The Geek Forum
Main Forums => Political Opinions => Topic started by: TeraHammer on November 06, 2006, 10:41:33 PM
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(Assuming the universe is limited)
Will we, at any time in our future, know everything there is to know? About physics, health, pickles, etc etc? Or will there be new explorations to pursue time after time?
Being as student physics myself, I know we derive things with merely approximations on how things work. Like gravitation; first it was Archimedes who found out that object with greater weight fall quicker. Galileo discovered that resistance is the cause of difference in fall speed. Newton then quantitized gravitation, who was corrected again by Einstein's general relativity.
Were does this stop? Will we ever know the TRUTH how things work, exactly?
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No.
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I cuncur with ivan. Not only is there just plain too damn much to understand, great yonks of it are simply beyond human comprehension.
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Or if we do know everything there is to know in a few hundred thousand years from now (assuming the human species is still around), we will always think that there is more that we can know.
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I cuncur with ivan. Not only is there just plain too damn much to understand, great yonks of it are simply beyond human comprehension.
That's a rather negative view on humanity. What if we evolve in more intelligent creatures? Plus, check out our scientific progress in the past 1000 years...
Or if we do know everything there is to know in a few hundred thousand years from now (assuming the human species is still around), we will always think that there is more that we can know.
Thats not right. If science can prove this is all there is in our universe, than this is all there is, and nobody can deny it. Vigorous scientists might pursue alternatives, but if something works all the time and everywhere in every state, then science is done. Even religion will be banished then.
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Yeah, religious crap...
I see everything that goes on here, by the way.
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I edit a lot. I'm finished with my post now though :wink:
Though I do think it is lame you hide yourself.
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Everything you know is wrong.
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That's a rather negative view on humanity. What if we evolve in more intelligent creatures? Plus, check out our scientific progress in the past 1000 years...
Thats not right. If science can prove this is all there is in our universe, than this is all there is, and nobody can deny it. Vigorous scientists might pursue alternatives, but if something works all the time and everywhere in every state, then science is done. Even religion will be banished then.
It's actually not a negative view on humanity, so much as a fundamental fact of being physical beings. I was alluding to the four dimensional structure of space-time, among other things, which is literally impossible to comprehend. It's like trying to jam a bowling ball into a box of matches without removing the matches or something.
Actually people CAN deny things that science has shown are as logical and backed up with fact as things can be, and we call this Creationism.
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Well, your first point was that we are assuming the universe is limited.
Therefor, if we have an infinite amount of time, we don't get wiped out, and our knowledge isn't lost (meaning we keep improving, and don't have to worry about some wierd accident where all knowledge is lost) there should be no reason for us to not eventually know everything. Even if we did lose what we knew, with an infinite amount of time and our survival, we should be able to eventually get there.
While it is quite possible, even likely, that by this point we will have been genetically modifying ourselves, as well as evolving, it is hard to say what our limits will be in the future.
As for space/time, we're actually getting better at understanding space, and I see no reason for us to have a better understanding of time as well. At one point, gravity was a mysterious unknown force that influenced us but was beyond our comprehension, at least until someone put together the pieces.
Seems a bit disjointed to me, but it's almost 2:30 and I need to go to sleep for classes. Oh well.
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Even religion will be banished then.
Faith does not preclude reason, nor visa versa. (Though there are certainly enough on both sides of the thought that believe otherwise)
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It's actually not a negative view on humanity, so much as a fundamental fact of being physical beings. I was alluding to the four dimensional structure of space-time, among other things, which is literally impossible to comprehend. It's like trying to jam a bowling ball into a box of matches without removing the matches or something.
Actually people CAN deny things that science has shown are as logical and backed up with fact as things can be, and we call this Creationism.
4 dimensional space-time is not too difficult to comprehend; the fact that we can't picture an 4D object does not mean we can't derive how it works. Cults denying science will come over eventually. Take the catholic church and the earth rotating around the sun businness.
Well, your first point was that we are assuming the universe is limited.
Therefor, if we have an infinite amount of time, we don't get wiped out, and our knowledge isn't lost (meaning we keep improving, and don't have to worry about some wierd accident where all knowledge is lost) there should be no reason for us to not eventually know everything. Even if we did lose what we knew, with an infinite amount of time and our survival, we should be able to eventually get there.[
Nothing if the amount of knowledge is infinite.
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While it is quite possible, even likely, that by this point we will have been genetically modifying ourselves, as well as evolving, it is hard to say what our limits will be in the future.
I just want frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads!
But you do have a point. And not only will we modify ourselves genitically, but I see us becoming more like the borg collective in the future.
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Even religion will be banished then.
I don't think so.
The perfect knowledge that you describe will only perpetuate religion in one form or another. Perfect knowledge requires knowing the entire history of the universe, from beginning to end. Not just crud fundamentals like the laws of physics, but to know precisely the smallest details like what I had for lunch 20 years ago, or what an ant killed 2000 years ago was thinking about before it died. Until we know everything there will be something to discover. And, religion will not stop after we reach that point, because we will then be gods ourselves.
