are the most complex thing in the middle."

No.

" And we are the only self-aware complex thing."

No.

"Well, it just makes us seem important somehow."

No.

"It makes reality possibly a backdrop for self-awareness."

And No.

To Justine:

We are absolutely and unequivocably not exactly in the middle. We are of no consequence except to ourselves.

We are absolutely complex. Extraordinarily complex. Far more complex than an atom or a galaxy. But that doesn't make us more complex than any other vertebrate lifeform. More hypocritical. More involved in self-deception. More likely to self-destruct. But not more complex.

The only Self-aware .... as Rob says hardly. You are not more self-aware than the cat sitting on my lap and I would argue possibly less so. The cat doesn't need to create an artificial construct, ancient superior sentient beings to get through its day.

And important? Gawd how I hate it when people say that. I just want to take them out to the woodshed and find a switch. It is attitudes like that that have led to just about every human evil from the Inquisition to the concentration camps.

This is for you Justine:

I know all I need to know about my fate
One day I will die
The only matter of consequence before me
Is what to do with my allotted time.
I can stand on the shore
Paralyzed by fear
Or I can raise my sails
And dip and soar with the breeze
~ First have to row a little boat

But a 24 foot sailboat. Take her 1000 miles offshore. And then tell us how important you are.
Your "self-awareness" is a "self-deception."

"We are absolutely complex. Extraordinarily complex. Far more complex than an atom or a galaxy."

And this is coming from the person who once said; "you can not comment on that which has not yet been discovered."

I found something for you guys, DA and Rob. And others I think will enjoy, as well.

free inquiry magazine
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=index&section=fi

And I appreciate your poem. I "get it"

Along the shore,
The magnificence of the ocean overwhelms me,
But, I'm only alone when I ponder too deeply.

If I open my eyes and look around,
There seems as many other swimmers,
As there are grains of sand,
Along the shore.

I don't think you got it.

You seem to be living a very safe insulated life and using teddy bear and candy cane images to existance.

Put down the new age nonsense and go experience the reality of existance. Stop being a voyeur.

Nope, I get you and you don't get me. That's all.

There's nothing insulated about looking around and seeing that even if there is no God, there are still alot of people around to share life with. That was the point of my poem. It was a poem written from an Atheist perspective.

And there IS a great deal of nonsense in newage ideologies I don't argue that point. There's a great deal of nonsense in all Religions, too.

But there's nonsense in the thought that our lives makes no sense, as well. From a pure Anti-Theist view...where is the sense in humans existing at all? We are not good for the planet. We are killing the planet. We are killing each other. What makes sense about that? It's hopeless nonsense, too. We ARE the nonsense in that case.
If you want to believe that you are nonsense...be my guest.

I just haven't made up my mind as to which nonsense I want to live my life by. But, I'm glad I have the freedom to think about my choices.

Justine wrote:
"But there's nonsense in the thought that our lives makes no sense"

Absolutely true. But to equate a lack of some theology with "make no sense" quite frankly makes no sense. It is a statement lacking in substance built on a foundation of quicksand. Words without content.

Take this sentence of yours for example: "From a pure Anti-Theist view...where is the sense in humans existing at all?"

Do you really believe this? Do you really believe that there is no sense in my cat's existing? How about the grass on my lawn or the oak tree in the yard? They don't live by some philosophy or theology sold to them by a priest. Would perhaps a few kilos of plutonium would be morally acceptable to you to save them from their miserable existence?

The truth is that a very large number of people don't use self-deception and crutches to bring meaning to their lives. They don't need someone else to tell them what is right and wrong. They don't need a police officer to keep them from stealing, the threat of eternal damnation or not being part of the woo-woo-nonsense-d'jour to keep them saying please and thank-you. If you do then deal with it. But try to deal with your own self-deception and not to sell your brand of toilet paper to everyone.

Your protests to the contrary aside ... I don't believe you have ever actually experienced life. Never lived in a third-world country, ever gone a day not knowing how to get shoes on your feet, whether the next bullet had your name on it, wondering where your next meal would come from, or even sailing a little boat.

I'm not suggesting you join the Marine Corp. or move to Mali. But I am suggesting you find some way to experience something that isn't pre-packaged.