however maybe i don't exist and i am a figment of my own imagination, but wouldn't i have to exist to have an imagination? unless i'm walking around in someone else's dream and they exist and i don't...

oh well, i don't care, as long as i have a good time.

hey.. wait a minute... since i am a self-aware being, doesn't that mean there's a self to be aware of?
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kuru
'if your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd kill you in your sleep.' -frank zappa

[This message has been edited by kuru (edited September 15, 2000).]

I type, therefore I am.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sithiee:
id say i exist now, but not up untill a couple years ago. i base my reasoning on this. hot chicks say hi to me. its like when you watch dumb adults write teenager shows, and they always say "they dont even know i exist" but see, since they say hi to me, i obviously do exist, because they wouldnt say hi if they didnt know i exist. does this make sense?

---

not existing sucks!

------------------
"But every time I learn something new, it pushes out something old! Remember that time I took a home
wine-making course and forgot how to drive?"
-Homer Simpson

Point being... wake up! This is real, baby. And while I can't prove that I REALLY REALLY REALLY exisit, if feels real to me, and that's all that REALLY matters.

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

Me:
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but then, who's to say the human race or any other race even exists.. maybe we are God's or (a) gods dream...

maybe we are just "memories" being played out in robots AI and the human race was exterminated eons ago...

And one could argue that we must be because we "think".. (i think therefore I am) .... but don't people in dreams also "think" and act according to their own will (so it seems to us when dreaming).. so then, the people in dreams MUST be real.... so in essense.. nothing proves we are 'real'..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Aaron(DS):

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

aye exactly, or you can further that argument by stating, you can difrentiate between reality and a dream, by the acts of pain, love, hate, and sadness, but in dreams you feel those same things, it is possible to die within a dream, it is possible to love, hate, cry in your dream, your subconcious is as powerful as you make it, but then again to further that argument (heh) who is to say which is are sub and which is our primary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

exactly... how do we know that ORIGINALLY when humans first evolved/were created/ whatever that we didn't sleep and dream.. but we "woke up" and dreamed... and as time went by, we spent more time in our dream state, which is now reality to us, as we spend so much time in it..

I mean, if you spent most of you life dreaming, and only say 5-7 hours awake everyday.. what would then be reality?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basically that last quote (for those that can't undertsnad.. as after re-reading it, it confused me!) was saying that maybe right now we are dreaming.. and when we go to sleep and "dream" we actually are waking up in our "dream-reality"...

*lol*

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Trying to figure out what to do with my new domain : < www.rabid-wolf.com >
Lead (only) developer of Data-Admin: < http://dadmin.sourceforge.net >

You'd be tempted to think of existence as "what is". Thing is, that such a definition does not lend any firmness to the thinking. What if I imagine a teapot?, by this definition the teapot would exist in my mind, and therefore exist overall. Such a definition also is cloudy due to perspective. If one person can see things that others can't (hullucination, or just having odd eyes) that would influence the judgement on whether said object exists.

Of course, as my imaginary teapots being has no bearing on anyone else, whether it exists or does not exist by the abovee definition is actually the same concept. The definition is, in short, no use at all.

For the definition to make sense we have to tie it to the communal sense of reality.

Whatever your perception of other people these people themselves also percieve, we must tie our definition of existance to something that can be percieved by the majority of these entities. Yes, you might be imagining us all, but in your imagination we also think similarly, and whatever your idea of what the universe is, this lends a stable base of reality on which to base reasoning.

I therefore propose existence be defined by what can be percieved by the majjority of the sentients in the world.

I PROCESS therefore I AM.

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UT 0wnz j00 all!

------------------
brodie
Now every face, it looks familiar...
then every face would melt away until now...
everyone, do you know, I know your deception?

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

the matrix exists, that is given. i am one with the matrix, therefore the matrix has me, and the matrix believes i exist. thusly, i do exist, because the matrix exists, and the matrix has me.

i like the matrix.

When was the last time someone percieved gamma rays or ultra-violet light? We as people (on our own) cannot percieve these things, so do they not exist?
They can be measured and percieved with instruments, but instruments are falable.

Also a majority of people haven't percieved these things even with the aid of instruments.

And then what of things such as dark matter, where very few people have even HEARD of, let alone percieved.

not trying to dis your thoughts, just having a friendly discussion!

quote:

---

Originally posted by DuSTman:

I therefore propose existence be defined by what can be percieved by the majjority of the sentients in the world.

---

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aventari
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

I perceive a three headed goat man sitting next to me drinking coke.

I don't see him! Guess that shoots the "only exists if someone perceives it" theory

But then again, that brings you to the question of reality. In our dreams, we can perceive just about anything (ok, a far cry from anything - we can only perceive things that would be familiar in our 4 diminsional world) but in this "reality" we don't seem to be able to pluck things out of thin air. So our dreams could very well be another reality where the laws of physics are skewed (or totally warped)...

Anyhow.. just rambling on.. I should stop

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Trying to figure out what to do with my new domain : < www.rabid-wolf.com >
Lead (only) developer of Data-Admin: < http://dadmin.sourceforge.net >

indedependence day referred to the invading aliens as a cancer that uses up all the resources and moves on.

you were both right.

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kuru
'if your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd kill you in your sleep.' -frank zappa

mmmm i didnt even think of those 2 movies before, but i think of it in a different light to what the movies actually said

quote:

---

Originally posted by kuru:
the matrix called the human race a virus.

indedependence day referred to the invading aliens as a cancer that uses up all the resources and moves on.

you were both right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PersonGuy:
Independence day said that... not the Matrix f00.

---

No! I was pretty much totally right!!

quote:

---

from the Matrix:
every mammal on this planet...develops a natural equilibrium..but you humans do not...you move to an area and you multiply..until every natural resource is comsumed....the only way you can survive is to spread to another area...there is another organisim that follows this [blah blah] it's a virus..human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by reala:
the human race is a like a cancer, we could be a disease.. after all we consume all in our path, use up natural resources, and move on, and we multiply pretty fast..

---

I think that bit form the matrix fits pretty damn good with what was previously posted.

[This message has been edited by Happyfish (edited September 17, 2000).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by aventari:
well I would agree with this except for a few things

When was the last time someone percieved gamma rays or ultra-violet light? We as people (on our own) cannot percieve these things, so do they not exist?
They can be measured and percieved with instruments, but instruments are falable.

Also a majority of people haven't percieved these things even with the aid of instruments.

And then what of things such as dark matter, where very few people have even HEARD of, let alone percieved.

not trying to dis your thoughts, just having a friendly discussion!

---

OK, right..

People naturaly talk about reality, as in when they acuse peoples ideas of not being based in reality.. They are using my communal perception definition..

I said the when something can be percieved by the majority of people.. The majority of people would be able percieve the gamma radiation using the same tools.

