Remember kids that you don't feel matter; you feel the electrostatic repulsion of electrons that occupy part of the 99+% of empty space of each atom is composed of. The vibrational frequency of those atoms create heat that radiates through that void to be detected by other atoms as more or less heat energy. Over 99% of you is empty space and radiant energy, which means that mathematically you barely even exist.
We do know how things taste, sound, look, smell, feel, etc because those are all subjective concepts of perception. Without us, the physical phenomena we sense don’t do any of those things.
How does the addition of just one proton change the material's characteristics SO much??
It doesn't, we're just really good at identifying the differences.
Fluorine (9 protons)
- A highly reactive, poisonous, pale yellow gas
- One of the most electronegative elements
- Forms strong chemical bonds and reacts violently with many substances
- Highly dangerous and corrosive
Neon (10 protons)
- An inert noble gas
- Completely non-reactive
- Safe and stable
- Used in lighting and signs due to its stability
That's not just perception. Same with chlorine/argon. Etc. These chemicals would have different characteristics that react very differently with the chemicals around them even if we weren't here to identify the differences.
More nerds need to get into philosophy. Specifically CS nerds. I think there’s a tendency, when you get into programming, to start seeing the world in terms of discrete, quantifiable units and categorical rules. It’s a helpful counterbalance to also study something that uses logic to deconstruct that kind of objective physicalist assumption.
I believe individuals choose the worldview that comforts/benefits one the most, and that is why programmers often think in discrete units. It helps them identify issues and handle them well. Is there a reason to introduce discomfort, when the worldview works quite well?
Also so much of how we talk about CS/software dev is cribbed directly from, not just real engineering, but also philosophy. Abstraction, concretisation, instantiation, etc.
Counterpoint, we get enough of that shit from people writing our design specs, and then give feedback like "it needs to pop more" or "this is good, but we need it to feel more modern".
So, discrete, quantifiable things make for an easier deliverable, thanks.
There’s a quote that I’m having trouble sourcing, but it’s basically:
Code is for humans to read, and only incidentally for computers to execute.
I think a lot of things are like that, especially when it comes to defining and organizing work. It’s less about making the perfect requirements document and more about getting everyone to think about a shared goal in a similar way.
Specifics are great because they make for solid landmarks. But abstract language is essential too, because it clues you into how you ought to navigate the terrain in between those landmarks.
And there is always space in between the specifics. If you managed to nail down every last detail in your spec, congratulations on your new hand-compiled programming language.
That's why I'm so happy that we have a UI/UX team, they can deal with the design nonsense while I'm left to logic.
they would also get that if they learned more math. eventually they tell you that a lot of concrete rules are more like conventions and assumptions that we have collectively decided are “reasonable”. don’t get me wrong, those conventions are still extremely useful. calculus, for example, has made a lot of problems way easier to solve. but it’s not like moses came down from the mountain with the fundamental theorem of calculus etched in stone. you still need to assume things in order to be able to do calculus, and the ways in which calculus is taught and understood has changed a decent amount over the years (infinitesimals to limits, riemann sums to measures, the introduction of differential forms, etc)
For real. A few times, I’ve been like “What makes you think matter is more fundamentally real than consciousness?” and received an argument that you can measure matter and make mathematical proofs about it.
And I’m just… dumbfounded by the lack of awareness that they’re essentially using a mere mention of math itself to dismiss the significance of axioms.
Yep, and that goes for really nebulous things like relationships and mental health too, not just the physical world.
This sentence hit me:
seeing the world in terms of discrete, quantifiable units and categorical rules
I wonder how many past situations I could remember where I had anxiety and panic over not knowing the rules to follow in a situation. But that’s like asking the wrong question if the reality is that there are no rules, and you need more of a guiding philosophy or purpose than a rule book. For me, I think you do what you can to make the unique experience of life things better for yourself and others. We nerds do have a tendency to focus on “number go up” which has its benefits, but has to be in moderation as with everything else.
I got into building agents for an overpowered discord bot. I leard a lot about my own through process because the research papers were too hinged to be fun.
I mean this just means that it is not the objects that have those traits, it is the relation between the object and the human sensory organs that do. This is not really anti rules, just anti overly primitive rules.
"Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything."
It's a single-celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins and minerals. Everything the body needs.
