Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Illusion...
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people
very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."****I think theres a little clarification required as to why i chose 'Eddy' to be the name of thecritic and not something else.. and NO it doe not have anything to do with eddy currents
which are circular and never ending and all tht..lol.. the name is probably coz of myfascination with the Iron Maiden mascot "Eddy" and the erstwhile cartoon "ed,edd and eddy"..
no symbolic mysticism here..lol ****Well this is in continuation to one of my previous posts (Relative??Absolutely).. I had ppl telling me tht it's so obvious that things remain unaffected by our perception.. "y in the world wud a chair stop existing if i wasnt there to see it?Duh.." The deal here is that the matter is not so easily done away with.. to those who think its pretty obvious..i ask - prove the existence of the chair wen u r not percieving it.. it may seem very 'obvious'.. but thts just yrs of indiffernce speaking.. we take too many things for granted.. existence being one of them..What is a mirage?.. I am driving on a very hot day and i suddenly see that the road in front of me has turned into water.. having no past experience of such an occurence.. i am led to believe it actually is a pool of water..and there is no way tht i can jus sitting in the car make out tht the water is 'actually' an illusion... and so i wud firmly believe tht the pool of water on the road 'exists' and until i shift my position and see from a difernt point of view..i wudnt realize its an illusion.What if everything we percieve is exactly just tht.. an illusion which our common sense forces us to believe as things actually existing.. so perception is surely not a test for existence.. then what? Perception and Comprehension are my only tools to analyzing evrything external.. perception fails as a sure shot test as it can be decieved easily..wat about comprehension.. my thoughts are purely mine and cannot be decieved.. influenced? sure.. but not decieved..Here steps in Rene Descartes.. and his tool of methodological skepticism ('Doubt everything which can be doubted')He was puzzled by the very same questions which i have raised above..and came up with a brilliant line of argument.. -"If i am being Decieved, then I must surely Exist.... my memories? well they can also be decieved..so only my present thoughts can be trusted as proof of existence.. i think therefore i exist.. but in wat form?? the body that i percieve to be mine is also through my senses which are unreliable. Then the only undoubtable fact here is that I am a 'Thinking Thing'.. Thinking is my essence..But then wat is thinking?It is what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it.If i have a piece of wax, my senses see a block of white material.. and wen i hold the wax in front of a fire, it melts into a liquid which i know is also wax. How did i reach this conclusion? only my senses wud have told me that they are 2 different things.. but my resoning helps me realize and connect the 2.Thus what I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind"
Thus Descartes believed only in deductive reasoning and thought sensory perception was unreliable.
The modern skeptic would come up with many arguments.. and i m picturing eddy again. He would refute Descartes definition of thinking saying it was nothing but a set of massively complicated chemical reactions but jus tht- chemical reactions. therefore if senses can be decieved, so can thoughts. For example, if thoughts and deductive reasoning were to be the test of existence.. then the 'popular brain in a vat' argument is put forth.. it says suppose a brain were to be put in a vat and connected to a sufficiently capable supercomputer which feeded the brain with illusions( ya the matrix scenario basically ), the brain and thus its thoughts would be decieved. The counterargument here is tht even though this might be the case, then tht is proof of the existence of such a vat..or basically something which creates the illusion.. Descartes in his time referred to this illusion creator as a 'vicious demon' or 'diabolus'.. Thus even if all this is an illusion.. we can be rest assured of the fact tht sum1 or sumthing is definitrly there who is creating ths illusion.. The lil painter in the pic exists for sure..
* I am outta thoughts now..so i ll have to think up some more.. till then chew on this..:D*
Cheers
Relative??Absolutely..
Hey, I ve been having quite some time lately(lol). One experience I recently had brought back a recent debate to my mind. Its a very engrossing one and there are conflicting views as usual.. so wen i am writin this piece, im picturing a mild critic who's asking me questions about every statement i make. I ve also thot up a name for him. I call him 'Eddy' (lol. ya it may sound stupid. but thts how i think lol ). I think i am at one side of the argument.. but my gut tells me tht the solution lies midway. Maybe some of my thoughts are not actually 'my own' as in the idea may have been conjectured numerous times before...but i ll put forward my point of view.Some ideas which i find difficult to convey..i shall try to express in the form of conversations with eddy.
Wat is the nature of reality? What quality differentiates illusions and dreams from reality?Is there a concrete real world 'out there' at all?