I said the majority of people, as blind people, for example, would not be able to see something fully sighted people could.

Remember, it is not that most people do percieve, but can percieve..

Luckily, reality as i have defined it, has logical and scientific rules by which to design tools. Yes, there is always the possibility that the tools may be faulty, but the logical base of my reality makes it possible to stipulate tools that work properly and were designed properly, as if they wern't there would be a logical precept for that tool in the context of reality to be judged faulty..

Barring equipment failure most people can use the same tools to percieve the same thing..
Dark matter, for example - Most people could (with patience) be taught the scientific precepts and how to operate the machinery the scientists used to compose their arguments for the existence of dark matter.

Dark matter then, whatever the hell it is, can be percieved to exist by most humans.. even if no-one quite knows what it is exactly.

------------------

The only reason that mammals seem to develop an equilibrium is that there are things that eat them or that there are things that they depend on to eat. If an areas rabbit population is suddenly free of predators the population will explode until they wipe out the area and are forced to die back until the area can regrow. we are just above that, there is nothing that activily hunts us, and we eat such a variety of things that it'll take a while for us to decimate our environment, if we don't watch what we're doing then we'll go through a die-back too when we decimate our environment.

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I don't need a compass to tell me what time the wind blows

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kuru
'if your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd kill you in your sleep.' -frank zappa

---

Elephants have no natural preditors. Why isn't the planet exploding?

Humans kill each other... it's called war.

And there is an equalibrium... when there's not enough food, we've reach a population maximum. I don't think anyone could tell me that we'd invent a more effecient way of getting food infinately till we're shoulder to shoulder covering the planet, OR that we'll go to another planet in search of resorces.

So why are we multiplying so fast? Idiots and there babies... can't we have a baby depression for a generation!? All morons should have their tubes tied, and that's about 40\% of the population unfortunately... and that's because of our stupid de-evolution prossess.

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

quote:

---

Originally posted by kai:
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds.

---

Your logic is flawed. You said yourself that there are an infinite number of worlds. I agree, the universe is ever-expanding. We know that it is expanding, just like a balloon, due to red shift...observed via the Doppler Effect (wavelengths gravitate towards the red spectrum when objects travel farther away from a certain point). Sure, not every planet is inhabited, but this does not mean that there is a finite set of planets containing life.

If the universe is expanding, then planets are being formed as we speak. Sooner or later life may exist on those planets.

Humans may kill each other, but not enough to count as a population balance.

And if there is a point where we run out of food (and alot of sci-fi authors say that it's not that far off), we will suffer a die-back, unless we do find a way to more efficiently produce food (a more vegitarian diet maybe), and find another place to spread to. We reproduce so fast because we are mammals, it's a natural drive to increase the chances of survival for the species, and for most people that just means having children.

i hope i'm not in a dream, i have had this terrible dream as far back as i can remember, for some reason i am laying in the middle of the interstate and there is a big truck coming right at me, i can't stand up and no matter where i roll the big truck is still aimed right at me.

i always wake up as it hits me

because infinity is unbounded, any finite number subtracted from it, still leaves an infinite number.

------------------
kuru
'if your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd kill you in your sleep.' -frank zappa

quote:

---

Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
Your logic is flawed. You said yourself that there are an infinite number of worlds. I agree, the universe is ever-expanding. We know that it is expanding, just like a balloon, due to red shift...observed via the Doppler Effect (wavelengths gravitate towards the red spectrum when objects travel farther away from a certain point). Sure, not every planet is inhabited, but this does not mean that there is a finite set of planets containing life.

If the universe is expanding, then planets are being formed as we speak. Sooner or later life may exist on those planets.

---

First of all, I can't tell from how you explained it if you understand this but redshift is simply the lengthening of the wavelengths of objects which are moving away from us. This is caused by the Doppler effect, which is also the reason that when an ambulance drives past you, its siren seems to drop in tone once it is headed away from you rather than towards you.

redshift does indeed prove that the universe is expanding. However, this does not mean that more planets or solar systems are being formed, at least not ones capable of supporting life. When things expand, they cool down. The universe is headed eventually for a state known as "heat death" where everything will be spread out more or less evenly in a very thin cloud in which no stars or planets can exist.

kai: I have read this exact argument before, although I'm not sure where. Perhaps you should cite the source of your quotation...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael:
redshift does indeed prove that the universe is expanding. However, this does not mean that more planets or solar systems are being formed, at least not ones capable of supporting life.

---

Okay, you have a point there - we don't know. But I think that works either way. We don't know if the expansion of the universe does include the creation of new planets, and we don't know if it does not include new planets. I guess my point was just that it is a possibility. Therefore, you can't make a certain deduction that there are a finite set of planets containing life, because it is possible that life is being formed elsewhere as we speak.

However, I'm not quite sure I follow the last line in the above quote, Michael. You seem unsure as to whether planets are being formed, but are rather adamant that no life is being formed. Why? Is it because of the "heat expansion" theory you mentioned? If so, I don't think that would apply - starbirth is a very prevalent phenomenon.

So in the meantime, yes, new planets and new life are forming. Our sun is a second generation star, but of course there are new stars being formed constantly in nebulae. I wasn't trying to argue against other life in the universe; in fact, it seems to me that life is probably able to exist under a much wider range of circumstances that we would believe.

However:
I can doubt anything exists, however, I cannot doubt that I am doubting, therefor I must exist. Rene Descartes.

Start at the most basic of things. You can doubt almost any statement becuause to have acutal proof you have to have knowledge of everything that has ever happened or will ever happen to say that in every instance it will happen exactly this way. Try it out for yourself! Think of almost any situation, ie, Lemons are yellow. Can you think of any situation where lemon's wouldn't be yellow?

Sorry this rambles and runs together...I just got off working 9 hours after going to school for 8 and I have to go back into work in 8 more hours

hbar98

If there were infinite planets, we would have to assume that there were infinite stars for them to orbit (work that out). If there were infinite stars, then every line of vision would eventually come across a star. Now as the sky is black at night I don't really think that's going to happen, is it?

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

quote:

---

Originally posted by kai:
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination

---

Since just about everyone else has quoted this reference, and since kai failed to note this in his/her original post, and also since nobody else (from what I see) has even put in a word on this, I'd just like to point out that the post was not deemed to be taken seriously, as it originally came from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (though which book in the series fails me) and thus was never meant to be taken seriously, because if one took those books (and their statements therein) seriously, then that person would have to be deemed as a total and utter figment of imagination therein.

And if you understood that, you'd realise it would be a Very Bad Thing™

quote:

---

Originally posted by kai:
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination

---

If not every one of them is inhabited then there is only a certain percent that contain life; but isn’t any percentage of infinity also infinity? Therefore average population is infinity divided by infinity…damn, I forgot where I was going with this.

