Here's an odd one, fueled by sleeplessness

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Grossenschwamm, Jan 8, 2013.

Remove all ads!
Support Terra-Arcanum:

GOG.com

PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!
  1. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    Bear with me for a little bit -

    Suppose thoughts are measurable wave forms, every bit as real as any other subatomic particle (borrowing ytzk's cogiton for now), only one that hasn't been scientifically noted due to the parapsychological bias present in anything awesome people say their minds do. I'll admit, I hate parapsychology because of this as much as the next guy. All it does is make real scientists shake their heads and walk away.

    What if, as a wave form, thoughts might exist in stages, i.e. as not realized, something planned or conceived, or as something that has happened. In general, this allows a person to deliberately plan and experience a sequence of events, but this might allow for coincidental matches in direct sequence with actual events, in any occasion where a thought might occur.

    This could allow for an apparent ability to "see" the future, when really it's a coincidental thought process that fits with something that really occurred, as it's one of an essentially infinite amount of possible thoughts. Due to the life span of the average human, it's not a truly infinite variable, and as such there are real limits on what thought matches with what coincidental event.

    As a side note, consider what you perceive of the universe around you - this is your universe, as everyone/thing sees it slightly differently. You create the universe you observe by observing it, and once you die, your universe dies with you.

    Because of this, the existence of your universe depends on your survival, making you the most important thing in it. And, due to your mind's reckoning abilities, you've created what you experience, essentially making you God.

    Enjoy your precognitive pantheism.
     
  2. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    I think it's possible to think of something that happens in the future by complete chance, but it'd be an extremely rare occurence. Even if someone did think such a thing, then they'd likely forget they thought it anyway unless the future event they imagined would be Earth shattering.

    As for each person being centre of the universe - I think for some people that has potential to be a dangerous line of thought; unless you're stretching the meaning of universe and you do believe things will go on after you die? If nothing matters and the universe isn't dependable on anyone else's survival, it essentially makes any behaviour excusable. Even if you do think things carry on after you, believing that you are the centre of a universe - whatever it's definition - still comes across as an egotistical idea; not that you are egotistical, but saying that a universe is centred on you seems very much tied to ego.

    As for thoughts potentially being waves, I don't see how that really factors into any of the other points.
     
  3. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    Well, take the average amount of thoughts a person might have in a day, and perhaps one or two of them might randomly sync up with a future event in a year.

    It's a little bit of both. We all exist in the same universe, but experience it differently - meaning each viewpoint is that person's universe. If a person dies, their universe dies, however it (the main universe) would continue to exist regardless of how many eyes were there to observe it.

    A superposition of states, one that would allow an existing thought to either be flight of fancy or an actual event, so long as it would match a sequence of physical happenings. If we go back to;

    If a person thinks of a future event, chances are they're not going to think it's the future. This would allow a glimpse of the future to exist without altering the current timeline, because it's just a random thought until it happens via collapsing into reality, when before it existed only as a virtual event.
     
  4. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    I think it really depends on the gravity of the event in question; for example you could think about getting a phone call soon, and that would happen - but that's a fairly common occurence. You could think about having a near miss with a specific coloured car, and though a lot more unlikely that could potentially happen. However for really unusual and unique events, such as someone bringing a live cow into your workplace, I think there's next to no chance of someone ever predicting something like that. Which one of these most closely aligns with the kind of events you're talking about?

    I think the issue here is that having different viewpoints or perspectives doesn't really constitute what is normally defined as a universe, and where you have used universe you could often just substitute in one of those two words or "experience" and it wouldn't be any different, unless I'm missing a connection somewhere.

    So the idea here is to produce a mathematical theory linking the two? I guess if potentially thoughts were waves something like this could be conceivable, but it seems to just needlessly complicate what by any other name would just be a coincidence. It also implies that thinking of something by chance that could happen and it actually happening are related to one another, but there's no real reason for them to be other than by the probability of someone having such a thought.
     
  5. ytzk

    ytzk Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    2,390
    Likes Received:
    28
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2010
    I'd say the mathematical theory best suited would be chaos and strange attractors. The universe and your brain are made up of the same stuff. In the apparent chaos, patterns emerge when the chaos reaches a higher order. Since there is no real division between you and the rest of the quantum soup we call the universe, harmonic resonances between apparently disparate systems, even future echoes backwards in time, would be no less strange or unlikely than the fact that anything exists at all.

