Archive: 32 posts

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Thought: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Let's start with this, and I'm sure different subjects will arise through discussion.

2009-12-09 13:26:00 Author: Hibbsi Posts: 203

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Yeah glad to see this can be veered away from the WoW topic, it's completely unrelated. Yes, it makes a sound. And yes, it's impossible to know this without anything (person or equipment) around to test this, though we have come far enough in science to be able to say it definitely does. Next question

2009-12-09 14:09:00 Author: ryryryan Posts: 3767

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Agreed with Ryan. A simple question for everyone. What is reality?

2009-12-09 20:12:00 Author: chezhead Posts: 1063

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Reality is what we perceive as truth and existence; although we assume for the sake of simplicity that it is, there is no way of proving it. In theory. Like those Truthism guys. Next question? :kz:

2009-12-09 21:10:00 Author: Astrosimi Posts: 2046

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In my opinion, an unwitnessed tree fall does not make a sound... First of all, what is sound? Isn't sound a sense perception produced when compressed air in the form of sound waves vibrate tiny bones inside the ear that convert a physical stimuli into electrochemical messages sent to the brain? And thus, isn't sound just a product of our brain? If this is the case, a tree falling produces compressed air, but with no one there to hear it, then it can never be converted to the sense we call sound... And the question "what is reality" is far from simple. One way to approach this is to redefine the term "real" with "truth," as objects that are "real" or "true," and thus constitute reality, suggest that they are free from subjectivity and human interpretation. In other words, reality is external to ourselves. The problem is, the tools we use to perceive our world forces us to interpretation. The perception of sound is one thing, but so is all our other senses. Our sense of sight is one important sense that most rely on to perceive reality, if such a thing exists. But is it possible to perceive the world without bias? What we see is NOT reality. Colors do not exist: like sound, they are the products of our brain perceiving the frequencies of light waves emitted by the objects that we see. "Reality," or the external world, then, is devoid of color. In this way what we perceive to be true may not actually be the case: our senses are inherently flawed. This is how De Cartes came to the postulate "I think therefore I am" because shutting down the flawed senses leaves us with one thing that we know must exist in reality, ourselves. These revelations leave some to believe that reality cannot exist at all, that our perception of "reality" is what we CONSTRUCT reality to be. And thus absolute truth can't also exist, except some would argue that math is the only form of absolute truth. But we can generate truth with minimal error and the least amount of human bias as possible. Perhaps this is what constitutes reality...

2009-12-09 21:22:00 Author: jeffcu28 Posts: 648

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Well put. But I think our reality can be found in Love. Because love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

2009-12-09 21:26:00 Author: SHENOA77 Posts: 184

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But there are still soundwaves regardless of whether we are there or not. Just because the brain hasn't converted the soundwaves to what we hear as sound, because it is too far away to do so, doesn't mean the soundwaves aren't there. And it is these waves which produce this phenomena we know as sound, not just out brain (otherwise we'd be making up sounds in our mind! AAARRRGHHHH the voice tells me to eat pie D: ). Uhm... yeah.

2009-12-09 21:37:00 Author: ryryryan Posts: 3767

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But does it make a sound if there are animals around, but no human?

2009-12-09 21:41:00 Author: Syroc Posts: 3193

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But there are still soundwaves regardless of whether we are there or not. Just because the brain hasn't converted the soundwaves to what we hear as sound, because it is too far away to do so, doesn't mean the soundwaves aren't there. And it is these waves which produce this phenomena we know as sound, not just out brain (otherwise we'd be making up sounds in our mind! AAARRRGHHHH the voice tells me to eat pie D: ). Uhm... yeah. But does it make a sound if there are animals around, but no human? Hey Ryan, I think Syroc's post reconciles our disagreement on our definitions of sound. For you, it seems that soundwaves are synonymous with the perception of sound, or at least a component of it. But I would like to argue that they are completely separable. Let's think about animals. Different animals perceive different ranges of soundwave frequencies. For instance, dogs can hear much higher frequencies than humans can perceive, and some animals can hear much lower frequencies than humans--whales I believe. Imagine for instance that the tree falling in the forest produces a low frequency soundwave. If an animal in the forest cannot perceive that particular frequency, does the sound exist? In this way I believe soundwaves and the perception of sound are two separate entities...