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Presented in double vision when drunk.

Which only goes to prove that none of us exist except Douglas Adams.
And John Stamos, respectively.

"Dude... mine's broke..."

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

quote:

---

Originally posted by incubus:
If there were infinite stars, then every line of vision would eventually come across a star.

---

This doesn't prove anything. Most of those stars would be too far away to see, so the sky would still be black at night. With a telescope, you can see that there are indeed many stars in areas of the sky that seem "black" without a telescope. For that matter, the Milky Way is nothing more than all the stars of our galaxy viewed sideways, looking towards the center of the galaxy.

GIVEN:
The interactions of even the smallest particles are predictable (i.e. mathematically, which would be a requisite for a GUT)

RESULT:
There can be no life, free will, or anything. Everything as it is today is simply the extrapolation ad infinitum of whatever happened "in the beginning".

I don't think I've explained that clearly enough. . .another way of saying it is that since the same inputs will always give you the same outputs, everything is "pre ordained" in a sense. Even the chemical reactions of atoms and molecules bouncing around inside your head are simply following the "law" of the GUT, and free will and even life are just illusions.

Please shoot holes in this theory because I find it frightening and depressing.

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"Everyone's favorite implement for any task"
------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by cr0bar:
Who believes in the feasability of forming a grand unified theory?

---

I certainly do.

An explanation for those that dont know : bear in mind im very rusty!

Two theories can explain EVERYTHING. The theory of relativity can explain the very large things in existance, the movements of galaxies, everything. But when you get down to sub-atomic levels, this theory breaks down. The other theory which deals with the very small is Quantum theory.

Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is something physicists aspire to formulating, it is a mathematical formula to combine both relativity and quantum theory. ie, explain everything.

Now the way I see it, everything is mathematical. Painful as it may seem, 'cos I hate maths. I definately think there is a GUT out there, we either just lack the mathematical genius to work it out (much in the way the weather behaves; we call it random but it is merely maths we cannot comprehend), or we're looking in the wrong places - the answer may be before our very eyes. I do believe the answer is out there, and I'd be very interested to know what it is!

Mike

------------------
-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

This certainly seems to be the direction that Physics has taken so far. At the end of the nineteenth century, scientists believed that they were on the verge of putting everything in physics together in a way that fit. There were only a few loose ends that still needed to be tied up. And then suddenly, just when they thought they had found out everything... Relativity! Quantum Mechanics! String Theory! All sorts of new things started popping up.

In the same way, scientists trying to find the particles that are the basis of all matter and energy just keep discovering more and more of them. Now it isn't just about the protons, electrons, and neutrons; there are dozens of different particles, plus all of their anti-particles. They keep digging deeper and deeper into the nature of things, but so far everything is just getting more complicated, not simpler.

It seems, from all this, that the universe and whatever laws are behind it are arranged like a series of boxes within boxes, each one opening only to confront us with a still greater set of mysteries...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael:
It seems, from all this, that the universe and whatever laws are behind it are arranged like a series of boxes within boxes, each one opening only to confront us with a still greater set of mysteries...

---

It's all annoying and frustrating. I was hoping that they would have this all figured out by now, so I could get on with my life.

Every time they dig down 2 layers, they figure out how things interact 1 layer down. I'm just waiting until the day they figure out how to make gluons

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael:
It seems, from all this, that the universe and whatever laws are behind it are arranged like a series of boxes within boxes, each one opening only to confront us with a still greater set of mysteries...

---

It's all annoying and frustrating. I was hoping that they would have this all figured out by now, so I could get on with my life.

Every time they dig down 2 layers, they figure out how things interact 1 layer down. I'm just waiting until the day they figure out how to make gluons from iron work together to make gold. Should have had that one together since the 600's.

quote:

---

Originally posted by cr0bar:
I don't believe a GUT can be formulated. Or, if one can, then I'm very depressed:

---

To revive a 2 week old thread...

I tend to believe in the GUT idea. I hate it, but I find it comforting that things are at least a little predictable. I don't want to see that one day that my computer doesn't work anymore because electrons suddenly flow the other direction.

If you read Asimov's [u]Foundation[/u], Harry Seldon (i think that's the right character) roughly postulates that anything can be predicted, given the right mathematics. To prove it, he predicts a moment 500 years into the future, where he knows certain people will be in a room, where he reveals a hologram of himself explaining everything that has happened in the last 500 years, politically, economically, etc. Pretty wierd.

I would love to see Universe 2.0, with the same set of initial conditions, giving me a chance to live my pathetic life again in the exact same way, only a few billion years later.

we look back now and laugh at the 'scientists' that thought the sun was burning coal, and tell people for sure that it hydrogen neuclear reactions or whatever. in 100 years time the scientists of the day will be looking back and laughing "i cant belive those stupid people back then thought the sun hydrogen bla bla". i mean, granted our theory on stars is probably correct, it was just an example. they might be looking back saying "dark matter?!! hahahaha! what f00lz!"

that was a bit longwinded but i think you all get my point

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael:
It seems, from all this, that the universe and whatever laws are behind it are arranged like a series of boxes within boxes, each one opening only to confront us with a still greater set of mysteries...[/B]

---

Solve this with a quote rom the beginning of Book 2, "The Restaurant at the end of the universe" :

" There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will
instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already
happened. "

quote:

---

Originally posted by cr0bar:
I don't believe a GUT can be formulated. Or, if one can, then I'm very depressed:

[b]GIVEN:
The interactions of even the smallest particles are predictable (i.e. mathematically, which would be a requisite for a GUT)

RESULT:
There can be no life, free will, or anything. Everything as it is today is simply the extrapolation ad infinitum of whatever happened "in the beginning".

I don't think I've explained that clearly enough. . .another way of saying it is that since the same inputs will always give you the same outputs, everything is "pre ordained" in a sense. Even the chemical reactions of atoms and molecules bouncing around inside your head are simply following the "law" of the GUT, and free will and even life are just illusions.
[/B]

---

And again, this is the principle behind the "Total Perspective Vortex", innit?

" The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain - since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula - for that was his name - was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake. ''Have some sense of proportion!'' she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex - just to show her. And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of
proportion. "

Mike

------------------
-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

While I have read the HHGTTG "trilogy", when I first read about the Total Perspective Vortex i was about eight years old and the significance was lost on me (I preferred the humor inherent in 'Slartibartfast').

So, that wasn't the basis of my post. Still, just because it's amusing when Douglas Adams writes about it doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to it. . .

1) I post this message... the Earth hasn't changed orbit any more than had I not...

2) I post this message... 200 years from now the ??? is invented just as easily as had I not...