    However, it seems less likely that reality depends upon a certain monkey's perceptions than the opposite, that the monkey's perceptions depend on the universal system. This is the backwards slide into egotism that distinguishes a schitzaphrenic from a mystic.

    You should probably get some sleep, bro :)

    Also, people bring cows into workplaces in India all the time, and elsewhere when you work in abatoirs etc. Is that really the most unlikely event an englishman can imagine? Deary deary me.
     
  6. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    Re:

    Well I don't live in India, damnit! Fine, if I woke up one morning to find that during my sleep I been sedated and someone had surgically removed my left foot above the ankle - is that an unlikely enough event for you?!
     
  7. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    I'm taking an average of all things considered. You might get 50 or sixty everyday things happening in a month, 5 unusual things happening in a year, and .5 supremely unlikely things happening in a few years considering what would fit into your personal and societal definitions of everyday, unusual, or unlikely.

    I tend to sit in a bubble of solopsism.

    As for definitions of universe - we have a couple used cosmologically. The visible universe and the universe beyond that which we can observe. Considering only the observable universe, is it more appropriate, by your assessment, that what we can see is known better as the human experience?

    I say universe because any one person has the potential to see the universe we've got "access" to, so no matter who you are you can see the observable universe. But if you were to consider that we're not the only thing on the planet that can experience the universe, and that it's highly unlikely that earth is the only planet in the universe with life on it, it might be appropriate to individualize perceptions of the universe - which would allow a personal experience of time and space around a single entity to be their universe, their existence, and their everything.

    Just as there's no reason to associate the probability of an electron to absorb and discharge a specific photon with it actually having happened, is there? If it can happen, the idea that a random thought would match a real event is significant in that it actually happened, but for no other reason.

    Thoughts can be measured by generation of an electromagnetic field in the brain, so it might be appropriate to consider thoughts as a dynamic movement of electrons, which act as both waves and particles in a field of probabilities. I know quantum events can have little to do with things that happen on such a large scale, but if a few thousand electrons jump to a few thousand ions within the brain, in the face of the billions of neurons firing at the same time, over a period of time this disparity of potential thoughts can lead to a possible coincidence in the future.

    Well, consider a possible end to the universe - Heat death. All matter and energy in the same state sounds pretty orderly to me. Much more orderly than our current universe where matter deigns to have different rules than photons do. I'd say the more chaotic the universe, the more likely a pattern is to arise simply due to the range of possibilities. Go all the way to the end of the road and you've lost the ability to form patterns because there's absolutely nothing left.

    I do want to add that I do certainly agree with you, but obviously I differ in my opinion as to whether or not our universe can be considered orderly at this time. I'll have to look up chaos and strange attractors.

    I know the universe existed before I did, but I didn't know about the universe's existence until I came to be - essentially, the universe in my mind is created by my own reckoning of data I accumulate over time, whether or not that data has been there since it started. Since we all absorb data similarly, and we all form differing opinions of the existence around us, what we see is generally all we can comprehend, which would make extending our views of the universe to other people as erroneous as our tastes in food, because not everybody likes cilantro. Basically, what you experience of the universe is your slice of it, and yours alone - if you die, your universe dies.

    Granted, I've certainly elevated the importance of the individual to make this leap. However, I've also invented the idea that there are as many universes as there are things to experience them, as well as even more potential universes per individual as compared to what choices they have or have not made.

    However, reaching back to solopsism, the universe I experience tends to be the only one I can understand, because it's derived from my own thoughts.

    I did, it was a wonderful sleep full of zombie dreams.

    He's not wrong to bring up cows - it's something highly unusual to him for a cow to be in a British workplace, just like it'd be highly unusual for magma to burst out of the floor in my workshop.
     
  8. ytzk

    ytzk Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    2,390
    Likes Received:
    28
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2010
    I'll agree with all of that for the rush of dopamine... ahh, yeah.
     
  9. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    I think if more people would look at porn while high and drunk while reading my posts, I'd have more people agreeing with me.
     