2009-12-09 22:18:00 Author: jeffcu28 Posts: 648

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Hmm... gentlemen, it seems we have a new philosophical aggressor

2009-12-09 23:14:00 Author: Astrosimi Posts: 2046

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Here's my philosophy on philosophy. Philosophy is almost exactly the same as religion to me. You make it up to help explain life, everyone thinks about it some of the time, and it's basically useless information. It might make you a better person or even a worse person, but it's information that doesn't serve any practical use in the real world. It's like religion in another way, also: if your opinion is different than someone else, you're wrong. Most likely, the other person will refuse to try and look at things from a different perspective. And most likely, if you like philosophy, you will question "what defines a practical use in the real world when you don't even know what the real world is?". Congratulations. You should be a philosophy major. You can get your Masters degree for thinking! Then, you will live a fulfilling life as a professional thinker. Not a productive, thinker, no. You answer questions that don't matter like "If a ham is cooked in a kitchen, and no one is around to eat it, does it have a taste?". You're too deep and complex to try to think about cures for cancer or AIDs.

2009-12-10 00:07:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

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Here's my philosophy on philosophy. Philosophy is almost exactly the same as religion to me. You make it up to help explain life, everyone thinks about it some of the time, and it's basically useless information. It might make you a better person or even a worse person, but it's information that doesn't serve any practical use in the real world. It's like religion in another way, also: if your opinion is different than someone else, you're wrong. Most likely, the other person will refuse to try and look at things from a different perspective. And most likely, if you like philosophy, you will question "what defines a practical use in the real world when you don't even know what the real world is?". Congratulations. You should be a philosophy major. You can get your Masters degree for thinking! Then, you will live a fulfilling life as a professional thinker. Not a productive, thinker, no. You answer questions that don't matter like "If a ham is cooked in a kitchen, and no one is around to eat it, does it have a taste?". You're too deep and complex to try to think about cures for cancer or AIDs. Well, You're right. I didn't mean to start something that would cause bitter arguments. In fact, I started this to get the philosophical conversation off of the thread about WoW that was overrun by discussions such as this. Still, though, I don't think that anybody here just sits around and thinks about the meaning of life all day. I intended this to be a casual conversation, but I apologize if you find the subject matter of this to be shallow. If I had the ability to even start to find a cure for cancer, I would give up everything in my life to do so. Just a few weeks ago, a young girl I knew died of Ewing's Sarcoma. She was 14. Both of my grandmothers have had cancer. I'm not trying to gain sympathy, just trying to make you understand how wrong your last phrase truly was. I'm not taking it personally, as I think you did not mean it personally, and I hope you don't take it personally, either.

2009-12-10 00:57:00 Author: Hibbsi Posts: 203

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Well, You're right. I didn't mean to start something that would cause bitter arguments. In fact, I started this to get the philosophical conversation off of the thread about WoW that was overrun by discussions such as this. Still, though, I don't think that anybody here just sits around and thinks about the meaning of life all day. I intended this to be a casual conversation, but I apologize if you find the subject matter of this to be shallow. If I had the ability to even start to find a cure for cancer, I would give up everything in my life to do so. Just a few weeks ago, a young girl I knew died of Ewing's Sarcoma. She was 14. Both of my grandmothers have had cancer. I'm not trying to gain sympathy, just trying to make you understand how wrong your last phrase truly was. I'm not taking it personally, as I think you did not mean it personally, and I hope you don't take it personally, either. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. My post wasn't attacking this thread. I was just making fun of philosophy in general. I'll probably make a lot of posts to this thread, because I still like to talk about philosophy. I just think it's odd how humans spend so much time thinking of such useless things. Which I guess is philosophical thinking on the uselessness of philosophy. Which I guess is philosophical thinking on the philosophy of philosophy's uselessness. Which is etc. Particularly, I was thinking of philosophy majors. What do you need to major in Philosophy? I guess Math majors spent time doing math problems in high school, English majors read in high school, and Philosophy majors spent time staring at the ceiling all day dreaming. Philosophy is so subjective that it's like majoring in Criticism.

2009-12-10 01:02:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

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Ok, that's good to know Yes, I do agree that philosophy, in general circumstances, is quite useless. Great quote, by the way: "If a ham is cooked in a kitchen, and no one is around to eat it, does it have a taste?" Probably going to sig that. But yeah, I'm not in that great of a mood today, and I overreacted. Sorry. I realize you didn't mean anything by it, and I understand what you are saying.