3) I post this message... a rock on Mars hasn't changed any more than had I not...

i was in a very serious car accident recently. if we had have left 2 seconds earlier, or 2 seconds later, we would have avoided it totally, even though we were about 40 minutes into the trip when the accident happened. if i had have stopped to scratch my nuts before getting in the car, it might have avoided the whole situation. it might have meant that we were hit worse and died, you never know, BUT that would have been something i would never have realised. get it?

sorry i am always so longwinded but the english language is so damn inadequate. even though i dont speak any others

This message has been edited by fatbitch on October 08, 2000 at 11:09 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by fatbitch:
i belive the opposite - every little thing we do now effects profoudly ont he future, but the thing is, we can't measure these changes or calculate them, so don't worry about the difference it will make if you scratch your ass now as opposed to scratching your nuts. this may mean the difference in destrucion of the whole human race 1000 years from now... or it may not

---

I'm sort of the opposite on this. Instead of subsribing to a Chaos type theory, I subscribe to what I call (because I'm not very creative) a Smoothing Out theory. To use your car accident example, in the short term, yes. If somebody else had left 2 seconds later, it could have been a major accident involving other people... etc among infinite permutations.

However, in 200 years, how much difference would it make if (God Forbid) you had died in the accident, or if someone else had. The effect becomes majorly localized. For example, if Alexander Graham Bell hadn't invented the telephone system, somebody else probably would have shortly afterwards.

My thought, scratching your nuts vs. ass makes a localized effect in time extending roughly a few hours. If nothing happens to compound this effect, then it is lost.

A few years ago I would have agreed with fatbitch, but recently I'm with askheaves. People make themselfs out to be so important when in general they have very little significance in the future. DNA doesn't predict a persons future, so by definition almost any sperm born in your place could have just have easily filled the same role that you do. And if it didn't no one would have really noticed!
Let's say Hitler hadn't killed a ton of Jews (and lets not get into Hitler... this is just an example). People say that their families would have gone much further etc. But there's balance in nature and had they survived someone else would have died in their place and it wouldn't make that much of a difference 2000 years later.

Think of it like this... 1 second later DEAD or NOT DEAD. 10 years later MABEY he MIGHT have had a family or he DEFINATELY DIDN'T have one. 100 years later MABEY if he did have a family his kids MIGHT have lived successfully or MABEY they didn't and mabey they weren't born in the first place or the original guy died. 1000 years from now there's so many mabeys that it smooths over alot of significance that it could have had. That's not to say that some one can't change ALOT, but EVENTUALLY it all ends in the same place.
If one guy blows up the planet... chances are that someone else had the same idea and was going to do that anyway.

Don't delude yourself! Dilute yourself!

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P:\erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

This message has been edited by PersonGuy on October 09, 2000 at 11:14 AM

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
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I'm not saying that the car accident couldn't have been avoided... sure, it could have not happened just as easliy as it did. The point is that either way nobody is going to care 100 years from now.

I'm not smart enough to do it, but I'm sure there's a mathamatical formula for time that shows that the more time that passes the less a factor effects it or something...

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
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quote:

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Originally posted by askheaves:
it's just me farting in my living room

---

Ah, so it was you that caused those snow flurries that we had up here last weekend! When you opened every window in your house to get rid of the smell, you altered the wind patterns ever so slightly; this effect was multiplied by the chaotic and turbulent nature of wind patters, to the point where we got a wet air mass rather than a dry one drifting over MN a couple years later...

My point is, since chaotic effects cannot be predicted, there is no scientific proof that effects multiply with time. But it is well documented that in any complex chaotic system, the slightest changes can have a large impact later on. If the slightest coincidence has a big enough impact to change the course of a person's life, they are then going to meet different people, travel different places, change different lives than they otherwise would have changed. And all the people, places, events that they have changed will effect still more changes, and those even more.

Besides, if you argue that random chance has no effect on history, you would have to further conclude that human actions and free will have had no effect either. After all, coincidences have had almost as much effect on history and deliberate actions. Practically every major scientific discovery is based on coincidence.

Therefore, if the effects of any changes in the world are smoothed out over time, there is no free will. Human history has already been written, and if you take away one of the key actors, another will take the stage in their place. Similarly all of the props can be interchanged without having to deviate from the script. if this is the case, everything that hapens in life would be pre-determined.

Ironially, if you want to believe that anyone has any control over what happens in the world, you also have to believe that all of history is governed by random chance and that the smallest changes can indeed have large repercussions. How could any individual hope to make a difference?

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael:
Ah, so it was you that caused those snow flurries that we had up here last weekend!

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Actually, it was a time 5 years ago, while living in Minnesota, that I farted... causing your flurries. BTW: they came little early this year, eh? It's about 75 degrees here in AZ, sucker!

quote:

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But it is well documented that in any complex chaotic system, the slightest changes can have a large impact later on.

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The thing most chaos theorists forget is that a butterfly flapping its wings in China is not the only event happening in the world. I guarantee you that if that was the only thing happening, it would not make San Francisco go under the ocean. My point is that, like water droplets hitting a still pond during a spring shower, insignificant little events are happening everywhere at all times.

quote:

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Besides, if you argue that random chance has no effect on history, you would have to further conclude that human actions and free will have had no effect either. After all, coincidences have had almost as much effect on history and deliberate actions. Practically every major scientific discovery is based on coincidence.

---

When the events are random, their size and scope are random. When events are deliberate, the scope and magnitude are somewhat controlled by the initiator. It is the combination of many events, either cancelling or complimenting each other like a sound wave, that cause major shifts in the world. This is where coincidence and dumb luck come in. The very meaning of the word 'coincidence' is that multiple things happen at the same time. The common meaning implies that these events are not related on their own, but become related when they occur simultaneously.

quote:

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Ironially (sic), if you want to believe that anyone has any control over what happens in the world, you also have to believe that all of history is governed by random chance and that the smallest changes can indeed have large repercussions. How could any individual hope to make a difference?

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I am a borderline existentialist. I am pretty confident that no matter what minute events unfold, we are going to follow the same general course. If you're meant to do something great for the world, you probably will without too much pushing or prodding.

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
do you remember what you at July 23 1994 for breakfast? Or has it stopped affecting your life at this point?? Mabey it was bacon... mabey it was eggs... Are you a different person because of it? Even if you are, does anyone care? Will anyone look at your grave and cry out, "He should have had pancakes!!!"

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my point was that the little decisions we make now can profoundly effect the future, but of course it is impossible to predict these or look back and say "well, what if i had had pancakes?" because there are so many variables in our lives that make such a minute difference, btu its still a difference

on another matter, i really dont know what i am talking about, i wish i had have been awake while all those previous posts were made, then i might have been able to join in. timezone differences suck

askheaves and personguy did make very good points, but so did the others arguring my side (or their variations of my side). i find it all too complex to really care that much, its a very interesting discussion, but not one thats gonna make a difference to me

You DO have free will, but you can only be so significant. I never said that everything would turn out EXACLTY the same with different people filling the roles. Especially not at first. But because of the way (for example) natural selection works. Things never get too crazy or unusual.