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We will never know everything. There will always be one question that will remain: Do we know everything yet?
How can you prove that you do?
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great yonks
Colorful idiom duly noted and added to lexicon.
Many thanks!
+1
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(Assuming the universe is limited)
Will we, at any time in our future, know everything there is to know? About physics, health, pickles, etc etc?
My post of a moment ago is an illustration of my position on this matter: just when you think you know everything, along comes something new, be it in the form of a refutation of everything you ever believed in or a colorful turn of phrase. I won't go into useless ruminations about how dreary and pointless life would be if we knew everything that will happen, everything that did, everything that could and everything that could not. I won't tire you with poetic discourses on the beauty of the unexpected, the eroticism of the unknown, because the issue is academic: man will never achieve a state wherein he knows all there is to know. And I will prove it to you with one word:
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Women.
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The perfect knowledge that you describe will only perpetuate religion in one form or another.
Science then becomes the religion. And people that chose not to fallow the religion of science become shunned and ridiculed, propagating more and more to fallow the outcasts. And the cycle starts again.
People will never know everything. Pessimistic? Yes. But as has been said before, humans will always ask "What more?" And the pursuit of that will never end.
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People will never know everything. Pessimistic? Yes.
No, no, no, no, no... NOT pessimistic. Like I said before, if everything is known, what is there to live for? Inquiry is a primal human life force. People who have no interest in what tomorrow may bring are animalistic, at best.
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Were does this stop? Will we ever know the TRUTH how things work, exactly?
Well, let's address this first. You have your terminology all mixed up. To paraphrase Indiana Jones from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", science is the search for FACT.
If you want TRUTH, you should be in philosophy, down the hall.
Thank you.
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Well, actually, this has been philosophy all along. Science flew out the window right after the "(Assuming the universe is limited)" bit.
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If you want TRUTH, you should be in philosophy, down the hall.
And X never, EVER, marks the spot.
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Well, actually, this has been philosophy all along. Science flew out the window right after the "(Assuming the universe is limited)" bit.
I know, I just really like Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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Fine, swap truth with facts if you want.
Well, actually, this has been philosophy all along. Science flew out the window right after the "(Assuming the universe is limited)" bit.
I don't know where you base this on. The greater part of the astronomists believe the universe is limited. Assuming that is not at all throwing science away. Besides, if we don't assume the universe is limited, we'll never know all the facts.
And, for a more deeper thought, is science not a form of philosophy (literally: love of wisdom)? Scientists need to think, need to understand, need to be wise first before engaging in an experiment. You can in my eyes define science as practical philosophy.
Wikipedia writes: philosophy differs from science in that philosophy's questions cannot be answered empirically
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Women.
People can be rebuilt
if everything is known, what is there to live for? Inquiry is a primal human life force.
I agree, I would hate to live in a 'finished' world, but that's another discussion.
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It's a specific form of philosophy called Empiricism, actually.
Definitions of empiricism on the Web:
* the claim that all knowledge or all meaningful discourse about the world is related to sensory experience or observation. Logical empiricism (or logical positivism) combined modern logical analysis with the demands of empiricism and was most famous for its verificationist theory of meaning.
www.filosofia.net/materiales/rec/glosaen.htm
* The proposition that the only source of true knowledge is experience. Search for knowledge through experiment and observation. Denial that knowledge can be obtained a priori.
www.carm.org/atheism/terms.htm
* In its strong form, the thesis that there is no knowable reality behind appearances. Thus, it is the job of science to catalog the formal relations which hold between appearances without claims of describing reality. See phenomenalism <Discussion> <References> Chris Eliasmith
www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/E.html
* the acceptance of sense experience as the source and test of truth.
www.willdurant.com/glossary.htm
* (philo.) - A belief that experience alone is the source of all knowledge.
www.reasoned.org/glossary.htm
* Branch of philosophy which sees all knowledge as being based in experience -- for example, the experience of the senses -- as distinct from theory or logic.
www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/critical%20concepts.htm
* reliance on observable and quantifiable data.
farahsouth.cgu.edu/dictionary/
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Fine, swap truth with facts if you want.
I don't know where you base this on.
I base this on your posing a philosophical question based on an assumption. To paraphrase your question, you asked, "If the universe is knowable, will humans ever know it?" What kind of question is that? If you are capable of driving a SUV, will you ever drive it? If it is possible to kill a human, will you in fact kill a human?
The scientific part of your post (the assumption that the Universe is limited) flew out the window as soon as you followed it up with a purely philosophical -- if even that -- question.
And also what Crystalmonkey said.
And also what Demosthenes said (I really like Raiders too).
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"If the universe is knowable, will humans ever know it?" What kind of question is that?
I say, an interesting question, therefore this topic :)
We will never know everything. There will always be one question that will remain: Do we know everything yet?
How can you prove that you do?
I tend to think by a proof by contradiction. So that if you add something new to the Knowledge, you can proove that it can't exist.