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Originally posted by symmetricAvenger
what you fail to understand is that matter is a combination of energy
have a nice day
Oh and read more books
Originally posted by Xtinguish
Ok! My first thread so I hope it doesn't bomb. I've did a few quick searches on this subject, and have found no philosophical discussions on it. I'm going to throw out some ideas I've read and become partial to on the subject. I look forward to replies of all kinds!
Look around! You will see all kinds of things. Chairs, walls, tables, your computer, and even other people perceiving the same exact things as you! Do these things really exist? Is it really crazy to say that truth would have that none of this exist at all? How could that be? Won't these things still be existing even if no one were in the room to perceive them? It isn't like matter simply vibrates in and out of reality when someone comes along to perceive it. That is just plain absurd!
So how does this matter work? How come things appear a certain shape, size, and color at a certain distance, and then completely different at another? Is it possible that that this matter is totally only mind-dependent? Meaning that all matter is dependent on us perceiving it through our senses? What is matter without the mind? What is color besides but various degrees of light? Isn't color just our eye, mind, and prism? If colors were real properties wouldn't they admit no alteration, as some living things in nature can perceive things we cannot?
What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it? How would it exist without the mind? The same for touch, taste, size, and motion.
Our sense of touch is always either pain or pleasure. Is either of those only just nerves sending signals to our brains? A perfect example of this would be putting one hand in a freezer, and the other in the oven. Then dip them both into a tub of water. Wouldn't the water appear cold to the hand which was heated and warm to the hand which was frozen? How can the water be both hot and cold? It can't. It is merely our mind creating the illusion of hot/cold and pain/pleasure.
How about size and motion? Doesn't something appear different to a fly then to a human? How if size is a independent characteristic without the mind? How about motion? If someone travels three miles at one mile an hour, and another perceives the same speed as one mile three miles per hour, who would appear to whom is going faster?
So, lastly is what George Berkley called his Master Argument. This idea is attempted to show no object can ever exist outside of the mind, and to even think so is inconceivable. Try and think of an object unconceived. Did you do it yet? Nope! Because soon as you try you have conceived of it!
There is a lot more to this argument of matters non-existance. I didn't want to have you guys reading a novel so I'll part here. I look forward to replies on the subject.
[edit on 22-6-2009 by Xtinguish]
Originally posted by Level
I don’t mean to be rude but a lot of what you are saying is plain wrong. Things really do happen in our physical world, it doesn’t matter if anyone is there to perceive it. You say
“What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it?”
NO! Sound is pressure waves traveling thru air and/or any other liquid/solid. Can you hear sound under water? Yes, but it sounds different because water has a higher density then air. Are you trying to say if no one is there to hear it that it doesn’t exist? That is crazy!!! Other animals may perceive it differently but that’s only because their ear is built differently but the pressure wave is still the same.
It is the same thing for all other senses. A light wave consists of energy in the form of electric and magnetic fields. The fields vibrate at right angles to the direction of movement of the wave, and at right angles to each other. Because light has both electric and magnetic fields, it is also referred to as electromagnetic radiation. Some animals can see more or less of the electromagnetic spectrum because their eyes are built differently but that doesn’t change what is there.
So yes, a person can live in there own made up perception of reality or one can try to understand everything around them…and live in reality.
Originally posted by Xtinguish
So how does this matter work? How come things appear a certain shape, size, and color at a certain distance, and then completely different at another? Is it possible that that this matter is totally only mind-dependent? Meaning that all matter is dependent on us perceiving it through our senses? What is matter without the mind? What is color besides but various degrees of light? Isn't color just our eye, mind, and prism? If colors were real properties wouldn't they admit no alteration, as some living things in nature can perceive things we cannot?
What about sound? Isn't it just vibrations in the air beating on our ear drums? Doesn't sound need the mind for us to perceive it? How would it exist without the mind? The same for touch, taste, size, and motion.
So, lastly is what George Berkley called his Master Argument. This idea is attempted to show no object can ever exist outside of the mind, and to even think so is inconceivable. Try and think of an object unconceived. Did you do it yet? Nope! Because soon as you try you have conceived of it!
Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra "hidden variables". Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).