I'm not saying you don't have good points. Your theory is as good as mine, and either way we'll both be doing the same thing whichever we belive in. (isn't that closer to my point than yours?)

WAIT! SUDDEN FLASH OF GENIOUS HERE!!! Bwa ha ha... ok, the chaos theory basically says that the more time that passes the bigger the change... right? One exhale today is a hurricane tomorrow... right? Then wouldn't at the actual moment of the event practily NOTHING occure!?!? Like if I punch some guy in the face, why does he feel it immidiately??? Shouldn't his nose break tomorrow when things have gotten more chaotic?

OISH!

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

Now apply above example to existence(as in things existing and having reactions to actions affecting them). What if freak things like being 2 seconds too early/late is really just undetected errors in the entity I'll call Existence(comparable to the computer system in my example above; ie it is comprised of everything and anything that is in existence in this universe/plane/reality whatever we live in)? And though an error such as a car accident may seem small and trivial in the grand scheme of Existence because it only happens to a very small number of parts of Existence, those parts are now changed. They may change from ordinary parts of Existance into extraordinary parts, or vice versa.

As I'm starting to lose myself in all this I'll summarize and bring up what i think are the major points:
1. Are there error dectection and correction "protocols" in existence and used by Existence to protect and maintain the contined operation of Existence?
2. If there are error dectection/correction capabilities in Existence, what if "freak" accidents or events are really just errors that were not detected or corrected by the Existances safegaurds?
3. How much effect does a corrupted part have on the rest of Existence and can this be nullified or corrected?
4. If there are no error decection/correction capabilities explicity used in Existence, are there some used implicitly by the very nature of the way things interact?

I think I've rambled long enough, and I apologize if this seems half-baked to you(it does to me), but this is my first post here at DetNet and my first post in a forum in a long while and I'm trying not to think about the homework I'm supposed to be doing..blah blah blah...ok I'll shut up now.

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
I'm not saying you don't have good points. Your theory is as good as mine, and either way we'll both be doing the same thing whichever we belive in.

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yep :)

quote:

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(isn't that closer to my point than yours?)

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i dunno, probably :)

quote:

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WAIT! SUDDEN FLASH OF GENIOUS HERE!!! :) :D Bwa ha ha... ok, the chaos theory basically says that the more time that passes the bigger the change... right? One exhale today is a hurricane tomorrow... right? Then wouldn't at the actual moment of the event practily NOTHING occure!?!? Like if I punch some guy in the face, why does he feel it immidiately??? Shouldn't his nose break tomorrow when things have gotten more chaotic?

---

there is still some time between when you punch him and when he feels it, granted, its not much time, but its still there. other than that i really don't know where youre going with that point :)

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
Like if I punch some guy in the face, why does he feel it immidiately??? Shouldn't his nose break tomorrow when things have gotten more chaotic?

---

You can't argue backwards like that. Besides, the point is that the effect of any even starts out very localized, and spreads. A hurricane isn't really a bigger event than a single strong wind, it's just a lot of small events acting in concert on a much larger scale.

At any rate, my basic argument is this: if small events do not have large effects, then all of history is pre-determined, because it is only the really big things (human nature, global climate, etc.) which effect history. This would mean that nothing that we can do will have any effect on the world. And yet there are authors from millenia ago whose writings still influence history, and effects from similarly far back which have echoed throughout history to the present day and still influence our lives.

quote:

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PersonGuy said:
Like if I punch some guy in the face, why does he feel it immidiately???

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Actually, he would not feel it immediately. Such is the nature of human cognitive awareness. Nothing we see, feel, hear, smell, taste, or touch happens immediately. Take for example a hot stove. You touch it, but it takes a split second before you yell, "ow!." This is because the nerves in your hand have to send the signal of pain to your brain, which analyzes the problem and decides that the heat will damage the body. The brain then orders the hand to pull away or recieve excruciating pain.

The real question is (very reminiscent of Kant) what happens during that split second of mental processing? Are we really feeling pain? Is the stove really hot? How do we really know that the animalistic brain is not malfunctioning? Of course, 3rd degree burns may not be the best example, but we can carry this same argument over to sight. How do you know that the det.net logo is really yellow? What is yellow, besides an image your eyes relay to your brain, which tells you it is in front of you? What if the human eye is a flawed device, and cows really see the yellow det.net logo as a big blob of relative red characters? Better yet, what if my yellow is your blue?

The point is, nothing you see is absolute truth. You are at the mercy of you sensory organs and your mental cognition to give you a view of life. For all we know, there's a being out there that can see light photons (which is definitely feasible, seeing how we have infra-red optical devices). Anyhow, since we don't know the limits to our sensory awareness, we can never say humans know everything...from seeing the bounds of the universe to positively analyzing the physics of Earth.

This message has been edited by whiskey@throttle on October 09, 2000 at 10:10 PM

quote:

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Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
The point is, nothing you see is absolute truth. You are at the mercy of you sensory organs and your mental cognition to give you a view of life.

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You're somewhat off topic, but anyways...

If we all perceive the same thing to be true, we at least have a consensus about this element of reality. Therefore, it doesn't matter if the world we live in is an imaginary world, as long as we share that imaginary world with everyone else. If life is a delusion, yet we cannot escape from it, we might as well treat that delusion as a reality.

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
I'm sure there's a mathamatical formula for time that shows that the more time that passes the less a factor effects it or something...

---

As a big believer in chaos theory and related topics, I would have to disagree with you. A very minor change can have a huge impact on the future, both for you as a person and for the planet as a whole. For example, several of the friends that I have now are people that I would ever have met were it not for some coincidence. Also, if I hadn't, through a computer error, managed to sign up for a class that I wasn't supposed to take, and if I hadn't been forced to choose a different class once all my first choices were taken, I might never have gotten such a fun class as I am in now.

If Attila the Hun hadn't died unexpectedly from a brain hemorrhege, the political geometry of Europe might be quite different. If Columbus had died in his voyage and never returned, America would have been discovered much later and probably by a different country. Any small occurence can have, over time, a vast impact on history.

Of course, it's not especially encouraging to think that your life is the product of a series of coincidences, and that you could easily be somewhere else entirely if things had turned out slightly different. But life is indeed governed by chance. The effects of a change will multiply over time, rather than being smoothed out. History is clearly the result of small coincidences which had huge effects later on. But are they meaningless coincidences, or is there a purpose behind them?