Well before i even get to these.. the most basic question is the definition of existence. This is where the debate stems from. We all know intuitively wat existence is right? try putting the idea forth explicitly.. u ll realize the no. of shortcomings any definition will have. Is it tht our language doesn't have enough flexibility to be able to express it explicitly or is it tht our minds cannot encompass its real quality? Well the question boils down to, even though we may not be able to express the nature of so many things such as space, time, life, etc explicitly.. are our minds broad enough to understand the 'whole' truth? unfortunately no. Kurt Godel, a prominent logician came up with the incompleteness theorem which approximately states tht any axiomatic system is not free of contradictions.. and as far as i can think, our brains are capable of thinking up many new things, but theres always something at the bottom of the ladder which we have tacitly assumed. Thus its natural for us to always base our theories on certain assumptions.Can those assumptions be justified? Can we get rid of them? Can there be a theory without axioms? I donot know. And thts a completely different story altogether.
How do i know anything exists? Some would say that if i can perceive anything..it exists. This means tht when i am looking at a chair, it exists. Or in other words, it has a certain no. of properties of which existence is one. It sound pretty convincing, doesn't it? Well then if i turn around so tht i cannot see the chair or perceive it in any way.. Does it mean tht the chair ceases to exist? Well it is a possibility. Lets consider it for a moment. Now i call in eddy into the room and he stands so tht he can see the chair. Now the question arises- I cannot perceive the chair, but eddy can. So does the chair 'actually' exist or not? Heres where the opinion divides into the relativistic and the absolute. I shall endorse the absolute point of view while Eddy shall subscribe to the former. Here Eddy says tht the chair has relative existence. It exists for him and doesnt for me. I find tht pretty absurd initially. He tries to convince me by saying tht since i can not perceive the chair.. i cannot confirm its existence and hence it is as gud as nonexistent for me. Though i may choose to believe it exists, he says, its purely a matter of personal belief. I donot like this point of view. How is the chair affected by my perception? Wat change have I induced by my act of perception that endows the chair with existence. If a camera captures the chair in a photograph while eddy and me both stand outside.. Does the chair exist then.. Eddy would refuse because he says he didn't perceive it. My question is then tht how are we different from the camera? Are we not organic cameras too in a way? or is consciousness a necessity? Eddy fails to answer. He just says tht if anything has to exist for him in 'his' universe.. He must perceive it.. or else it is doomed to remain in a state of doubtful existence.
The chair can either exist or not exist. There are no two ways about it. Maybe we cannot confirm its existence from outside the room as we cannot perceive it. But, i repeat, Why does the chairs existence have to do anything with my conscious perception and acknowledgement of it. I choose to believe tht the moon exists even though i am not looking at it. True i cannot confirm its existence right now and it may be getting sucked into a black hole for all i know.. but i just wish to say that it will continue with its natural order of events even when i am not looking at it and have no knowledge of its present. Fermat's Last theorem was proved in 1994 by Andrew Wiles. It had ben conjectured about 250 or 300 years ago. My question is was it true or not before it had been proved to be true? Eddy would say he could not know. But Wasnt it already True or False irrespective of when it was proved?? It had to be either true or false and we found out in 1994 that it was true. Which means it was true all that time in the Absolute. Eddy on the other hand would say it had equal probability of being proved true or false before 1994. Isnt that absurd? Its a very convincing example where i think eddy fails to provide an adequately convincing argument.
Eddy says that an object starts existing for sure the moment u perceive it. Suppose i ask Eddy to put a chair in a room. Now i enter that room with my eyes shut and position myself according to where Eddy told me he would put the chair. Then i open my eyes and see the chair. Eddy says that the chair assumed the property of existence for me in my particular universe after i saw it there. Now i ask.. How did i see the chair? For me to see it.. photons scattered by it have to enter my eyes. Which means tht i can talk of an 'it' even before i have seen it or perceived it.Which in turn implies tht the 'it' existed before i saw it somewhere. Where? Eddy is unable to answer. He says he will have to think. But looking from the absolute point of view the explanation is immediate. The chair had already been there indifferent to my perception and hence i saw it when some of the photons from it chanced to enter my eye. Simple isnt it?
