Mental experiment

[swords]

Ok, Next time you're in bed about to drift off to sleep, I'd ask you to do the following:

1. Look upwards, what do you see? The ceiling hopefully.
2. Close your eyes.

Ok, how do you know the ceiling is still there?

 

[leviathane]

nothing as i normally sleep with the lights turned off xD

 

[Jeros]

Ok, Next time you're in bed about to drift off to sleep, I'd ask you to do the following:

1. Look upwards, what do you see? The ceiling hopefully.
2. Close your eyes.

Ok, how do you know the ceiling is still there?

cos its going to be there weather my eyes are open or not

 

[swords]

If you see nothing, does it mean nothing is there?

 

[Jeros]

If you see nothing, does it mean nothing is there?

no, you cant see air but you know its there

im being annoying now arnt i

 

[Iceforge]

I will think about this now as I go to bed to try it out... sounds interesting as a way to ponder oneself to sleep

 

[liloe]

If you see nothing, does it mean nothing is there?

Sounds interesting.

I can't see electricity -> I don't pay for nothing

If they come to get me, I'll say it was Swords' idea ^^

 

[echome]

Ok, Next time you're in bed about to drift off to sleep, I'd ask you to do the following:

1. Look upwards, what do you see? The ceiling hopefully.
2. Close your eyes.

Ok, how do you know the ceiling is still there?

First of all, stop smoking that much weed before bed mate.

But questions like this has been asked many times, especially by the ancient greek philosophers. It goes down to if you can belive in your senses or if you have to trust in what you "know".

And ofc there is no true or false answer to this but only what you think is real your self.

Try to think it a bit further. If the wall behind you is gone when you don't look at it, what about the people around you. Do they also only exist when you watch them? This might end up with you being the only living/real thing then... And even then you will have to question your own existance. Have fun in that world

If you fancy reading some of the philosophers that have been talking about this subject you can always start with Platon and Descartes.

 

[Mikah75]

piss off and read Rene Descartes "cogito ergo sum " not mental its philosophical, and this is exactly why i dropped the shitty module.

 

[Hawkwind]

I see it. Therefore it is!

 

[Lucius]

I'm sorry but it's quite a ridiculous statement =P Of course the ceiling is there, because you have seen it before and you can stand up and touch it.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Depends on at what point. 'cause after a while when you drift to sleep and keep awake at the same time, you get all kinds of funny stuff in your room. Sleep control that is.

If i close my eyes i see everything infront of me still, just a memory thing.

About the ceiling being there or not, it's irrelevant if it is, so i don't care

 

[Thorwyn]

Schroedingers Cat Light.

 

[Aoami]

Sensual Awareness. Like you know exactly where your hand is if you close your eyes and put it up infront of your face.

 

[Jeremiah]

It is still there if you have the view that our senses are not what gives the world definition =)

Otherwise, if you have the view that we can only trust what our senses tell us, then there is no way of knowing it is there. Unfortunately this gets into problems, as the senses are not infallible =) Oh I love philosophy!

 

[old.Tohtori]

It is still there if you have the view that our senses are not what gives the world definition =)

Otherwise, if you have the view that we can only trust what our senses tell us, then there is no way of knowing it is there. Unfortunately this gets into problems, as the senses are not infallible =) Oh I love philosophy!

Ah but Jeremiah...you think that's air you're breathing?

Had to!

 

[Mikah75]

theoretical philosophy should go die in a pit for eternity.

 

[old.Tohtori]

theoretical philosophy should go die in a pit for eternity.

But if it's a pit of eternity, how can one die there?

If you die over and over even, isn't it just living in death and not dying?

 

[Mikah75]

in my first year of university, I had one module to select left and EVRYTHING in my department was full apart from theoretical philosophy:< and I had to do that twice a week..

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

lol that reminds me of the fast show where the university of southern california professor Denzil Dexter keeps getting grants to experiment on utter pointless things

 

[Dukat]

I wouldnt mind studying theoretical philosophy - I like these sorts of thought experiments.

The thing is, if something has to be perceived to exist, and something has to exist to affect you, then surely it should be impossible to suffer from collisions from objects that we dont notice? I mean, if you're struck by an object you didnt see/hear/notice coming, it still affects you in the same way as if you saw it coming.

Assuming the above is true means that an object can affect us even if its beyond our perception, therefore it has to exist, even though we dont perceive it, and if that's true, it means that the ceiling does exist, even if we have no sense of it being there.

Atleast thats how I would rationalise it

 

[old.Tohtori]

I wouldnt mind studying theoretical philosophy - I like these sorts of thought experiments.

The thing is, if something has to be perceived to exist, and something has to exist to affect you, then surely it should be impossible to suffer from collisions from objects that we dont notice? I mean, if you're struck by an object you didnt see/hear/notice coming, it still affects you in the same way as if you saw it coming.

Assuming the above is true means that an object can affect us even if its beyond our perception, therefore it has to exist, even though we dont perceive it, and if that's true, it means that the ceiling does exist, even if we have no sense of it being there.

