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beecee, Philosophy and its methodology also includes a formalized language. I do not know it, or use it, but there are various formalized symbols for logical argument components, and truth tables and variable levels of truth considered and such. The OP question as to which methodology is better in determining what is real, is still not settled here. I would expect that we can agree that truth is very close to real in this discussion. That is, if something is objectively true, that means it is real and can be experienced by other than one observer. Quick question on the zero energy point. If an electron acts like a spring recoiling accepting and releasing tiny bits of energy down to half plank amplitudes is there a photon released on a down move and one absorbed on an up move? regards, TAR

"What does it mean to state the energy of a system is zero?" If we are going by E=MCsquared I suppose it would mean the system is devoid of mass or velocity. "Secondly why is the observer aspect so important to consider in the first question?" because the position and momentum of the observer defines the rest mass of the system in question and it matters greatly whether the observer is an inertial observer or an other than inertial observer

Mordred, The fact that you believe there is a correct answer to your first question depends on the fact that all the models you propose will have the same answer, because they all use the same mathematical definition of zero. If zero means the same thing as nothing, then math would have to exist prior to, or come into existence at the same moment as energy and matter and time and space came into existence. So there might be a difference in claiming the universe came from nothing, and claiming the universe came from zero. There is a small tribe in South America (Piraha,) who did not have much of a language able to describe mathematical concepts. Eventually Everett came up with a surprising explanation for the peculiarities of the Pirahã idiom. "The language is created by the culture," says the linguist. He explains the core of Pirahã culture with a simple formula: "Live here and now." The only thing of importance that is worth communicating to others is what is being experienced at that very moment. "All experience is anchored in the presence," says Everett, who believes this carpe-diem culture doesn't allow for abstract thought or complicated connections to the past -- limiting the language accordingly. Living in the now also fits with the fact that the Pirahã don't appear to have a creation myth explaining existence. When asked, they simply reply: "Everything is the same, things always are." The mothers also don't tell their children fairy tales -- actually nobody tells any kind of stories. No one paints and there is no art. http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/brazil-s-piraha-tribe-living-without-numbers-or-time-a-414291.html ​So I do not think reality started with the Arabs or the Greeks, or whoever first had a notion of zero. So mathematical proofs of balance of energy and matter on either side of zero are not good depictions of what coming from nothing, means. ​Regards, TAR Just thinking...you can write an equation down, poke and prod it and it never moves. Taste it and it tastes like ink or graphite, and tastes nothing like the thing it represents. The equation itself does not work, does not have any substance or energy or relationship or reality of its own. It is the definition of a simulation. It means something but it only is standing for a relationship that actually exists in reality already. Math can not create reality, only encode the relationships humans note. and for this discussion, the human mind can only represent reality that already is, or imagine rearranging it and then rearrange reality on reality's terms you can't fool mother nature

DrP, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" Regards, TAR

dimreepr, Where do you draw the line between those living in reality, and those residing in their own internally constructed world? Here is the exact central dilemma and the simple solution to the quandry is one I personally noted several years ago and have been trying to espouse on this board, since I noted it. EVERYTHING is happening outside a person, except for the stuff happening inside. And most, if not all of what is happening inside a person is brought in from the outside, so there is a direct connection and what is happening inside a person is part of reality, as well. Thusly we each are in and of reality. And internal thoughts are mostly composed of what it is we can say about the world. With other people having nearly exactly the same way of internalizing reality, we have 8 billion people we can talk to, about reality. Plus of course the millions who left their thoughts in the literature and art and works of constructions and technology. And we have a need to please each other and hold similar models of the place, and we teach each other what we learn about the place. So we each have an analog model of the world built within us, in our memories. The whole place, residing inside our body/brain/heart group. It is a reflection of the place, and is not better than the place. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, My thesis depends on the fact that our senses provide an actual analog model of the reality that surrounds us. We have rods and cones in our eyes and lenses that focus an image of the world on these rods and cones. They report the frequencies are present that engage the.... "Red, green and blue-violet are regarded as the three primary colours of light. They stimulate one cone type and the brain translates this information received by the eye into what we call colour. When two sets of cones are fired, we respond that we see for instance yellow-a mixture of red and green light." That this is all representation and translation of frequencies really extant and what and how we perceive them is a given. We are all the same in this regard, if we have normal sight. When we say the thing is red it is because the same cones in our eyes that sensed red light last time, sensed it again. I don't need infallible. I need and have workable. Regards, TAR