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael:
[BThe effects of a change will multiply over time, rather than being smoothed out. History is clearly the result of small coincidences which had huge effects later on. But are they meaningless coincidences, or is there a purpose behind them?[/B]

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The biggest reason I disagree with this is such: how many events of the significance of a brain hemorrage in a random person have happened over the last 12000 years? Probably millions-billions of brain hemorrages. We can't say that any random brain hemorrage could alter the face of Europe today. The random brain hemorrage, combined with Attila being such a great leader, with Attila having such a penchant for killings and such, etc... all combined to make this a significant event.

Maybe a computer error put Attila into a fun class, but he didn't get into his anger management class like he was supposed to.

The point PersonGuy and I make is that an insignificant event will occur, but only have a small radius of effect. It is the combination of insignificant events occurring within a close enough radius that either compliment or disrupt each other. When enough of these come together, significance can be generated... but most of the time, it's just me farting in my living room and nobody caring.

quote:

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Better yet, what if my yellow is your blue?

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How true. Something that we cannot very easily determine. Of course, science would tell you that black is black is black, no matter who views it. But blue grass would look kinda funny

Hmm, so is the det.net logo yellow if no one is here to view it? <grin>

O yeah, and I finally got my site going. I am going to get a message board up soon where I hope people can discuss things of this nature < http://www.rabid-wolf.com >

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< www.rabid-wolf.com : Food for your brain >
Lead (only) developer of Data-Admin: < http://dadmin.sourceforge.net >

quote:

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Better yet, what if my yellow is your blue?

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How true. Something that we cannot very easily determine. Of course, science would tell you that black is black is black, no matter who views it. But blue grass would look kinda funny

Hmm, so is the det.net logo yellow if no one is here to view it? <grin>

O yeah, and I finally got my site going. I am going to get a message board up soon where I hope people can discuss things of this nature < http://www.rabid-wolf.com >

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< www.rabid-wolf.com : Food for your brain >
Lead (only) developer of Data-Admin: < http://dadmin.sourceforge.net >

secondly, i have always wondered about colour perception myself. is the yellow i percieve of the detnet logo the same yellow that others percieve? i guess i will never know, and that sux cause it would be really interesting to find out

but what interests me more are thoughts. i mean, i think in english (well, i think i think in english ) but i also think that i get "concepts" in my brain and then they are converted to english thought

so my question is, what 'language' does a totally multilingual person think in? i mean not a learned language, but say you had grown up speaking english and spanish. i have a friend who (very rarely) will be talking to her mum or someone on the phone in spanish, then forget to go out of 'spanish mode' and start jabbering to me in spanish, and doesnt realise until i say something. so what language do you think in?

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Metal/Electronic/Ambient etc..
< http://www.mp3.com/fatbitch >

Whew, and to solve the new topic of my "blue = your yellow." We KNOW this isn't true, because if a guy is born with sight and slowly goes blind, and then gets one of those new sight helmet things (YES!!! THEY DO EXIST!!!), because of the way that it trasmits to the brain, it would have given him the scientists perception of yellow... however, they impared never sees a difference because everyone has the same perception of yellow. (I know that sounded confusing, but) Get it?

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<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

My point was, the world also has a repair system. Foot steps don't get bigger... they cover over because of erotion (for example). And the world can be effected just like the body... shoot someone enough and the eventually die. There is a point of no repair for everything and the DOES include the future (but only to a certain degree... a certain radius).

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P:\erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
< http://www.personguy.com >

This message has been edited by PersonGuy on October 10, 2000 at 10:53 AM

Given: at any given instant the Universe contains a near-infinite number of particles.

Given: Any one of those particles may be in any one of infinite locations and have any of infinite different speeds and directions at which it is travelling.

Therefore: the atoms in the universe could be arranged in an infinite different number of permutations.

Assume: there exists a set of "time lines" which consists of all the possible paths that the universe could have taken since the Big bang.

Therefore: for any given event, the time line splits based on whether or not that event occurs. The universes created in this split differ from each other, even if only in very slight ways.

Therefore: Since each of these new universes is only one out of an infinite number of possible universes, the probability that one will converge to the other is infinitely small. Therefore, the differences, however small, will persist.

Therefore: when an event happens, that event permanently and irrevocably changes the state of the universe from how it would have been if that event had not occurred. These differences are then free to become minimized (but not eliminated) over time, or to expand and multiply over time. However, since the differences can never be completely eliminated, in an infinite amount of time they must, at some point, expand rather than being minimized, and thus all events will eventually have some significant impact on the future.

quote:

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Michael wrote:
You're somewhat off topic, but anyways...

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Yeah. But I didn't want to read everything and still felt the urge to add to this thread.

quote:

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If we all perceive the same thing to be true, we at least have a consensus about this element of reality. Therefore, it doesn't matter if the world we live in is an imaginary world, as long as we share that imaginary world with everyone else. If life is a delusion, yet we cannot escape from it, we might as well treat that delusion as a reality.

---

First off all, your whole conclusion is based on a big if. As we have been musing over the whole color perception debate, I think we should take in mind that this unilaterally shared imagination issue you brought up may not be the case. Additionally, we, as a species, have not had a historical consensus over the understanding of reality. Cognitive opinion over the philosophical quest for universal truth has rabidly varied over the teachings of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Spinoza, Hume, Berkeley, and so on. (Perhaps this is due to variations in human cognizance?) Thus, I believe your conclusion is arrived from faulty logic: since we do not have a consensus about reality, it may be a good idea to tackle the notion of a human ill-conception, rather than ignore our human inefficiencies as mere delusion.

Let's say Joe, the cocksure neanderthal, plans to overclock his cpu. Joe, who knows nothing about computers, has 1 hour to complete the process by following a rough outline of how to accomplish the procedure. He tries, and achieves moderate success...until the processor melts. Sure, there is no way Joe could have learned everything about computers in the time allotted, but understanding that there is a large dimension of understanding beyond his cognition would have helped. Joe, a) could have turned to someone who knows more than him, or b) changed his outlook towards the need for an overclocked cpu, considering his chances with success.

Anyhow, to expand on Hiro's point, take for example, a pair of red glasses. When wearing the red glasses, everything you see exists between the shades of light pink and deep crimson. There is no blue. There is no green. Just red. Now, imagine if you were born with a type of vision that limited your eyesight to such a spectrum. How would you ever know the difference? How would this affect your outlook on reality?

