Posted on 09/17/2003 11:07:29 AM PDT by DittoJed2
No hypocrisy. The most famous "rationally derived moral code" -- which expressly rejected a Creator in lieu of what's best for the most -- was that of Marx and Engles. It objectively created a hell on earth.
Far from being "rationally derived", Marx and Engels were an affront to reason.
Every bit as much so, as the world's various invisible super-power-laden giant cults are.
Often with similar results.
| To a metaphysical naturalist, "reality" is all that exists in nature To an autonomist "reality" is all that is, the way it is To an objectivist "reality" is that which exists To a mystic "reality" may include thought as substantive force and hence, a part of "reality" To Plato "reality" includes constructs such as redness, chairness, numbers, geometry and pi To Aristotle these constructs are not part of "reality" but merely language To some physicists, "reality" is the illusion of quantum mechanics To Christians "reality" is God's will and unknowable in its fullness. |
And I agree it would be worthwhile to flesh out the details of these several approaches, if people could be found to volunteer to step up to the plate and write one for their own particular favorite POV. (I'd be glad to take Plato, if he's not otherwise spoken for.)
The only reservation I have is the topic is perhaps too big and too amorphous. Maybe instead of asking "What is reality?" we should ask a question that, although much more specific, is only slightly less difficult: "What is man?"
Just a thought....
BTW, I want to thank you for the link to the excellent S-T-D site. I've had it bookmarked for a while, but only just downloaded three papers from there on Kalusa-Klein cosmology, which I read this weekend. Overduin and Wesson's "Kaluza-Klein Gravity" was so interesting, laying out the three main current approches to higher-dimensional cosmologies: compactified (supergravity and superstring theories), projective, and uncompactified. For simplicity and faithfulness to both Einstein and Newton, among other reasons, I'm "gravitating" to the 5D uncompactified model....
This is the model that holds that 4D matter and/or cosmological objects (e.g., photons, and more speculatively, solitons, neutrinos, even black holes) are induced from the "pure geometry" of the one extra dimension. This article, however, suggests that the extra dimension is responsible for dark matter -- not the dark energy you and I have been speculating about. Yet what if the fifth dimension is inducing dark matter? Could it be the medium of dark energy, so to speak -- effecting a causal relation in 5D's "time-like" vacuum?
One thing the authors do say is that, in most demonstrations of uncompactified 5D, whether or not the extra dimension is space- or time-like, it is empty: It contains no matter. (Unlike the compactification versions, which can stipulate matter for the extra dimensions, and need to, in order to make their theories work. Then they have the devil of a time of figuring out how to describe the generic properties of such matter for such dimensions, which have never been observed.... I guess that's why 11D superstring theory seems so "overwrought" to me. But then -- what do I know?)
The other thing that was really interesting was the authors are reluctant to identify the extra dimension as either "length-like" (i.e., space-like) or "time-like."
Yet from other parts of the discussion, the extra dimension does seem to have a "time-like" quality to it. But its time-likeness is a very strange one from our point of view (i.e., experience with 4D time). From the perspective of 4D, it "looks" like relative timelessness.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the discussion of non-compactified 5D was the author's discussion of the big bang -- which (to my mind at least) suggested something about the possible nature of the "time quality" in dimension #5.
From the standpoint of 4D, the big bang was a tremendous thermonuclear explosion. But from the standpoint of the fifth dimension, as one speculation goes, the big bang is an on-going "phase change." As the authors put it, "Rather than being a single event...the big bang [in this picture] resembles a sort of shock wave propagating along the fifth dimension" -- the resemblance it would presumably have were it "translated" into 4D spacetime, giving us the 5D picture in terms of our conventional 4D way of thinking/seeing. And yet, from the standpoint of the fifth dimension itself (untranslated into 4D terms), it seems the big bang may conceivably look like the specification of a perfect geometry, "frozen in time."
Perhaps the way we humans think about time may be a limiting factor in how we understand things going on in 4D+ dimensions. Time is "relative" within 4D. It may be "ultrarelative" in 5D WRT 4D time. That is, not just relative in the sense of 4D things being relative to each other, but the fifth dimension being time-relative to the entire 4D block, taken as a whole. Trying to represent this vast disparity of relative "time sense" in language is most difficult!
Just thinking aloud, and wondering if you have any thoughts about this. This is a most fascinating paper, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for some time to come. Thanks again, Alamo-Girl, for pointing me to it!!!