SwansonT, You are talking about a model working, and the model being not a complete analog to the thing being modeled. I am talking about the thing having to fit together with the rest of reality, regardless of the model. The world turns, without our help. Whether we get the speed wrong, or live in the Northern hemisphere and say it spins counterclockwise or we live in the Southern hemisphere and say the place is turning clockwise. In reality, the world is only going the way it is going, without our assistance. Regards, TAR

How about reality is that thing that would have to change in order for you to be right. That is, objective reality is that which is true without your participation required.

dimreepr, You did not fix it for me, you corrected Kant. Regards, TAR I would think that a scientist's request for a layman to understand the equation before passing judgement could be equally asked as a respectful requirement of someone who has read Critique of Pure Reason, for a person to read Kant, and understand his thinking, before carelessly professing an all encompassing methodology as "wrong". Note that "reality" is one of the categories considered as things we can say about an object in general.

The following from the Wiki article on Kant's Categories The table of judgments[edit] Kant believed that the ability of the human understanding (German: Verstand, Greek: dianoia "διάνοια", Latin: ratio) to think about and know an object is the same as the making of a spoken or written judgment about an object. According to him, "Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."[8] A judgment is the thought that a thing is known to have a certain quality or attribute. For example, the sentence "The rose is red" is a judgment. Kant created a table of the forms of such judgments as they relate to all objects in general.[9] Table of Judgements Category Judgements Quantity Universal Particular Singular Quality Affirmative Negative Infinite Relation Categorical Hypothetical Disjunctive Modality Problematical Assertoric Apodictic This table of judgments was used by Kant as a model for the table of categories. Taken together, these twelvefold tables constitute the formal structure for Kant's architectonic conception of his philosophical system.[10] The table of categories[edit] Table of Categories Category Categories Quantity Unity Plurality Totality Quality Reality Negation Limitation Relation Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident) Causality and Dependence (cause and effect) Community (reciprocity) Modality Possibility Actuality Necessity Mordred, Philosophy would have it, that there are certain judgements we can make about reality ​ objects and certain things we can think or say about reality objects. Call it "claims" we make. Regards, TAR

Mordred, You asked earlier that we attempt to address the OP question actually asked, which was which was a better methodology, regarding reality. I on purpose did not use a verb, like model, or understand, or recognize or whatever, because a verb would give away what ones conclusion is. But on the objective reality vs. simulation question I have a few open points. One, you mentioned HUP and I missed what that stood for. Do you have a link? Or did you already provide it? But regardless of whether one could identify the place as a computer program or not, it would necessitate that either the place itself is real, or the computer running the simulation is real. In either case, we have Dr. Sagan's argument, that you can just cut out the middle man and claim reality is real. Because if it is a simulation it is a real simulation on real equipment that some real someone has to be programming and maintaining...in other words, the question of actual or simulation does not get one any closer to any ultimate reality. That is, this one, is ultimate enough, close enough to reality, to go with, as real, with NO need for anything "greater". The place is pretty great on its own, without our mental models of it even coming close in greatness, to it. In one of the links provided in the LIGO thread, there was a description of the expansion of the universe shown by overlaying a grid of dots with one separation over a grid of dots of another separation, and aligning any one dot, would provide the same picture "when looking at the situation from the outside". In science, as in philosophy it is important to be able to see the thing under study from the outside. I have to define the entire set, in order to then look at the members of the set. I have to define the boundary conditions of my model before I can determine the interaction of the internal elements. There is, in both methodologies a requirement that you have a point of focus from which to operate. Same idea as human lenses focusing rays of light from all directions onto the back of the eye, in an upside down backward image of the place which is then brought to the brain by the optic nerves, providing an exact analogous image of the place. The place is real, the model is of the place. "objective reality" is that thing you would experience, if you were observing the place in someone, or something else's shoes, with some set of "eyes" with defined capabilities There are a lot of ways to do this. A lot of different thought experiments that could be run, except each and every plan, comes down to using our senses, or enhanced versions of our senses to capture the image of the world against which we will compare the model of the world we have built from previous sensory images. For instance we can see further, and see tiny stuff, and we can look at different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, but we are still in a "sense" seeing the place. That there really are electromagnetic waves coming into any point on the surface of a lake, from everywhere, is really happening. The only way to simulate this reality would be to actually have a universe. Regards, TAR notice that a point of focus consciousness is at one place, at one time same conditions required when looking at any model or any "case" to do a transformation you need a point in each space, to overlay and consider "the" point of focus from which you can now see the comparison between the sets science is formalized, structured thinking, based on empirical (sensed) evidence Philosophy, as the OP points out, is not constrained by the senses, and can just think a thing through logically.