2009-12-10 01:10:00 Author: Hibbsi Posts: 203

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Well, You're right. I didn't mean to start something that would cause bitter arguments. In fact, I started this to get the philosophical conversation off of the thread about WoW that was overrun by discussions such as this. Still, though, I don't think that anybody here just sits around and thinks about the meaning of life all day. I intended this to be a casual conversation, but I apologize if you find the subject matter of this to be shallow. I don't think these are bitter arguments...those you find on YouTube comments: name-calling and bullying. These are intellectual debates, the seed of knowledge, and philosophy demands arguments in order to generate "truths." Frankly, I shared the same attitude towards philosophy like you Awesomemans--I was afraid I didn't have the capacity to deal with abstract thoughts that seem to have no impact on real life whatsoever. I'm a premed biology major, hoping to one day use my knowledge to find cures, or at least in my case, improve cardiac arrest outcomes. But I made a horrible mistake--or not--coming to the University of Chicago where they force-feed you philosophy, even if you are a science major. But the truth is, philosophy is inseparable from most disciplines. You're right Awesomemans, philosophy is like religion, and as I've learned, also like science. That's right: philosophy, religion, and science share the same basic principles. One need not look far back into history to show that science and philosophy were once the same thing. String theory is as much a philosophy as it is science. Scientists can come up with useful theories without even proving them through experiments--and these theories simply arise by deductive reasoning...or rather...thinking. Isn't that the substance of philosophy? But philosophy isn't just useful in the framework of science, it is also the substance behind powerful social institutions like politics and law. Much political debates have been founded on seemingly unproductive philosophical questions like "what is reality?": What is a citizen? What is a human being? What is normal? What is life?

2009-12-10 02:03:00 Author: jeffcu28 Posts: 648

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Well, in that case, may I bring up the subject of Schr?dinger's Cat? It's interesting, although I'm still slightly confused by the concept of superposition, but maybe somebody here can fathom it and explain it.

2009-12-10 02:32:00 Author: Hibbsi Posts: 203

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I'm not familiar with Schr?dinger's Cat in particular, but it has to do with the uncertainty of the natural world that I hinted at in the WoW thread. As it happens, the location of objects is actually a bit hazy when you consider really, really small scales. There is such a thing as the uncertainty principle, which is defined as: http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/a/1/0a1c02498125a255a2f5b0e58908a8ae.png Now, h_bar (the h with a bar through the upright, also known as planck's constant divided by 2*pi) is 1.054571628(53)?10−34 J*s (joules times seconds are the units). The "p" is momentum (mass x velocity). x is distance (or position if you will). The "delta" represents the uncertainty in those values. You should notice that h_bar is very, very small, hence why we cannot notice these uncertainties at the macroscopic level. The Shrodinger Cat scenario describes a situation in which we can't be certain of whether the cat has absorbed the poison or not, but one of the scenarios must, categorically, be true. It all gets very complicated from this point onward, but if you are interested, this is the study of a branch of physics called 'Modern Physics.' It is offered at many universities, but it generally requires you to complete a series of pre-requisite physics courses. I am not so good with understanding the uncertainty principle, so I can't explain much beyond this. I will offer another paradox that still requires a bit of abstract understanding. Edit for addition: We can see that as the uncertainty of momentum (and, by extension, velocity) increases, the uncertainty of position decreases. In this sense, we can only know one of the values to any degree of accuracy at once. If we want to know exactly where a particle is, we have to sacrifice knowledge of the particle's velocity. ----- The Twin Paradox (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox)) In a nutshell, it goes like this: If one of two twins were to fly extremely fast away from his brother (at relativistic speeds, close to the speed of light), and then return many years later, he will have aged less than his brother. This is because time is completely relative to a given reference frame.* This is a gross oversimplification of the idea. The resolution for this paradox is that the twin must undergo an extreme acceleration in order to be able to return to his brother (either in a round orbit, or a straight line deceleration), and the laws of physics "change" when in an accelerating reference frame. ----- So, did everyone follow that alright? Yeah, this was a class I took. I got an A, but I have sadly forgotten much of it. I routinely had my mind blown in class! (If you're interested, I'll try to recall the grape juice paradox - this one is harder to explain) *Consider what would happen if one spacecraft were flying to the left at 90% the speed of light, and another spacecraft were to fly to the right at 90% the speed of light, both with respect to a "stationary" reference frame. Classical mechanics tells us that spacecraft 1 will see spacecraft 2 fly by with a speed of 180% times the speed of light, with respect to itself (since spacecraft 1 will, to itself, appear stationary - imagine that there are no nearby stars, etc). This is not possible! This is the basis for relativity. One ship will perceive the other ship differently because they are both traveling at such high speeds. In fact, one ship will observe the other ship as flattened, since distance becomes skewed at relativistic speeds as well. *Mind blown*

2009-12-10 04:11:00 Author: comphermc Posts: 5338

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Pfft. This thread is useless. Everyone knows the answer to all these questions is 42. :|