  10. ytzk

    ytzk Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    2,390
    Likes Received:
    28
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2010
    I apologise for my racist slur, Jojobobo, sincerely.

    I get your point, I got your point; sorry.

    Now I'm reminded of that Monty Python skit:

    "Do we look like the sort of people who'd sneak into a man's tent, anaesthetise him, tissue type him and amputate his leg?!"

    "Search the thicket!"

    "Oh, a leg! I think there was one in there somewhere."
     
  11. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    Re:

    Well you better be! No don't worry, as a general point I only use exclamation marks when I'm joking - it's when I'm not that I'm more likely to be being serious. In any case the Monty Python skit made me chuckle.

    I will get back to your points later Gross, when I've considered them properly and I have a spare minute.
     
  12. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    By all means, take your time.

    As a side note, have you ever forgotten that you've eaten asparagus, and were then horrified at the smell of your own piss?
     
  13. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    In regards to your question, no I think observable universe is a fine distinction. Associating people with a seperate universe ("their universe") seems more of an emotional distinction than a logical one, at least in my opinion, which is why I wasn't clear precisely on why you were describing it in that way.

    I'd say there is a reason in the example you gave, as it has observable and measurable consequences that can be considered as being directly caused by the electron excitation - for example you can use a UV spectrometer to observe the absorption or emission, or an example that has macroscopic consequences we can see fluorescence and phosphorescence by the same effect. I think lasers are another example, however I have studied lasers in detail so I'm not too sure.

    The point is it would be very difficult to prove the two are linked in some way that had measurable and observable consequences.

    Something that may be of interest to you in this regard is that, whilst there isn't a unified theory of physics, there is the Correspondence Principle - where it is observed that when you have an high energy system you are studying quantum mechanically it begins to align with the values from classical physics. I'm not really a physics fan in anyway though so beyond knowing the idea of the principle I don't know much more than that.

    And yes I'd completely forgotten about myself and asparagus - I can't even recall when that did happen in every day life now. Honestly, it's probably for the best I do forget most of the useless crap I've shared about myself here.
     
  14. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    I can see how you'd view it as an emotional distinction. I'm not seeing it that way, but it's either because I'm not able to properly explain what I'm thinking or I'm not as self aware as I should be. The idea of one person habitating their own personal universe isn't a physical distinction so much as one of consciousness. We all exist in the same universe, but the only one we understand is the one we perceive. The individuality of experience is what I'm focusing on, and that for one person to cease living means their "universe" dies.

    Just like time-travelling electrons, which I forgot to mention I was referencing. Mathematically, it's shown that electrons are likely to travel back in time to re-absorb a photon they've "already" emitted in the future. This isn't something that can be directly measured at this point in history, because we don't have the ability to tell when something's traveled backwards in time. The best we've got is the idea that antimatter itself is matter that is travelling backwards in time, and the idea itself was brought up by Feynmann and Wheeler to explain problems in James Maxwell's equations regarding electrodynamics. Certain solutions lead to charged particles acting on themselves, resulting in infinite force. This has lead to some advancement of the idea of reverse-causality, which seems possible under certain circumstances.

    I'm familiar with that idea. If everything operated on a quantum level of unpredictability, I'm unsure of how much measuring there would be for humans to do (if they existed). Speaking of parenthetical existence, I'm guessing if I mean to go anywhere with this funny idea of mine, I should try to determine if thoughts actually exist in a physical way before attempting to create quantum-mechanical analogies.

    I can understand that. Normally it's terrifying to notice one's urine smelling like rotten cabbage at random - you may have blocked it out.
     
  15. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    I can see what you're saying, the distinction seems now a bit more clear cut.

    That makes sense to me, because as of you say mentioned about quantum unpredictability. I think if I remember the operators for qunatum mechanical values seperate in such a way that only one value can be measured finitely. Unfortunately I'm not very versed on quantum mechanics any more, I only covered the basics in the first year of my degree and since then routinely dodged any optional physics modules that come my way.

    Well yes, you should!

    Either that, or I was in such a delirium of happiness at the scent that I fainted and to recall such an incident with clarity once more would drive me mad.
     
Our Host!