Well, here is where we should not throw the word "obviously" around haphazardly.

dimreepr, I am not trying to conflate or prove anybody's model better or worse than anybody else's. I am trying to discuss the OP and determine if reality is something the average person has equal access to as the philosopher has or the scientist has. My change of focus, was to look at the situation from a human perspective, as that is the common factor that is obviously found between laymen, philosophers and scientists. All the former actually do agree on a common reality. The Earth, the Sun, the stars, the oceans the continents, the nations, the technological advances of our forefathers and mothers, everything that exists in the waking world. Hiroshima exists in the model of every person on the planet that has read about it, or heard about it. It is real. It is all real. The things that differ between folks, is what it all means to them. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, I am lost. It is not obvious to me what you meant or I would not ask for clarification. Is reality something I have direct access to, or can I only experience it through the understanding of your mathematical model? Regards, TAR

beecee, like a piece of meat can get lost in the sauce The important thing is in there, but it is obscured by the sauce. When you say "you" do you mean me or "one". Are you saying in general that a human can not ever see reality as it is, or are you saying that I am oblivious to the reality discovered by science? Regards, TAR

beecee, So, science ought not be used as a weapon. My statement about the thing needing to have some energy to get started, was something I said after I read your links and watched Krauss' talk. You then say perhaps I need to review my consideration of how reality is. I just took what was being posited and read it back to show its inconsistencies. The review of how reality is, that is undertaken by philosophers and scientists, religious people and laymen and all combinations thereof, has to work out, has to add back, has to be true in more than one way. It does not have to fit Krauss' model or fit the ID person's model, the models of these two folks has to fit reality. What too often is the problem in human interaction is the reality that a person needs to be right about the world. Its in our DNA to be right. I have a personal dopamine theory I am working on that has our pleasure reward system at the basis of consciousness, language, human motivation, politics, social interaction, politics, AND philosophy and Science. What I mean, is that our ability to know internally what is going on externally is basic to our survival on the planet as individuals and as a species. To that, as we evolved, EVERYTHING, that accrued to survival would be good to repeat. So something must have given us a reason to repeat actions that worked. Actions that were correct. Actions that aligned the internal model with the external reality. It would be "good" to know where the water hole was, so you could find it again. So my dopamine theory has our norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine complex developing to give us urges, needs and desires which we then were rewarded for, by fulfilling the need. We felt good, and we wanted to do it that way again. To this my theory says that anytime we win, or complete a task, or get something right, or get a joke, or find an answer, or match our model to reality, or reality to our model. we feel good, we feel right, we feel alive, we feel like we are winning. But it is not notably helpful to only feel right by showing the other person wrong. There is a big grey area in this model building business where matching ones model to the other's model is crucial, but where the match between the model and the reality it is tasked to model, is lost in the sauce. So it makes Dr. Krauss happy, makes him feel good to have a superior model. And indeed it is better to have a map of the area with the water hole marked then to get out your divining rod every time you are thirsty, but it is not important to tell the guy with the divining rod he has a goofy way to find the water, it is more workable if you show him the underground sonar depiction of the layout of the shelves and sediment underground that show where the underground water is liable to run and pool. In an effort to prove ID people wrong, if you ignore reality and wallow in your own ultimate model, and ignore the mismatch between your model and reality, just to be right. just to feel good, just to feel your model of reality is superior to the other's, when you actually have no empirical data to back up your claim...you are not doing science, you are doing something else. Now, I have nothing against the science that Dr, Krauss is teaching, the fact that