2009-12-10 04:16:00 Author: Unknown User

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Pfft. This thread is useless. Everyone knows the answer to all these questions is 42. :| I wondered when somebody would say that

2009-12-10 04:39:00 Author: Hibbsi Posts: 203

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I'm not familiar with Schr?dinger's Cat in particular, but it has to do with the uncertainty of the natural world that I hinted at in the WoW thread. As it happens, the location of objects is actually a bit hazy when you consider really, really small scales. There is such a thing as the uncertainty principle, which is defined as: http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/a/1/0a1c02498125a255a2f5b0e58908a8ae.png Now, h_bar (the h with a bar through the upright, also known as planck's constant divided by 2*pi) is 1.054571628(53)?10−34 J*s (joules times seconds are the units). The "p" is momentum (mass x velocity). x is distance (or position if you will). The "delta" represents the uncertainty in those values. You should notice that h_bar is very, very small, hence why we cannot notice these uncertainties at the macroscopic level. The Shrodinger Cat scenario describes a situation in which we can't be certain of whether the cat has absorbed the poison or not, but one of the scenarios must, categorically, be true. It all gets very complicated from this point onward, but if you are interested, this is the study of a branch of physics called 'Modern Physics.' It is offered at many universities, but it generally requires you to complete a series of pre-requisite physics courses. I am not so good with understanding the uncertainty principle, so I can't explain much beyond this. I will offer another paradox that still requires a bit of abstract understanding. Edit for addition: We can see that as the uncertainty of momentum (and, by extension, velocity) increases, the uncertainty of position decreases. In this sense, we can only know one of the values to any degree of accuracy at once. If we want to know exactly where a particle is, we have to sacrifice knowledge of the particle's velocity. ----- The Twin Paradox (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox)) In a nutshell, it goes like this: If one of two twins were to fly extremely fast away from his brother (at relativistic speeds, close to the speed of light), and then return many years later, he will have aged less than his brother. This is because time is completely relative to a given reference frame.* This is a gross oversimplification of the idea. The resolution for this paradox is that the twin must undergo an extreme acceleration in order to be able to return to his brother (either in a round orbit, or a straight line deceleration), and the laws of physics "change" when in an accelerating reference frame. ----- So, did everyone follow that alright? Yeah, this was a class I took. I got an A, but I have sadly forgotten much of it. I routinely had my mind blown in class! (If you're interested, I'll try to recall the grape juice paradox - this one is harder to explain) *Consider what would happen if one spacecraft were flying to the left at 90% the speed of light, and another spacecraft were to fly to the right at 90% the speed of light, both with respect to a "stationary" reference frame. Classical mechanics tells us that spacecraft 1 will see spacecraft 2 fly by with a speed of 180% times the speed of light, with respect to itself (since spacecraft 1 will, to itself, appear stationary - imagine that there are no nearby stars, etc). This is not possible! This is the basis for relativity. One ship will perceive the other ship differently because they are both traveling at such high speeds. In fact, one ship will observe the other ship as flattened, since distance becomes skewed at relativistic speeds as well. *Mind blown* What did you study then? I've always been quite interested in this stuff, but since I'm not too good at physics (which is strange considering I do a Maths degree) I don't do too well in it. Last year I did study a module called Dynamics and Relativity. The relativity part was quite interesting for a while. I remember him saying how fast moving objects shrink (the Lorentz contraction or something like that), imagine a rocket travelling extremely fast through a barn with doors at either end. The rocket is slightly bigger than the barn, so theoretically could the rocket fit in the barn (with the doors closed, obviously not taking into account the time of the doors closing) while travelling very fast? Well if you're watching the barn and rocket from a distance, then there will be a point when the rocket flies through the barn that it will fit. However if you are the guy in the rocket then from your perspective it it the world around you that is moving, so the barn will be travelling towards you at a very fast speed, so the barn will shrink. Thus it clearly wouldn't fit in. It's all relative to where you are observing from. That was our introduction to relativity, and no doubt I may of got some part wrong their but that was just recalling a little story from memory. It was quite interesting though to think of it like that. I didn't do well in the course though cause I'm not good at physics so much Not looking forward to Hydrodynamics next semester >.> Hey Ryan, I think Syroc's post reconciles our disagreement on our definitions of sound. For you, it seems that soundwaves are synonymous with the perception of sound, or at least a component of it. But I would like to argue that they are completely separable. Let's think about animals. Different animals perceive different ranges of soundwave frequencies. For instance, dogs can hear much higher frequencies than humans can perceive, and some animals can hear much lower frequencies than humans--whales I believe. Imagine for instance that the tree falling in the forest produces a low frequency soundwave. If an animal in the forest cannot perceive that particular frequency, does the sound exist? In this way I believe soundwaves and the perception of sound are two separate entities... Ah, you see I think that even if the animal can't pick up the frequency, the sound is still there. I tend to think in a scientific way, so even if we humans can't hear certain things, but other animals can, then the sound still exists because with equipment we could prove the sound is still there.