This is why i choose to endorse an absolutist point of view. I dont like giving undue importance to our consciousness as it is nothing but a chemical coincidence in the turn of events of the absolute cosmos. A relative universe which centers around evry1s individual consciousness and where existence of objects, and occurring of events depends on conscious perception may sound flattering. but it is too complicated.
An absolute one for all universe where things happen and objects exist and go about their respective events without being dependant on conscious observers is what i believe in.Our conscious perception is not reason enough to decide the fate of the numerous things in the huge cosmos.with this and eddy swearing.. i sign off
Chew on it..
Cheers.
Wat is the nature of reality? What quality differentiates illusions and dreams from reality?Is there a concrete real world 'out there' at all?
Well before i even get to these.. the most basic question is the definition of existence. This is where the debate stems from. We all know intuitively wat existence is right? try putting the idea forth explicitly.. u ll realize the no. of shortcomings any definition will have. Is it tht our language doesn't have enough flexibility to be able to express it explicitly or is it tht our minds cannot encompass its real quality? Well the question boils down to, even though we may not be able to express the nature of so many things such as space, time, life, etc explicitly.. are our minds broad enough to understand the 'whole' truth? unfortunately no. Kurt Godel, a prominent logician came up with the incompleteness theorem which approximately states tht any axiomatic system is not free of contradictions.. and as far as i can think, our brains are capable of thinking up many new things, but theres always something at the bottom of the ladder which we have tacitly assumed. Thus its natural for us to always base our theories on certain assumptions.Can those assumptions be justified? Can we get rid of them? Can there be a theory without axioms? I donot know. And thts a completely different story altogether.
How do i know anything exists? Some would say that if i can perceive anything..it exists. This means tht when i am looking at a chair, it exists. Or in other words, it has a certain no. of properties of which existence is one. It sound pretty convincing, doesn't it? Well then if i turn around so tht i cannot see the chair or perceive it in any way.. Does it mean tht the chair ceases to exist? Well it is a possibility. Lets consider it for a moment. Now i call in eddy into the room and he stands so tht he can see the chair. Now the question arises- I cannot perceive the chair, but eddy can. So does the chair 'actually' exist or not? Heres where the opinion divides into the relativistic and the absolute. I shall endorse the absolute point of view while Eddy shall subscribe to the former. Here Eddy says tht the chair has relative existence. It exists for him and doesnt for me. I find tht pretty absurd initially. He tries to convince me by saying tht since i can not perceive the chair.. i cannot confirm its existence and hence it is as gud as nonexistent for me. Though i may choose to believe it exists, he says, its purely a matter of personal belief. I donot like this point of view. How is the chair affected by my perception? Wat change have I induced by my act of perception that endows the chair with existence. If a camera captures the chair in a photograph while eddy and me both stand outside.. Does the chair exist then.. Eddy would refuse because he says he didn't perceive it. My question is then tht how are we different from the camera? Are we not organic cameras too in a way? or is consciousness a necessity? Eddy fails to answer. He just says tht if anything has to exist for him in 'his' universe.. He must perceive it.. or else it is doomed to remain in a state of doubtful existence.
The chair can either exist or not exist. There are no two ways about it. Maybe we cannot confirm its existence from outside the room as we cannot perceive it. But, i repeat, Why does the chairs existence have to do anything with my conscious perception and acknowledgement of it. I choose to believe tht the moon exists even though i am not looking at it. True i cannot confirm its existence right now and it may be getting sucked into a black hole for all i know.. but i just wish to say that it will continue with its natural order of events even when i am not looking at it and have no knowledge of its present. Fermat's Last theorem was proved in 1994 by Andrew Wiles. It had ben conjectured about 250 or 300 years ago. My question is was it true or not before it had been proved to be true? Eddy would say he could not know. But Wasnt it already True or False irrespective of when it was proved?? It had to be either true or false and we found out in 1994 that it was true. Which means it was true all that time in the Absolute. Eddy on the other hand would say it had equal probability of being proved true or false before 1994. Isnt that absurd? Its a very convincing example where i think eddy fails to provide an adequately convincing argument.
Eddy says that an object starts existing for sure the moment u perceive it. Suppose i ask Eddy to put a chair in a room. Now i enter that room with my eyes shut and position myself according to where Eddy told me he would put the chair. Then i open my eyes and see the chair. Eddy says that the chair assumed the property of existence for me in my particular universe after i saw it there. Now i ask.. How did i see the chair? For me to see it.. photons scattered by it have to enter my eyes. Which means tht i can talk of an 'it' even before i have seen it or perceived it.Which in turn implies tht the 'it' existed before i saw it somewhere. Where? Eddy is unable to answer. He says he will have to think. But looking from the absolute point of view the explanation is immediate. The chair had already been there indifferent to my perception and hence i saw it when some of the photons from it chanced to enter my eye. Simple isnt it?