For the unaware, this is a Quote from The Matrix, in which the character muses about how the fake reality which is the matrix might be inconsistent with actual reality but the people would never know the difference. He then goes on to explain that, to him, the steak is delicious, so he does not care.
nothing is real do what you want
That is a fallacious conclusion from this observation. Don't use this philosophy as an excuse to act like an asshole.
While everyone perceives reality slightly differently, apples do have a specific light absorption and reflection spectrum.
Our limited perception of it doesn't make it "not real". Same is true for other senses as well.
There's also the possibility of Boltzmann brain hallucinating things, but since there is no way to prove or disprove it, that's still not a reason to be an asshole
In fact, if I am a brain in a vat hallucinating the world, then all the people I interact with are just aspects of myself.
So if I'm an asshole to other people, really, I'm an asshole to me.
Just a fun tidbit: The guy who proposed the math for the many worlds hypothesis, Hugh Everett, was reportedly a huge asshole (and abused his own health) because he figured that in a lot of other versions he was a swell guy.
Thank you.
But you're not real!
Descartes proved to me that I was!
In the assumption that you are real, because you think and therefor you must exist in some form, but have limited control of your perceived reality through your actions, you should make choices that maximize your satisfaction but your longterm satisfaction is actually dependent on not being an asshole.
Therefor, our lack of provable existence does not factor into whether you should or should not be an asshole.
Now think about the fact that we lock people up based on eyewitness testimony....
Kind of, but only after a jury agrees that the eyewitness really saw what they thought they saw.
ITT & OP-C: People without reading habits rediscovering philosophy in the 21st century
It's just Tumblr being Tumblr: they knew exactly what they were doing, they knew the philosophical concepts already, but the posts must be phrased as some whimsical discovery mixed with internet humor and spontaneity otherwise they do not get reblogged.
That's always the Tumblr structure and tone. You can't post an explanation or reference or author, you need to make it sound like some shower thought.
Or...they're just people having shower thoughts
Well yeah, that thought is important. While apples do have an objective color in the sense that physics teaches us that electromagnetic radiation with a certain frequency is more or less likely to be absorbed/reflected, we can only perceive a subjective color.
I personally define reality as any measurement that a machine (computer or robot) can take. As such, there is an objective reality. But also, most people mostly act on emotion and not based on real data.
But also, this isn't a meme. It belongs in the philosophy or science memes community.
I personally define reality as any measurement that a machine (computer or robot) can take. As such, there is an objective reality.
Is there? How do you determine whether the machine doing the measurements is real?
The face punch method, (not a personal attack just a rather crude if effective philisophical tool) aka if I repeatedly punch you in the face you have a hard time continuing to argue that my fist is not real, or at the very least real enough for practical purposes. Personal involvment makes the situation a lot less abstract.
Funny – just this week I ran into the concept of Solipsism for the first time in my life, and now this post.
I sincerely doubt you ran into anything given that you don't exist.
😆🫵👏🤝
To make it even crazier while we think of color blindness as a binary thing, it's really (like most things) a spectrum.
Everyone has a slightly different ratio of cones. And some have a different amount of cones than others. Then there's the ratio of the different comes to rods.
Take any two random people and they'll likely agree what name a color is, but they both experience that color slightly differently.
There are also the rare tetrachromagraphic people who see 4 colors. Most people have RGB, tetras have an orange receptor.
Yeah, I should have said:
And some have a different amount of types cones than others. Then there’s the ratio of the different comes to rods.
But it's not really like there's distinct type of cones, it's about the wavelength the cones capture based on the angle of the cone.
So while normally theyre: long, medium, or short
They can also be at any point on that scale, and even so far that they're essentially a new type of cone
But every cone is going to be a little different based on its exact shape and everyone has different ratios. Think of it like snowflakes.
If you measure exact enough, no two people will experience the same color, and you don't even between your two eyes. It's just very unlikely to be a noticable difference, and our brains like to do "post processing" stuff to make it similar.
The longest standing argument between myself and my family is about the color of my mother's very 1950's bathroom.
They say it's battleship grey.
They're wrong. The tile and most of the fixtures are a dull, dusty light blue. Only the marble around the sink is a true grey color, which is why it looks so obviously out of place. The room gives me fits and no one else can see it.
If you're out to prove a point take pictures of each item zoomed in so it's just the color in the picture, next holiday you're all together text them to everyone in a group text and ask them what color each one is.