the CMB is figured to be a view of the universe when it was 100,000 years old and such. But what that means, the implications of that, how that fits into my model of the place, and how that will enhance my enjoyment and survival, is pretty much up to me, not anybody else. While there is a need we all have to align our models with those we love, learning from those we trust, and sharing our discoveries with those we love, so that a consensus working, intricate, all encompassing model of the place can be built for us to then maneuver through and allow us to manipulate the place for our benefit, some of the dopamine we get for matching our model to objective reality has to do with matching the models of others and some has to do with directly matching with reality. But Dr. Krauss gets no dopamine from matching with the model of an ID person, or a religious person, or a biologist or a philosopher. He gets it all from when his model matches reality so securely that his mtodel lets him know how the universe will end. He gets his dopamine by matching, indeed, but he is ass-backward, cramming reality into his model, not allowing reality to inform his model and my model simultaneously, as would be the case, if the empirical data was noted and cataloged and a map of the place thusly drawn. Regards, TAR It is not important in science to prove someone else's model wrong. The important thing in science, and in your personal life is to determine were YOU have it wrong. Someone else cannot tell you this, because they do not have your model of the place, they only have their own. I just reread and saw I put politics in twice. I did not edit it out. It seemed almost appropriate.

beecee, Seems the problem is you need a little bit of energy to get the thing started, and a little bit of energy is not nothing. Regards, TAR And if science is a systematic study of the structure and behavior of the place, based on empirical data and testable hypothesis, then matching the model to the place, and the place to the model seems to be the solid foundation of science. The speaker in your link seems to be more interested in proving his model is superior to all others, and he knows the ultimate truth. That does not seem a bit scientific to me. Rather more on the philosophical side, or maybe even political or self serving as an entertainer after laughter and applause. His conclusions and pronouncements are not testable.

Randolpin, To back up your argument, I offer this. I looked at the Carl Sagan clip beecee posted, and Carl Sagen said exactly what I have argued on several threads regarding the logic that if God has to be eternal to explain his existence, why not just cut out the middleman and consider that the cosmos is eternal. I thought I came up with this logic myself. I had a talk with God when I was thirteen (and felt sorry for him because he had no mother and father, and was all alone, except for us, and it was important for us to keep it a secret that we were his imagination) around the same time I was considering, grain size wise, that the universe could be a component of a greater reality and we might be, to some other consciousness as tiny and brief as a consciousness living on the surface of an electron, is to us...so I also have Carl Sagan's book Cosmos on a shelf downstairs, and I believe I read through the whole thing, and could have gotten my argument from Carl Sagan, OR I could have actually had the idea when I was 13, and this proves that Dr. Sagan and I are living in and attempting to comprehend the exact same reality, in all its complexities, from the quark to the beginning of the universe and beyond, in both directions, and possibly eternal, and extending in both directions not only in size, but in duration. And here we are, in the middle, with tiny quick stuff out of our reach below and huge expanses of space and time out of our reach above. But we are in this together, us Philosophers and Scientists and laypersons. And we experience it on the same size and time scale as every other human, with the same basic equipment in terms of senses and folded up brain parts, and this human sensing of the place has been going on since Lucy. But its the same place it always was, before we each individually where born, and it will be here after we die, and it will not get any bigger or smaller, slower or faster, simpler or more intricate, depending on what we think about it. The place is our place. The time is now, the place is here, and we are all in this together. Regards, TAR And what is true is true, regardless of what we think about it. Thread, Just thought of how a saying I learned in business relates to this discussion. The saying is "Think Globally, Act Locally." Perhaps philosophers are the global thinkers, and scientists are the local actors. Regards, TAR

