Do clever people outsmart themselves?

[bruto]

I am not saying the illusion is not convincing. If you are hit by a rock it will cause pain. But that pain is nothing but electrons flowing through our nerves to our brain and being interpreted as pain. I believe some yogis can overcome the pain message and not be effected by it. There were Buddhist monks in Vietnam who immolated themselves with petrol, and sat in the lotus position while they burned alive. As far as I could tell from some photos I saw, they did not roll around screaming like the rest of us would.

Sure, with great discipline we can control how our brains deal with electrons, but how do you get from there to the idea that the electrons and the nerves and the brain are illusory? The annals of martyrdom are filled with stories of spiritual discipline and triumph. Saint Lawrence, when burned alive on a giant griddle, is said to have joked to his tormentors that they should turn him over because he was done on one side. Attribute this as you will to transcendence, myth, or endorphins, but what have you said beyond the trivial oxymoron that reality isn't really real?

Sorry this post is a little curtailed. There's a huge thunderstorm overhead, and I'm shutting down for the sake of the modem.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Skimming this thread, I see a couple of issues that don't seem completely addressed.

One is of course the idea that there is a single thing called happiness, that we either have or don't.

I don't use the phrase "Life Changing" often. But about a year back a goddamn internet webcomic of all things really put my... default emotional stance into perspective.

The Oatmeal ran a comic called "How to be perfectly happy" and it opened with:

"I am not a happy person. When I tell people that they infer that I am unhappy. They assume my status is binary; either I'm a joyous triumph or a miserable wrench. They recognize no spectrum only two states of being, happy or unhappy. But I've never felt 'happy.' I've felt joy. I've felt bliss. But 'happy' implies permanence. It implies you have completed all the prerequisites and now get to sit atop your pile of happy forever."

and it had the line "I'm not happy because our definition of happy isn't very good, it's a monochromatic word used to rich, painful spectrum of human emotions."

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy

 

[Scorpion]

As if we both wouldn't perceive the same things when confronted with it.

Well I don't know if the nuclear forces are considered strong. I know gravity is considered weak.

As for perceiving the same things. I read somewhere that quantum physics says we cannot observe something without changing it. But I would have to consult a physicist about that. Maybe there are some on the forum.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well I don't know if the nuclear forces are considered strong. I know gravity is considered weak.

You are trying to speak with a lot of authority for someone who doesn't know anything.

 

[acbytesla]

Well I don't know if the nuclear forces are considered strong. I know gravity is considered weak.

As for perceiving the same things. I read somewhere that quantum physics says we cannot observe something without changing it. But I would have to consult a physicist about that. Maybe there are some on the forum.

Really? You don't know if nuclear forces are very strong? What happens when we break the nuclear forces of atoms?

 

[JoeMorgue]

I see we're dealing with a "Aw shucks I don't know anything about all this fancy science... but I am absolutely certain it is completely wrong" prebuilt characters.

 

[Scorpion]

The weak nuclear force is the second weakest force, after gravity

The Strong Nuclear Force (also referred to as the strong force) is one of the four basic forces in nature (the others being gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the weak nuclear force). As its name implies, it is the strongest of the four. ... The protons must feel a repulsive force from the other neighboring protons

 

[Foster Zygote]

I don't use the phrase "Life Changing" often. But about a year back a goddamn internet webcomic of all things really put my... default emotional stance into perspective.

The Oatmeal ran a comic called "How to be perfectly happy" and it opened with:

"I am not a happy person. When I tell people that they infer that I am unhappy. They assume my status is binary; either I'm a joyous triumph or a miserable wrench. They recognize no spectrum only two states of being, happy or unhappy. But I've never felt 'happy.' I've felt joy. I've felt bliss. But 'happy' implies permanence. It implies you have completed all the prerequisites and now get to sit atop your pile of happy forever."

and it had the line "I'm not happy because our definition of happy isn't very good, it's a monochromatic word used to rich, painful spectrum of human emotions."

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy

You beat me to it. I was thinking of posting that same thing, myself.

 

[Hellbound]

So, I have a lego set.

Included in the set are the usual bricks and flats, as well as ramp pieces, clear pieces, and some wheels. And a motorized bit that runs with batteries.

I use this lego set to build a car. I can turn it own, and it moves under it's own power. It rolls.

According to Scorpion, my car is an illusion. I don't have a car, I have a collection of Lego blocks.

For that matter, cars don't exist, either. I don't drive to work in a Nissan Sentra; that's just an illusion. I have a collection of metal, plastic, and rubber parts with a few fluids mixed in.

For that matter, even his statement that we're all made of atoms is just an illusion. Atoms are made of electrons, neutrons, and protons, which are in turn made of quarks. So atoms are an illusion.

This is a patently ridiculous position to hold.

And they say scientists are overly reductionist.

 

[acbytesla]

The weak nuclear force is the second weakest force, after gravity

The Strong Nuclear Force (also referred to as the strong force) is one of the four basic forces in nature (the others being gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the weak nuclear force). As its name implies, it is the strongest of the four. ... The protons must feel a repulsive force from the other neighboring protons

So what? You didn't address my question. What happens when we break a nuclear force?

 

[Scorpion]

So what? You didn't address my question. What happens when we break a nuclear force?

I am not sure if an atomic explosion is breaking the strong nuclear force as much as disintegrating the nucleus of atoms and causing these particles to collide with other atoms and disintegrate them too. I got the following quote by googling it.