You may want to do it one by one instead of sending all at once.
nothing is real do what you want
This is what they take away from it? Discussing qualia is fascinating, and natural philosophy of the mind in general is an amazing field, but if your takeaway is that nothing exists, your understanding is about as deep as a puddle
guess that's just a wishful thinking
Shrimp have multiple color recptors because their brains are too primitive/rudimentary to combine input from more than a single receptor into a composite color. The result is that 12 colors (or however many receptors it is) is the total number of colors they can see.
Nice [email protected].
What colors can mantis shrimp even see? Having 16 different cones doesn't mean anything if they're all slightly different variations of green, for example.
Edit: Okay, they can see more colors that us. They can see 300 nm to 720 nm and we can see 400 nm to 700 nm.
Just the span of wavelengths isn't the only thing that's important, the spectral resolution is also important. For example, theoretically with 6 different cones we would be able to tell the difference between the mixture of red and green wavelengths vs only seeing yellow wavelengths.
Or the mixture of blue and red wavelengths vs violet wavelengths, which just happen to be at the furthest possible point from the red wavelengths. Human color perception is strange.
I think your question was spot on. They have more cones but they seem worse. They also lack our ability to process the stimuli into a rich tapestry of color.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24458639/
Not sure if there's more current info though.
Mantis Shrimp actually lack the hardware for color interpolation. So they see 12 colors, total, compared to the wide spectrum that humans see.
Well, doesn't that change everything! How disappointing. I guess that's why they need so many receptor types, eh. They are just brute-forcing colors at this point.
You have a source for this though? I'd love to read about it and learn more.
Surely they could see some color half as strong in the same place as another? Where does the difference come from?
You don't seem to understand the bare minimum concept here. You percieve smooth transitional colors on a spectrum, mantis shrimp would see slices of colors they can recognize and large regions inbetween.
The physical eyes themselves might be perfectly capable of it, but they dont have the processing power to recognize the inputs.
The reason for their adaptation is not to improve color vision, but to percieve depth better for punching with.
You are the only thing that's real in this world. YOU'RE IN A COMA．ＷＡＫＥ ＵＰ！
omg qualia
omg u genius
I'm getting old and bitter.
We gotta preserve our curiosity and childish naivite. Imagine yourself a professor sharing a beauty of math -- the good ones are always as excited to explain it, as the first time they've felt it ^^
Physicists: spend hundreds of generations empirically proving objective science
Philosophers: yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man
Philosophers: It is what it is.
Physicians: We need to be a bit more specific than that. Can we measure it?
Physicist: Who invited the medical doctor? He seems far too invested in applied physics! Who is next, a (retches) engineer?
Are there atoms tho? Is there void?
Fancy words for "there's something and there's nothing". So, yes.
:)
The term “atom” at that point was a placeholder, not a specific measurable phenomenon.
I have come to think of it as all being probability fields.
When studying a particle, one cannot know both the energy and position of that particle with certainty (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). When chemists think about the 3d "structure" of atoms and molecules, they represent the nucleus as a tiny little ball and the electrons as bubbles of probability:
.The nucleus itself is in constant motion as well, and compared to the size of the actual protons and neutrons, there is much more empty space - kind of like planets in a solar system. And each of these protons/neutrons is composed of tiny particles called quarks, which again are in constant motion and thus make up probability fields that we call protons and neutrons.
Yes, it’s where Janets go when they’ve not been summoned.
And that one time when she had to hide those people.
Imma invent a new image format that just counts all of the photons and their wavelengths
*Epistemology
Materialism is believing chemicals in your brain are chemicals in your brain because that's what the chemicals in your brain told you they were, and that what you can personally measure is all there is despite the fact that we keep finding shit we literally cannot measure.
Eyedea and Abilities - Powdered Water Too (1)
Give it a listen
That's ridiculous. Our perspection is fully acceptable as proof of reality. The fact is that as our perception is limited, we are limited in our knowledge of the reality of things. Somehow mantis have an access to the reality of things we don't have and that dog don't have. And through their sense of hearing dogs have an access to the reality we don't have.
I discovered that what we think is real is only what we perceive and behind that is just an empty void when I had a particularly strong acid trip
"nothing really tastes [etc], it's just your brain's interpretation"
1 that brain is you
2 the interpretation constitutes the fact that it tastes or whatever, what else could that even mean?
If that's where that person ends up after "thinking too much"..
"A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."
Rather solipsist take there
This is just "tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound" but less concise.
sometimes teaching be like going the opposite way and turning complex theories into relatable shitposts