DrP, This one of course. That is why there is uni in universe. It's mine, yours and the guy's down the street. Regards TAR

dimreepr, I don't know what you mean by me arguing the other way up to now. My stance is that reality is real, and we are real, and we each have an internal model of reality that is less than as complete and fitting, as reality itself is. That science seeks to understand this reality, same as philosophers seek to understand this reality, is an indication that we are all in and of the same reality. I think everything I have argued in this thread is consistent with this stance. Regards, TAR

Thank you scientists for working for me, for free. I truly rely on you and appreciate your work.

The computer holding the model, holding the information of the exact position and momentum of every quark and photon the universe possesses would have to be composed itself of real quarks and photons, which themselves would have to have some position and spin and momentum that would "stand for" the position spin and momentum of the target components of the universe. So the mind that could comprehend the output of the computer, would have to be bigger than the place. For me, and my philosophy, I think it better to cut out the middle man, and look at the universe directly. It is already real, exactly as it is. And the whole place is already reporting its existence to me, when I look at it, and when I believe the reports of scientists that study it, and measure it and record and catalog it for me. Regards, TAR

Mordred, On the lattice spacing and gauge considerations, and transforms and models and such that you prefer the hard science on, I would like to point out that the models are residing in human brains and on sheets of paper and in 1s and 0s in computer chips and algorithms, and these things are subsets of reality, so any characteristics that they can describe about reality are limited by limitations that reality itself actually has...if reality does have limitations. Example: In my business of technical support on wide format inkjet printers, the programing of the image processing and the physical arrangement of the inkjets and the pattern and spacing of horizontal and vertical movements created what we referred to as "artifacts". The analogy I am attempting to draw, is that our job was to lets say, make a life sized banner of body painted model, look lifelike, look real, look like reality itself. And the moire pattern visually evident on the finish product, or the increased contrast and enhanced color, were not exact representations of reality but had elements that were added or subtracted by real interpreters. The model and the model painter and make up artist, the camera and the camera designer and the camera's internal programming and memory, the settings of the camera and the effects that the photographer added or subtracted, the programming of the photoshop program that touched up the picture, the resolution of the original image, the data transfer encoding and the memory limitations of various devices, could have, NO, actually HAD TO have left artifacts on the data, before the pixels even where presented to the printer and its many transforms. So, when researching lattice spacing, be aware that some characteristic that you are finding reality has, might be a characteristic that a subset of reality has. Your brain can shift grain size and might not make all transforms required to keep all aspects of the studied item intact, and reproduced in true and complete form. The scientific equipment gathering your data has limitations and things are already encoded and averaged and adjusted. The thing might look different under a microscope, or from 100 million lys. Regards, TAR

Mordred, Yeah, but she is a "real" idiot. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, Just gesturing perhaps, but if there is a requirement in science to explain that you really don't know reality, you really are not trying to match reality, you just have this model that is the best you have at the moment, subject to change and improvement and such, why it is bad to say I have this working model that has me conscious, and other people conscious, that has so far past every test I have put on these other humans that are everywhere, and have been everywhere for a long time? What is the objection? Who would get in trouble if they were to say that other minds existed? Regards, TAR In fact, if the idea is to be right, about the call as to whether you are a simulation or you are real, who would be angry with you, if you called it wrong? If you determined you were a simulation, would the simulators be upset that you found out? Are the simulators then automatically real, or do they have to claim they don't know either? And more importantly if there is anybody whose job it is to enforce the idea, that you can not prove you are not a simulation, then I would say automatically the enforcers had to be the real thing.