We know bacteria engage in a lot of activity we often regard as ;special to human consciousness' (short article here - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120327215704.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+UK). It's not that long since we were completely unaware of this 'world' (revealed through the 'magic' of glass). One view of vacuum is that it is full yet statistically empty in our addressing of it. We have problems in our use of words like 'things' and 'stuff' Carlos. I once seemed stuck in endless consideration of social construction and the reification of social facts - god knows sociologists can be very boring! We label our accounting devices as quarks, strings or whatever - such only having meaning in language and that language has the chance to be right or dumb. Information strikes me as a thing in some circumstances - like clues in a detective investigation - or even if I raise a glass in salute to you Carlos and you never know. But neither of these has to be a thing in the sense my dog (Maxwell) is - and of course he has a rather different place in my affections than a rock in the garden. Maxwell's nose-based information world is very different from ours - he will have read 30 or so 'dog newspapers' before I get him to his favourite field in half an hour's time. Yet we walk the same path. I would love to know as he knows, but the odd glance of joy from him is enough. He is now strutting about the house in apparent huff as I'm running late this morning. Fuck knows what our various bacteria are 'thinking'. One can end up in phenomenology and the separation of ideas and thought and Heidegger's need to find clearing in which trees in bloom have to be grounded in real experience for us to remember they have 'backs'. Not much use if you can't work out Nazis are evil. I sometimes call Max 'Clerk' but he doesn't get it. He's just wandered past flashing his dog smile, has a Platonic affair with our female cat, both more real than the grin of the Cheshire Cat - yet again this is labelling the real. Even the mythical Cheshire Cat is "real" in what we mean by it, but if I start stroking one I've gone mad. And so the vacuum is a Cheshire Cat and yet it makes more sense to be going looking for the vacuum than the myth because of our suspicions on its reality being realer than that of the mythical. A glass isn't empty until we drain it of air. At that point it's emptier than it was before in our shorthand language, but is only emptier of air. So is what's left a thing? Or full of them? Smarter cookies than us play in this void to us and find Casimir effects we then label as real because we can do the trick again (or at least someone with the special knowledge can). We structure reality. Some of the ways we do this are intelligent, others, like economics and politics, unbearably stupid. In terms of the empty at the same time missing, we have spent most of our time as a species making myths on the concept (the absent yet all encompassing god etc.). God isn't real and yet might be -as might be the time we see the vacuum rather than detect what travels in it - what hidden information effects may spur us to search? Even they may be 'real'.
On Mar 27, 1:34 pm, einseele <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Neil > > I'll take your final statement... we are missing something > > May be the missing something is part of the structure itself and it is > the leif motive of science. > She looks for the missing something > > IMO I agree with the "missing" part of the idea, but I certainly doubt > about the "thing". > > The vacuum idea has its fundamentals, somewhere must be a vacuum, but > also in that same instance there is a "missing" idea which contradicts > the vacuum itself. > > Should not be bad to install a concept which is at the same time empty > and missing .... ? > > carlos > > On 26 mar, 19:21, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > I tend to prefer the likes of dark matter to fixed belief in blue and > > white rabbit gods Craig - but you are right that much more is > > speculative than we credit and we are missing something. > > > On Mar 26, 4:01 pm, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Mar 26, 9:59 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > > > wrote: > > > > > A singularity of your 'everythingness' is electron. > > > > An electron is a part of the universe. The singularity can only be the > > > entire universe. > > > > > The richness of material world begun from fluctuation - > > > > - polarization of primordial vacuum . > > > > Fluctuation in what way? Emptiness regularly becoming emptiness? What > > > could it mean for a vacuum to have any properties whatsoever? > > > > > ==. > > > > Why electron is responsible for fluctuations in a vacuum? > > > > Because an electron has its own m mass and q charge. > > > > But (according to QED) by interaction with vacuum electron’s > > > > mass and charge becomes infinite ( electron is hidden in vacuum > > > > and we say he is virtual particle – antiparticle - antielectron – > > > > positron) > > > > To me it's much more likely to be a just-so story to plug the > > > equations. The equations don't take sense into account so they are > > > probably wrongly interpreted and we have to make up all kinds of > > > science fiction to save the model. > > > > If an electron is responsible for fluctuations in a vacuum then the > > > fluctuations are in the electron, not in the vacuum. The vacuum is > > > empty. There's nothing there to fluctuate. Virtual particle is just a > > > name for the fact that we don't understand what is going on and wish > > > for a deus ex particulus to save ourselves from the reality of having > > > to start over from scratch and reinterpret all of physics. It's just > > > stubborn sentimentality but now it it metastasizing into fanciful > > > delusions. > > > > > And when we see the 'fluctuations' of vacuum it means electron > > > > appears from vacuum, electron again acquire its usual mass and charge. > > > > Mass and charge are probably semantic conditions arising from sense > > > relationships within matter and across space. The electron itself may > > > not even be real. As far as I know electrons have only been studied > > > using instruments made of matter, so electrons, photons, the whole > > > Standard Model could be nothing more than shared atomic moods and > > > motives (which look like particles, waves, images, rays, twinkles, > > > signs and symbols, depending on what perceptual inertial frame the > > > observation is grounded in). > > > > I think that it is extremely likely that at present, our worldview is > > > in the last gasp of post Enlightenment modeling - a Dark Ages for > > > understanding awareness which has pathologized our science and > > > culture. As long as we look for emptiness and absence to find our > > > origins, we will only be able to find evidence of meaningless > > > mechanism and convince ourselves of our own non-existence. > > > > Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