The point: it is vital that we conceive the possibility that this may be the case with us humans. Though it may appear that we comprehend all that passes through our sensory awareness, we may be seeing only that which lies between a very minute range of possibilities. To pass this potential situation off by rationalizing that we all live in relative ignorance, is not a wise choice, for we are then dooming ourselves to such ignorance and forcing ourselves to remain closed minded about the true possibilities of the universe.

quote:

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Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
First off all, your whole conclusion is based on a big [b]if. As we have been musing over the whole color perception debate, I think we should take in mind that this unilaterally shared imagination issue you brought up may not be the case. Additionally, we, as a species, have not had a historical consensus over the understanding of reality.[/B]

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I'm not talking about the understanding of reality. Nor am I saying that what human perceive is definitely true. What I am saying is that all human beings with normal vision will agree that the color of the detonate.net logo is yellow. They may not agree on the exact shade of yellow, but they nevertheless are all seeing the same thing.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael:
all human beings with normal vision will agree that the color of the detonate.net logo is yellow

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they will all agree that the colour they see is the one they call yellow, but it may be different for any other person. but really, this doesn't matter at all, it is very interesting tho

i was also gonna ask about how a nonlingual person thinks, but it slipped my mind

all this stuff that you guys are talking about - mainly whiskey@throttle - goes straight over my head, i'm really sorry i don't understand it cause it sounds incredibly interesting

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Metal/Electronic/Ambient etc..
< http://www.mp3.com/fatbitch >

This message has been edited by fatbitch on October 10, 2000 at 09:43 PM

quote:

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Originally posted by fatbitch:
i was also gonna ask about how a nonlingual person thinks, but it slipped my mind

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A psychologist named Benjamin Whorf has a theory that people are unable to think about anything that they do not have a name for. He actually took this so far as to claim that in a culture with no word for murder, it is impossible for a person to contemplate killing someone else because they have no word for that action. This is similar to Orwell's "1984" where the "newspeak" language has such a limited vocabulary that it becomes impossible to express dissident thoughts.

A person who never learned a language, such as a "feral child" brought up by animals or in complete seclusion, would be unable to express thought. However, they would still have some thoughts, even if only as emotions. Still, given the human brain's innate ability for language and abstract thinking, my theory is that a person raised without a language would develop their own mental language for representing things.

Rhydant said we are a virus(in Rants, under Christopher Columbus). What if we really ARE? Stay with me.. but what if we really are just a small part of something much much bigger. What if the Earth, is really just one cell, or group of cells of some much larger being?
Just think about it, do you really think Bacteria, or Virus have any idea that we exist? They feed off us, but that is just what they do, our body develops ways to kill them off, they adapt 'evolve' if you will. Natural Disaters kill thousands, millions and we adapt to protect ourselves from them, to keep reproducing and spreading.
Another thing.. do you think Bacteria sense time the same as we do? They multiply at nearly 1 per second, but I'll bet things seem longer to them.

okay now I'm just rambling, but I think my point got more or less made

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When my flying days are over, and my death has come to pass
I hope they bury me upside down, so the whole damn world can kiss my ass

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael:
A psychologist named Benjamin Whorf has a theory that people are unable to think about anything that they do not have a name for.

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The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis isn't taken very seriously these days. Studies done on cross-cultural color perception have revealed that < humans generally categorize colors in the same manner >, even if they don't have terms for the same colors of the spectrum (Note: this does not mean that we all have equivalent subjective perceptions of color).

quote:

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Still, given the human brain's innate ability for language and abstract thinking, my theory is that a person raised without a language would develop their own mental language for representing things.

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The best documented cases of feral children are Victor (aka The Wild Boy of Aveyron), and Genie. Both of these children were found in their adolescence. Both grew up without any exposure to human language. And even with extensive subsequent training, both remained unable, throughout their lives, to produce grammatically correct sentences and achieve cognitive development beyond the level of trained chimpanzees. It seems that there is very little that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (A long period of neural plasticity, and the capacity for constructing grammatical sentences. That's about it. And souls of course. Musn't forget about the souls).

Additional Reading Material

• < A concise introduction to language acquisition >
  
• < A transcript from a PBS special about Genie >
  

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
Whew, and to solve the new topic of my "blue = your yellow." We KNOW this isn't true, because if a guy is born with sight and slowly goes blind, and then gets one of those new sight helmet things ... because of the way that it trasmits to the brain, it would have given him the scientists perception of yellow... however, they impared never sees a difference because everyone has the same perception of yellow.

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We still don't know how his brain has chosen to interpret the signals that are being sent. We can never know for certain. So it could still be the case that the qualitative nature of his yellow could be like your blue. In cognitive science this is known as the problem of < qualia >; it's a major problem, bound up with consciousness and all sorts of messy stuff. You haven't solved it.

quote:

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so my question is, what 'language' does a totally multilingual person think in? ... i have a friend who (very rarely) will be talking to her mum or someone on the phone in spanish, then forget to go out of 'spanish mode' and start jabbering to me in spanish, and doesnt realise until i say something. so what language do you think in?

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Ask her yourself. She'll probably tell you that it depends. I have bilingual friend who thinks in french when she does math, and thinks in english for other stuff. Same for my mother; depending on what concepts she's dealing with, she might think in her native tongue or it might be in English (my mom's an interesting case though. In her day-to-day interactions she deals almost exclusively in English, and now she says that she dreams in English).

quote:

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but what interests me more are thoughts. i mean, i think in english (well, i think i think in english ) but i also think that i get "concepts" in my brain and then they are converted to english thought.

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Do some reading up on Noam Chomsky. His linguistic theories are probably a bit outdated now, but they're a good starting point. Specifically, I think what you'd be interested in are his linguistic writings on universal grammar (try Syntactic Structures, or do a web search). His writings discuss the 'conversion' process that you speak of, although, he extends the model to encompass all thought, believing that all our thoughts start from a 'conceptual' level.

quote:

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What about people that don't really know a language,or say chimps. How do they think? I'd guess they visualize everything or something..

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Chimpanzees are interesting. It's theorized that they think in a sort of protolanguage. Scientists have drawn this conclusion based on their attempts to teach chimps (both of the regular and the pygmy variety) language. Pygmy chimpanzees (aka bonobos) can be trained to understand sentences, and to communicate in 3-word 'sentences'. However, they can't get much beyond that. Seemingly because they lack a hard-wired capacity to use the rules of grammar. Anyhow, if you're interested in primate communication, do a search on Kanzi and < Sue Savage Rumbaugh >. There's some intereresting work being done in the area of primate linguistics.

Anyhow, I always imagined our solar system's planets as electrons moving around the sun...a nucleus. As you move on galactic scales, the atomic structure seems more apparent. It's always a trip to imagine that we are subatomic particals that make up an insignificant molecule in some grandiose being's world. And that being's world makes up another's, et cetera....

I was going to say something more relevant, but I'm too tired to remember.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael:
Do other animals have discussions between themselves on the nature of existence? Are other animals self-aware and able to spend time contemplating their place in the universe?