Atleast thats how I would rationalise it

Ah but one has to bring out this then, do objects exists if they don't affect us? As in if they don't affect how we, see, hear, feel, etc?

One can argue that objects can affect us if we don't see/hear/feel them, but do they exist if they don't?

 

[Aoami]

Objects exsist. Get over it.

 

[chipper]

ofc its bloody there ask the bloody builder who built it, he will tell you hes fairly certain he didnt leave the bloody ceiling out.

same shit with the falling tree in the woods does it still make a sound ill tell ya what lets leave a tape recorder there and come back in a few hours and see. ofc it does

its nothing but dribble to make ones self seem important the world exsists around you, not in your head and events unfold regardless of whether you are there to witness them or not

 

[old.Tohtori]

ofc its bloody there ask the bloody builder who built it, he will tell you hes fairly certain he didnt leave the bloody ceiling out.

same shit with the falling tree in the woods does it still make a sound ill tell ya what lets leave a tape recorder there and come back in a few hours and see. ofc it does

its nothing but dribble to make ones self seem important the world exsists around you, not in your head and events unfold regardless of whether you are there to witness them or not

The thing is, you can't prove it really to yourself, or anyone else.

If you record the sound of the tree falling, then the sound is taken in by something.

The whole thing comes from "is it all in your mind" perspective, i believe.

 

[Dukat]

Ah but one has to bring out this then, do objects exists if they don't affect us? As in if they don't affect how we, see, hear, feel, etc?

One can argue that objects can affect us if we don't see/hear/feel them, but do they exist if they don't?

So you mean: if you arent touching/seeing the ceiling, it doesnt exist: regardless of the fact that it did exist 5 seconds ago when we last looked at it, and that it will exist again when we open our eyes to see it in 5 seconds time.

The problem with this theory is that it seems to suggest that objects fade in and out of "existence" as our perceptions of them come and go. If that is true, then surely, for all intents and purposes, they do exist in every way that we define existence? Also, this theory is by its own definition unprovable; it can only be disproved.

It is for that reason that I would lean towards what I said before, and would be sceptical of theories that state something fades out of existence when we lose our perception of it

 

[tris-]

stupid question.
if i lay down on a bed and close my eyes, is the bed still there or am i just floating?

 

[Dukat]

same shit with the falling tree in the woods does it still make a sound ill tell ya what lets leave a tape recorder there and come back in a few hours and see. ofc it does

its nothing but dribble to make ones self seem important the world exsists around you, not in your head and events unfold regardless of whether you are there to witness them or not

The point of this isnt so much to make people seem important, or to prove that the world exists because of us instead of inspite of us. The point of thought experiments like this is, imo, more to help us understand our place in the world.

Also, if you leave a tape recorder behind you're essentially observing the event, and the whole idea is that through observation alone, we change things - what happens if no tape recorder is left behind? does it still make a sound? It makes soundwaves when the tree hits the ground, but the soundwaves dont reach anyones ears, so is it still considered sound in the same way as something we do here ?

I struggle with the explanation, and imo, trying to explain it defeats the object, the idea is to ponder things that there is no answer to and find your own understanding of things through the fact that you cant answer it.

 

[swords]

The experiment was not what the answer to the question was, but your individual responses to the question. Seems to range from:

1. I was forced at gunpoint to study philosophy, damn you!
2. I would rely on prior knowledge of the existance of the ceiling, just because the sensory information is no longer there does not mean that the existance of the celiing is refuted.
3. I would use another sensory perception, you could use sound to prove it was still there because you would hear an echo when you made a sound.
4. Interesting, for I do not truly know the celing is there is I am not interacting with it, therefore it is possible that the celing is only called into existance whenever something interacts with it. But what if the air interacts with it? then it must exist anyway? Quantumn theory hurts my brain.
5. Fuck you Swords! you retarded spunk-monkey! I was enjoying oggling mini-skirts and talking about football before you came along and spoiled my day with you damnable 'thinking'. I mean, ffs the greeks already did it! OLD!

 

[old.Tohtori]

So you mean: if you arent touching/seeing the ceiling, it doesnt exist: regardless of the fact that it did exist 5 seconds ago when we last looked at it, and that it will exist again when we open our eyes to see it in 5 seconds time.

The problem with this theory is that it seems to suggest that objects fade in and out of "existence" as our perceptions of them come and go. If that is true, then surely, for all intents and purposes, they do exist in every way that we define existence? Also, this theory is by its own definition unprovable; it can only be disproved.

It is for that reason that I would lean towards what I said before, and would be sceptical of theories that state something fades out of existence when we lose our perception of it

I guess we would have to go into what defines "existing", just to clear it a bit.

As it is possible, even if very very unlikely, that things fade in and out, it couldn't be proved and that's the problem, as you said. Heck, it's as likely to prove then to disprove it as you can't really observe something that can't be observed

If e define that the ceiling exists only if someone looks, sees, feels, hears, etc, it, then isn't it valid to say it doesn't exist if it's not seen/heard etc?