- What were you before you were matter?
- How can something come from nothing? (As supposedly happened at the beginning of everything)
- What defines morality?
- Are you, as an individual, greater than the sum of your parts, or are you no more than atoms and chemical reactions?
- What does it mean to dream?
Thing to be grateful for: Money to blow on yarn.
Even if I don’t win your drawing, I’ll probably buy one of your hats, if your price is reasonable.
ReplyDelete1. I suppose I wasn't here before conception, or brain development to be precise, if 'I' means 'the ego' or 'consciousness'.
2. I don't think things simply begin to exist, but that assumes that the human perception of 'existence' is all that there is. But apparently, stuff can come to existence if there's enough 'anti-stuff'’ to balance it out, so it all nets out to zero. (I don’t understand how that works, but I’ll go with it.) Things really do come in and out of existence all the time, and all mass can supposedly be explained by these fluctuations, though scientists say they’ve only been able to account for within 98% of the mass of a proton using existing methods (using a supercomputer to represent the strong nuclear force as a matrix of 10^16 numbers described by quantum chromodynamics equations in a four-dimensional environment. I won’t even pretend to understand what that means.) The Higgs field, another form of quantum fluctuation, supposedly makes up the rest of the mass. If the LHC does prove that the Higgs boson is real, it means our reality is entirely composed of these fluctuations and doesn’t really ‘exist’ at all. Holy crap, right?
3. Morality is subjective preference. I define my ethics though non-aggression and self-ownership, though it’s not a precise science.
4. I think there’s a ghost in the machine somewhere – I think therefore I am, after all – but I think this consciousness, though in some sense ‘greater than’ my physical makeup, is still inexorably tied to it. Having not been visited by dead relatives or had out-of-body experiences, I don’t see reason to believe I will outlive my body. Not that it wouldn’t be really cool if I could, I just don’t think it’ll happen.
5. Dreaming, although really cool, doesn’t strike me as anything entirely remarkable. I think it’s just our brain’s modeling ‘software’ continuing to create abstractions even though we’re unconscious, which the brain accepts as ‘real’, presumably because it isn’t smart enough to figure out that it got the video feeds mixed up. Also, on a semi-related note, the Japanese firm ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories has developed a method of obtaining images from the brain during dreams. It’s only a few dozen pixels, but it’s still pretty darn cool.
1. I was never not matter. Even before I was alive I was still some form of matter. Before matter I was matter.
ReplyDelete2. One of the leading theories is that at the moment of singularity (0.0 seconds in universal time) the big bang occurred when two dimensions collided, creating a transference of matter from both dimensions which expanded at an exponential rate. From a psychological aspect, something comes from nothing only when the mind creates it. The universe cannot exist without something to perceive it and perception is 100% of reality.
3. Morality is defined by its opposite.
4. I am both. I cannot exist with just one aspect of existence.
5. Dreaming means making the most of when you're awake.
All right. Let's see here. I'll start with Logan, and then I'll respond to yours later, Will.
ReplyDelete(Partly because Logan answered first, and partly because Will's way of thinking is much more along my own and therefore there isn't much to say other than, "That's what I think.")
1. All right, so you don't believe in consciousness before a physical body. I can respect that, mostly because I have nothing but faith and personal experience to make me think otherwise.
2. Wow...that was for the most part way over my head, but I'm pretty sure that I understood it for the most part. It's an interesting idea.
3. Ethics can't ever be an exact science, no matter how hard we try.
4. I like that your belief comes from personal experience (or lack thereof). I have a great deal of respect for believing in your own experiences.
5.That does sound awesome!
I had time, so now I'm responding to yours, Will Congrats for commenting on the blog a second time. :D
ReplyDelete1. I quite like that. My beliefs are along the same thread , but more complicated (or simpler, depending on how you look at it).
2.I'm fairly familiar with that theory, however, how could two dimensions collide before existence? Clearly, they had to have come from somewhere? Has SOMETHING always existed, or did the universe come from a state beyond nothing (because nothing is something)?
3. Hmmm...interesting. You'll have to elaborate on that for me sometime.
4. AGREED!!!
5.:)
In response to your comment on the theory of No. 2. It did not happen before existence, it happened at the singularity moment. Absolute zero in the time of the universe. Therefore, it is not before existence, nor is during. Much like how absolute zero is neither negative nor positive, it is something entirely different.
ReplyDeleteOK. Gotcha. I can almost fathom that.
ReplyDeleteLalalalalala. Rainbows are pretty!
ReplyDelete