The splitting of a uranium atom releases energy. This process is called “nuclear fission”, since the centre of an atom is called its nucleus. When a uranium atom splits it gives off more neutrons, which can then split more atoms, and so the energy level rapidly multiplies

 

[acbytesla]

I am not sure if an atomic explosion is breaking the strong nuclear force as much as disintegrating the nucleus of atoms and causing these particles to collide with other atoms and disintegrate them too. I got the following quote by googling it.

The splitting of a uranium atom releases energy. This process is called “nuclear fission”, since the centre of an atom is called its nucleus. When a uranium atom splits it gives off more neutrons, which can then split more atoms, and so the energy level rapidly multiplies

When you fire neutrons at fissile elements, (U233, U235, PU239) you break the strong nuclear force holding the atom together and huge amounts of energy is released and yet this is a tiny fraction of the energy contained in the nuclear forces that hold the atom together. The additional neutrons of the process it gives off is necessary to keep the reaction going. That should give you an idea just how strong this force is.

BTW, there are lots of elements that are fertile as opposed to fissile. Firing neutrons at them results in creating different elements. IE: fire neutrons at U238 it accepts the extra neutron and transforms into PU239 which is fissile.

You can't just wave away the nuclear forces as if they are nothing. That physicists refer to some forces to as weak and some as strong doesn't mean what you think it does. I had to refresh myself on this. They are two very different types of interactions. But it means little to beings that interact on a molecular level.

 

[David Mo]

Oh I'm fully aware of how little actual "Philosophy" the internet's on call Wise Old Man on the Mountain Cosplayers Society nonsense actually contains.

Descartes still ducked if you threw a rock at his head.

You shall not take Descarte's name in vain.
If you don't know what you're talking about, why are you talking?
"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent," (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

 

[David Mo]

It's actually a childish misunderstanding and conflation of two separate legitimate (note that "legitimate" doesn't mean "necessarily true") philosophical positions: a Buddhistic (among many others) belief that the material world is illusion ("the world of red dust") and that spiritual enlightenment can bring one to the true, real world (possibly after death); and the nonreligious oldtimey Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, et al. proper philosophers' "problem of perception" which is that we are basically brains in jars and assume our senses are reporting the outside universe to us correctly, because we have no way if knowing if they aren't.

Neither position entails belief in any particular deity, and only the former carries any hint of a suggestion of how one should live one's life.

The same positions of 18th century philosophers have been repeated by 20th century scientists. From Einstein's realism to Von Neumann's subjective idealism, passing through Bohr's phenomenalism. But all of them refer to the world of subatomic particles. Regarding the world of sensitive phenomena the laws of classical physics work quite well. So what is the real world? Probably both. Each of them at a different level of reality and scientific apparatus.

Therefore, to say that the world is illusion is an empty phrase. In neither case is there an illusion. The most that can be said is that the world as we grasp it can be a mixture of what the real world and what our instruments of knowledge impose. This would make Kant very happy, to whom it seems that our philosophical scientists ignore.

Because all this is philosophy, no matter how much our friend Morgue is attacked every time he hears the word.

 

[bluesjnr]

Have you not seen the joy at a Trump rally?

Do you not think that they are gleeful when they chant "lock her up" or "send them back"?

I think they find great joy in their hatred. It is their bond, it is what brings them together to celebrate.

Bluesjnrs law - thread trumped.

 

[David Mo]

So do tell us about reality. Can you define it? Because in my philosophy everything we perceive is an illusion. Everything can be reduced to energy.

It is curious but I don't know anyone who has maintained that the world of the senses is illusion and has gone into a cage with a hungry tiger.
Maybe we can say that the tiger is a stripy energy that bites. Not illusory at all: it hurts.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The same positions of 18th century philosophers have been repeated by 20th century scientists. From Einstein's realism to Von Neumann's subjective idealism, passing through Bohr's phenomenalism. But all of them refer to the world of subatomic particles. Regarding the world of sensitive phenomena the laws of classical physics work quite well. So what is the real world? Probably both. Each of them at a different level of reality and scientific apparatus.

Therefore, to say that the world is illusion is an empty phrase. In neither case is there an illusion. The most that can be said is that the world as we grasp it can be a mixture of what the real world and what our instruments of knowledge impose. This would make Kant very happy, to whom it seems that our philosophical scientists ignore.

Because all this is philosophy, no matter how much our friend Morgue is attacked every time he hears the word.

No. Twentieth century physics is not philosophy, nobody has disproved Buddhism with science, and you are not wiser than Spinoza.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You shall not take Descarte's name in vain.
If you don't know what you're talking about, why are you talking?
"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent," (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

I'll take whoever's name in vain I damn well please. Random dead philosophers are your Gods to worship before, not mine.

Your days of declaring yourself the arbitrator of what is and isn't "philosophy" are long gone.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'll take whoever's name in vain I damn well please. Random dead philosophers are your Gods to worship before, not mine.

Your days of declaring yourself the arbitrator of what is and isn't "philosophy" are long gone.

You know how some people take Intro to Psychology class as a freshman and then think they can analyze everyone? The same thing happens with Intro to Philosophy: every year millions of undergraduates emerge confident they are deep thinkers, fully equal to the people whose names they'll continually drop until they grow out of it.

 

[Robin]

Say what ! I am talking about everything being made of atomic particles, including our bodies. We experience an existence we term reality. But whatever reality is, it is nothing like what our senses convey. We experience things as solid when they are not.

Finding out more about the nature of solidity does not make things any less solid.