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What a bunch of hubris. It's all boils down to question of degree. In kind, there is little (if anything) to distinguish us from our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees. With respect to your questions:

Q. Do other animals communicate with each other?
A. Yes.
Q. About the nature of existence?
A. Perhaps not, but it is certainly the case that chimpanzees culturally transmit something akin to primitive religion. Certain tribes of chimpanzees act out displays known as < 'rain-dances' > before thunderstorms. The males perform coordinated displays, they shake branches, charge around, and act in a manner suggesting general awe. Take particular note that this this behaviour only exists among certain groups (i.e. it is a socially transmitted phenomenon).

Q. Are other animals self-aware?
A. Define self-aware.

quote:

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As for feral children, just because you can treat someone like an animal and by doing so convince them to act like an animal doesn't mean that they couldn't have been more than that.

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Actually, abused feral children have been known to be rehabilitated. However, in all cases of rehabilitation, the children were prepubescent, and their minds still plastic and responsive to molding. Follow that link I posted about language acquisition. It explains the issues in more detail.

This message has been edited by The_Hiro on October 11, 2000 at 04:05 AM

quote:

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Originally posted by The_Hiro:
The best documented cases of feral children are Victor (aka The Wild Boy of Aveyron), and Genie. Both of these children were found in their adolescence. Both grew up without any exposure to human language. And even with extensive subsequent training, both remained unable, throughout their lives, to produce grammatically correct sentences and achieve cognitive development beyond the level of trained chimpanzees.

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I read a fascinating series of books called "Geodessy" by Piers Anthony (fantastic writer) and his theories relating to the evolution of human speech are thus:

up until a few tens of thousand years ago, we talked in a sort of 'pidgin' language (i'll just say english for the sake of the argument) where they would say stuff like "come" or "hunt food" or "woman sex" or whatever, you get the idea, very broken, purely conceptual speech with no adverbs (is that the right term? if its not you know what i mean) and then one day (well, over a period of time) a bunch of children (up to three or four years old) were put together (this was unusual cause the children usually just stuck to the parents) for a few years, and because they weren't properly learned in the adults mode of speech, they took it and then added their own 'in-between' words and in basically one generation human language was revolutionised.

the children (who by this time weren't really children anymore) couldn't understand why the adults couldn't learn their mode of speech, so just left them to be thinking them primitive and unsophisticated. this is similar to what was being said about feral children not being able to get a proper grip on our mode of language.

anyway, i dont know what the point of this post was, but its certainly interesting. i don't have the books handy so some of the information might be a bit off, but you get that :)

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This message has been edited by fatbitch on October 11, 2000 at 05:12 AM

As far as all this people/animals thinking/talking... idano.

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As for the feral children - they do not rehabilitate well because the early stages of their life, also known as the "imprinting" period, are clouded with a more primitive cognition. The first six months to one year of the humans life are/is very critical to the development of a child. If you spend this time amongst primates, you will always have primate tendencies. If you spend this time in high society, you will be more accustomed to contemporary culture as you grow. In essence, prenatal bonding is important. As Winicott said (noted on the following link), "there's no such thing as a baby," rather it's more of a mother/baby emotional and psychological unit.

Sure, a child can be instinctively brought back to human society, and regain bonds with other people. However, when the imprinting period of a child's life leads the kid to believe that his mother is a wolf, you are going to have inevitable problems down the road.

< Here's the related topic. >

A philosopher (Danto maybe? i don't remember) claims that humans thing in metaphors. We take everything in around us through our senses and convert it to an internal metaphor language We can take aural stimulation (kinky!) in the form of words, convert them to our internal language that associates that word with other things that we understand.
Example, hear the word hamburger, and a picture comes to mind, a smell, maybe the sounds of the last commercial you saw for a burger, maybe there should be cheese on it, maybe ketchup, maybe mayonaisse (ew), etc... point is, there is a lot associated with this because it's been burned into our brains.
If somebody explains the Salisbury steak to you, you think: hmm... it's like a hamburger without a bun... picture, smell, sounds, cheese, etc...
When poor ferel boy is brought to his foster family, he doesn't have this huge set of ingrained metaphors to draw from when forming a basis for language.

/side steps for a seconds
Did you know that there's actually a way to ALWAYS win in tic-tac-toe? Out of all the possibilities, there is a way you can garauntee a win?
/steps back for the analogy
Logic and math are the rules that always have an exact answer and always behave in a certain way. Lets say GUT is the Xs, always going for the win. And free will is the Os, doing whatever... random or stratigized... doesn't mater. It's always going to end with a winner for the Xs. Sometimes it goes a different way than planned, but GUT confensates.

My point is that things aren't just BOUNCING around... there's rules involved. And even if they were just bounce, time could easily meet at a fork. A simple example is every particle moves right, then moves left meets at the same place as every particle moves left, then moves right.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ (it's midnight... sleep tight!)

quote:

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Originally posted by The_Hiro:
It seems that there is very little that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom

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Do other animals have discussions between themselves on the nature of existence? Are other animals self-aware and able to spend time contemplating their place in the universe? I don't know; I don't think that anyone has ever asked an animal that and gotten an answer...

As for feral children, just because you can treat someone like an animal and by doing so convince them to act like an animal doesn't mean that they couldn't have been more than that.

quote:

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Originally posted by PersonGuy:
Did you know that there's actually a way to ALWAYS win in tic-tac-toe?

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No there isn't.

However, you could easily support your theory by the analogy that there is only one board configuration for a tied game of tic-tac-toe. Similarly, whether in the "Big Crunch" or through heat death, the Universe will look pretty much the same in the end no matter what we do.

Despite that (and now I switch back to arguing my point) even the slightest differences in the universe could cause the next Big Bang to happen in a slightly different way. (of course I wasn't there when it happened, so I don't really know...) The Big Bang was not completely uniform, but rather was highly chaotic, which is the reason that we live in an interesting universe rather than a uniform-density expanding ball of gas.

As for your argument about all the atoms in the universe moving to one side and then the other, technically this is the same as nothing moving at all from a relativistic standpoint, so all situations where the atoms do not move in relation to each other are equivalent; in any where they do move, there will of course be an ever so slight gravitational effect that will remain even if the atom that moved moves back to its original position.

And to refute your final statement about "ZZZzzzz" it's 2:15 here and I have a 9:00 class, so I should get to sleep too...

quote:

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Originally posted by askheaves:
When poor ferel boy is brought to his foster family, he doesn't have this huge set of ingrained metaphors to draw from when forming a basis for language.

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It isn't just a matter of not having experences to draw on; a "feral" child literally does not have the mental capacity for language because those neural pathways have atrophied through lack of use. If a child does not learn any language in the first 8 years of their life, they will never be able to learn. However, if you learn at least one language during this time, you are developing areas of your brain that will let you learn other languages later.