2009-12-10 12:15:00 Author: ryryryan Posts: 3767

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You actually nailed it right on the head. That's the idea of length contraction (by a Lorentz factor), which is proportional to speed. I am studying a Math(s) degree as well, but I'm going into education, so I have a minor in physics. This was a class that discussed Relativity (Go, Einstein) and anything that is very, very small (Quantum Mechanics). ----- Edit: Just another thing about the uncertainty principle. It's due to the fact that matter appears to be composed of neither particles nor waves, which is an idea known as wave-particle duality. As far as I can figure, the building blocks of our world (smaller than atoms) are some concept that we have yet to understand. It's almost like a standing wave of energy that is simultaneously a point particle. Anyone who has taken chemistry at the high school level has been introduced to the idea, in that you've tried to explain the location of an atom. You are told about probability density clouds. which is very much related. The atom is sort of "everywhere in that cloud". Very confusing stuff.

2009-12-10 12:25:00 Author: comphermc Posts: 5338

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Each atom contains a universe, and when we split an atom, we can give birth to more universes! Walk in the glow.

2009-12-10 20:27:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

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Each atom contains a universe, and when we split an atom, we can give birth to more universes! Walk in the glow. Um... what? Was that a serious statement that you believe each atom contains a universe, or am I missing a reference to something. Seriousness assumed, what is the basis for that statement?

2009-12-10 20:35:00 Author: comphermc Posts: 5338

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Each atom contains a universe, and when we split an atom, we can give birth to more universes! Walk in the glow. I can see the philosophy in this. And I can also see why you said what you did earlier about philosophy reminding you of religion. I'm not so much talking about the 'great minds' here. More, the aptitude for qualification of Philosopher is maybe more based on number of followers/believers/likelihood of truth, rather than ACTUAL truth. Theories are wonderful. Belief is wonderful. But theoretical questions are difficult to answer (hence, very interesting of course!). Consider this: "I'm not a moderator on LBPC." So, theoretically, I shouldn't have a need to say "I'm watching this thread!", but in a different context, I AM watching this thread, but not with a view to moderating it. However, theoretically, I could say something to cause this thread to be moderated, thus being involved in its moderation. That's poor example, I suppose. Soz! But I AM watching this thread (especially YOU, comph! )

2009-12-10 20:54:00 Author: MrsSpookyBuz Posts: 1492

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That was from Fallout 3.

2009-12-10 20:57:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

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That was from Fallout 3. I know!

2009-12-10 21:01:00 Author: MrsSpookyBuz Posts: 1492

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(especially YOU, comph! ) So, I suppose it is you who are moderating the moderators? Hehe. That was from Fallout 3. Ah, ok. I've never played (and likely never will). Was it just some sci-fi plot element in the game? Because simply put, the universe is the collection of everything that exists. I'm not sure how you could have another collection of everything that exists located a trillion, trillion times inside everything that already exists. I just don't understand the logic there... ?

2009-12-10 21:11:00 Author: comphermc Posts: 5338

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Who said philosophy is useless? Someday you might find yourself face-to-face with a sentient A.I. bomb that was about to detonate, and you would have to talk it into questioning its own existence in order to survive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk

2009-12-10 21:21:00 Author: Gilgamesh Posts: 2536

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Each atom contains a universe, and when we split an atom, we can give birth to more universes! Walk in the glow. Hmm...I think this has something to do with it: j50ZssEojtM link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM From 3:30-4:05...I guess it's not creating new universes, but rather accessing them...

2009-12-10 21:21:00 Author: jeffcu28 Posts: 648

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Hmm...I think this has something to do with it: j50ZssEojtM link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM From 3:30-4:05...I guess it's not creating new universes, but rather accessing them... Thank-you for that video

2009-12-12 20:30:00 Author: Boomy Posts: 3701

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My philosophical question is: what is virtue or goodness in a person and can it be taught or passed on to others?

2009-12-15 16:32:00 Author: Ayneh Posts: 2454

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Ayneh, I'd say putting others before yourself, and it is rarely passed on. It is something that is taught at a young age, after this it can take alot of effort to change habits. Just my opinion on it.

2009-12-15 19:30:00 Author: ryryryan Posts: 3767

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