OK,. God exists. He wants us to do unto others as we'd do unto ourselves. So do it.
They didn't think so. Nor did their followers.
It might work best to write up an article proposing the project and then post it to the News/Activism forum. If you’d care to do that, I will assist by bumping it to attract volunteers!
And because gravity has a “duality” with space/time – I believe they are both manifestations of higher dimensional dynamics. In the case of massive objects (earth, sun, black hole) – we can view them as an indentation in space/time, causing other objects to orbit and descend into them – and conversely, requiring an escape velocity to move outside the indentation.
In the case of dark energy, if we follow the same “duality”, the negative gravity would be an outdent of space/time which would cause astronomical acceleration which would not be detectable in local space (under positive gravity.) That is what we actually see happening!!!
Dark energy represents 73% of the mass of the universe. The universe is accelerating because of dark energy. And dark energy cannot be detected in laboratory conditions. It fits like a glove!
Yet from other parts of the discussion, the extra dimension does seem to have a "time-like" quality to it. But its time-likeness is a very strange one from our point of view (i.e., experience with 4D time). From the perspective of 4D, it "looks" like relative timelessness. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the discussion of non-compactified 5D was the author's discussion of the big bang -- which (to my mind at least) suggested something about the possible nature of the "time quality" in dimension #5.
To me it makes perfect sense and clears up a mountain of enigmas: superposition (Schrodinger’s cat), non-locality, superluminal events, the earth/moon superposition paradox, precognition, retrocognition, etc.
With regard to the absence of matter in the higher dimensions - Max Tegmark suggests that the extra dimension(s) may contain mathematical structures. I would add that it may host consciousness. Neither of these consist of matter. Then again, being relegated to the 4D worldview how could we know of a certainty what all might exist in a higher dimension?
All of that points to predestination or strong determinism. However, if the higher dimension hosts consciousness as I suspect, then that would be the agency of free will to suggest change in the script.
IMHO, the first evidence for a higher “time-like” dimension will be gathered from our research into dark energy.
Why don't most people follow it?
Thus, we could conclude that upon seeing the golden rule as a good ploy, some cynical power mongers among us would use the golden rule as a basis for a religion that claims: "God exists. He wants us to do unto others as we'd do unto ourselves." --So do it, under my instructions as your high priest.
That's the point I'm making.
You can do that with any tenet. You can rationalize anything.
If we make human wisdom the absolute authority we can justify killing babies because there are too many people. We can experiment on the socially marginal such as the Tuskeegee study or the Nazi death camps. We can justify ignoring the pain and suffering of others. And we can claim that the words in our Constitution didn't mean what the Founders said they meant.
We end up with a nightmare.
Nor do the followers of various magical-invisible-super-powered-benevolent creatures.
But alas...
That's the point I'm making. You can do that with any tenet. You can rationalize anything.
Funny indeed, -- as you just rationalized using my point as your own..
If we make human wisdom the absolute authority we can justify killing babies because there are too many people.
'We' do? - Maybe you see that as rational thinking, -- but I can't imagine why..
We can experiment on the socially marginal such as the Tuskeegee study or the Nazi death camps.
Again you say 'we'? I deny any connection to such irrational cultism.
We can justify ignoring the pain and suffering of others.
I don't, why do you?
And we can claim that the words in our Constitution didn't mean what the Founders said they meant.
Yep, you do that consistantly in your effort to control others beliefs/actions in a 'constitutional' fashion..
We end up with a nightmare.
Of course you do. - You profess a philosophy you aren't in actuality following. Must be hell to be so self-conflicted.
But can you explain why that isn't rational?
I can. (and have)
'We' do? - Maybe you see that as rational thinking, -- but I can't imagine why.
But can you explain why that isn't rational?
You're thinking is irrational on different levels.
1)- No one here is justifing "killing babies".
2)- No one here is justifing "killing babies because there are too many people".
3)- No one here is claiming that human wisdom is absolute.
4) No one here is claiming that human wisdom ~must~ be the absolute authority. -- But, - we have no evidence of other authority.
How is this reasoning less rational than what you advocate?
But people claiming that morality can be solely based on human reason have. In fact, every worldview that I can think that has made this claim has justified doing so.
4) No one here is claiming that human wisdom ~must~ be the absolute authority. -- But, - we have no evidence of other authority
Sure you do. You got the testimony of lots of people. Or you can weigh socities sincerely based that human rights are endowed by a creator with those that are not.
He is. I have seen him and I have been him.
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