Stupid Philosophical Muses, Keeping Me Awake
I'm guessing I'm not the only person who looses sleep thinking about philosophical issues. I'm certainly not the first writer to (that much I'm sure of). But, since every doctor I've seen has told me I need more sleep: let's try writing this one out to get some shut eye.
This isn't a post about me, so if you're looking for news about me and Robin, you may as well skip this one.
At a certain point, very high-level science starts to sound an awful lot like very high-level philosophy. I see three possible reasons for this, mostly because I always think in threes:
1.) Those who are trained in the absolute highest levels of academics are given educations structured according to very similar principles and ideals developed over centuries in which they frequently overlapped with each other. Therefore, when confronted with data that is new to mankind, they phrase it in such a way that makes sense to this training.
2.) Mankind, being included in the whole of the universe; can access the data of the universe in a variety of fashions, depending on the individual and point of view. Therefore, scientists and philosophers (and theologians, and cats) are actually describing the universe at its various levels at the same time, without realizing the success of the other methods.
3.) Mankind, being included in the whole of the universe, is shaping that universe according to how we understand it.
Last one's a little freaky, but it's also not entirely beyond the reach of probability.
To break it down into easier language, either philosophy and science are overlapping because all of the philosophers and scientists basically think the same way, because they both understand the same aspects of the universe but through different methods, or mankind literally shapes the universe to fit with what he thinks it should be. Great.
So, my next question is: if you have an intelligence which is not human, perceives the universe differently then we do (say, they were able to see on a different spectrum band then us), and had no cultural traits in common - how different would their cosmology be?
Or, just to really muck things up - would there space conform to our understanding of physical law, or will the universe bend to the whim of the locals?
Which brings up the even more fun question of what would happen if we traveled into their space, or vice versa?
Hmmm, maybe that's why aliens don't visit (supposedly): maybe their physical laws are so different from ours, that they can't withstand our edge of the universe.
Ok, enough alien and non-human intelligences talk: here's some real problems I'm grappling with.
If philosophical meanderings start to delve into the realms of science on some pretty heavy levels, where do theologies sit? Some of them, I know, are a little too mythos based to listen to in this discussion: but nearly all of them start intruding onto the turf of traditional philosophy far enough to raise that single, irritating question
What if the concept of an afterlife, or gods, or karma, or reincarnation were rooted in some sort of truth we can't currently understand?
More interestingly, when and how will we be able to understand it?
Peace Way Out.
This isn't a post about me, so if you're looking for news about me and Robin, you may as well skip this one.
At a certain point, very high-level science starts to sound an awful lot like very high-level philosophy. I see three possible reasons for this, mostly because I always think in threes:
1.) Those who are trained in the absolute highest levels of academics are given educations structured according to very similar principles and ideals developed over centuries in which they frequently overlapped with each other. Therefore, when confronted with data that is new to mankind, they phrase it in such a way that makes sense to this training.
2.) Mankind, being included in the whole of the universe; can access the data of the universe in a variety of fashions, depending on the individual and point of view. Therefore, scientists and philosophers (and theologians, and cats) are actually describing the universe at its various levels at the same time, without realizing the success of the other methods.
3.) Mankind, being included in the whole of the universe, is shaping that universe according to how we understand it.
Last one's a little freaky, but it's also not entirely beyond the reach of probability.
To break it down into easier language, either philosophy and science are overlapping because all of the philosophers and scientists basically think the same way, because they both understand the same aspects of the universe but through different methods, or mankind literally shapes the universe to fit with what he thinks it should be. Great.
So, my next question is: if you have an intelligence which is not human, perceives the universe differently then we do (say, they were able to see on a different spectrum band then us), and had no cultural traits in common - how different would their cosmology be?
Or, just to really muck things up - would there space conform to our understanding of physical law, or will the universe bend to the whim of the locals?
Which brings up the even more fun question of what would happen if we traveled into their space, or vice versa?
Hmmm, maybe that's why aliens don't visit (supposedly): maybe their physical laws are so different from ours, that they can't withstand our edge of the universe.
Ok, enough alien and non-human intelligences talk: here's some real problems I'm grappling with.
If philosophical meanderings start to delve into the realms of science on some pretty heavy levels, where do theologies sit? Some of them, I know, are a little too mythos based to listen to in this discussion: but nearly all of them start intruding onto the turf of traditional philosophy far enough to raise that single, irritating question
What if the concept of an afterlife, or gods, or karma, or reincarnation were rooted in some sort of truth we can't currently understand?
More interestingly, when and how will we be able to understand it?
Peace Way Out.