This is why i choose to endorse an absolutist point of view. I dont like giving undue importance to our consciousness as it is nothing but a chemical coincidence in the turn of events of the absolute cosmos. A relative universe which centers around evry1s individual consciousness and where existence of objects, and occurring of events depends on conscious perception may sound flattering. but it is too complicated.
An absolute one for all universe where things happen and objects exist and go about their respective events without being dependant on conscious observers is what i believe in.Our conscious perception is not reason enough to decide the fate of the numerous things in the huge cosmos.with this and eddy swearing.. i sign off
Chew on it..
Cheers.
Life..
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating... you finish off as an orgasm. "
George Carlin
lol...
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Cogito Ergo Sum..
..For the uninitiated, here i am going to briefly summarize the essence of the key words that inspire my Blog.. Cogito Ergo Sum..
Mentioned famously by the 17th Century Mathematician and Philosopher(or rather Thinker) Rene Descartes, Literally translated the words mean "I think Therefore I am" but a more accurate and meaningful interpretation would yield " I am thinking, Therefore I exist"..
Although both the interpretations appear similiar superficially, there is a key difference which I shall address in the due blogs. The whole deal here is that these words underline a powerful method of approach at dealing with the seemingly convoluted and unanswerable questions such as "What is the meaning of existence?" , "What is consciousness?" and so on. This powerful device of analysis is called "Methodological Skepticism". It proposes to arrive at a set of axiomatic principles via a logical analysis where a basic thumb rule is always followed - Doubt Any Idea which can be Doubted.
The axioms arrived at via this process are conjectured to be known as True Without Any Doubt. Of course the basic assumption here being that such a set of principles do exist and that the meaning of "a doubtless and true argument" is understood as "an argument without any contradiction(or self-inconsistency)". These basic set of principles would be Self-Existing i.e they would'nt require any thing other than themselves to exist.
Although this discussion may seem pointless or just the regular philosophical mindtalk, it has many important repurcussions. I was personally drawn into this discussion while discussing Relativity and Quantum physics with a friend. I am a staunch believer in the concept of the absolute. A simple universe which is the same for all and does not centre around everyone's individual consciousness appeals to me. In short there is an absolute universe which is entirely independent of my existence. I am too insignificant to affect the proceedings of the cosmos or 'my cosmos' as my dear friend would prefer to call it. All of us humans are merely coincidences in the various proceedings of the vast cosmos and our 'consciousness' is too feeble a reason in my opinion to control the causes and effects of everything and their numerous ramifications in the universe. Then of course my friend would argue that the universe, causes, effects,etc are nothing but my perceptions. Does my perception of a thing qualify it as being real, or endow it with the property of existence? I think not. (More on this argument later,I have gone a bit astray from the main discussion, so i ll continue now from where i left - how i entered this discussion). Now Quantum physics describes a world full of uncertainty and probability. One of the basic assumptions is that a particle exists as a probability wave before any of its properties is measured. But the disturbing thing is that, as soon as the measurement is made, this probability wave collapses and the particle assumes its properties which have been measured. The perplexing elements here are many - How does the particle 'know' that it is being measured??What qualifies as an act of measurement?? Is a device registering the presence or position of a particle measuring it??Or is a sentient observer required??Is not the notion of 'cause and effect(causality)' being violated??We are measuring a certain property of the particle, and the particle then, 'after' being measured, assumes those particular properties and hides the others in a veil of uncertainty.But if the particle assumes those properties to a particular level of accuracy (or uncertainty) 'after' we measure them at that accuracy, the question now arises - What were we measuring then (note the two 'after's refer to differnt instants..)??.. The quantum theory answers none of these questions concretely. But day after day it is vindicated by increasingly and fantastically accurate predictions.
But then how are we to explain the above mentioned shortcomings?Are we to forever live in this world shrouded in an eternal quantum limbo? or is there a way out?
The answer to these questions, my friends, is what I seek.
Chew on it..
(Edit- 12/2/2008 : Very very naive post, in hindsight.)
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