Originally Posted by starvingwriter82

There's no axiom involved. Objectively, putting the symbols C - A - T in that order doesn't do anything. It's purely a means of communicating an idea. Seeing C - A - T in that order calls to mind the fluffy mouse-eating mammal simply because we've agreed implicitly (as speakers of English) that those letters in that order are a symbol for it. Using the symbols D - O - G doesn't call to mind the fluffy mouse-eating mammal because we agree it doesn't. If you and I agree it does, then for us, it does.

There's nothing special about the word "cat" or "dog" that locks in its value to mean a certain thing. We can (and humans often do, through context and suggestion) make any combination of letters mean anything we want, provided it is understood by the receiving party.

Words exist to get the thoughts in my brain into your brain, and vice versa. So C - A - T can't really spell "dog" because that statement in itself is trying to assign an objective, unchanging value to the letters C - A - T that doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by FoldnDark

Yeah, I think he was going for sort of what's blue to you might be red to me and really it's not either sort of thing. Or the whole why everything tastes like chicken scenario from The Matrix. Anyway, it failed so alrighty then.

Originally Posted by StuckinARutt

.... but I have to concede that yes, there is a chance, however unlikely, that we are just experiencing a smaller reality in a bigger picture

Originally Posted by StuckinARutt

wut?

I'm using the common phrase however unlikely meaning that I am conceding that there is a small chance, very unlikely, but a chance nonetheless....

Originally Posted by StuckinARutt

Sigh, fine. Perhaps unlikely wasn't the best word to use, but the scientist inside me made me. Objectively, I should use the term however inconceivable. Ofc there is no way of knowing how likely a sub-reality is (in fact even though I was raised catholic it's probably a higher probability of living in a higher being's reality than the existence of God - although some could argue that the two go hand-in-hand) but that's a topic for a different thread

Originally Posted by StuckinARutt

Ultimately, what OP is suggesting, is that there is no way of 100% proving we're not living in a video-game type reality. (on a side note this is the only argument of creationists - lol at them) As a physicist, it bums me out, but I have to concede that yes, there is a chance, however unlikely, that we are just experiencing a smaller reality in a bigger picture

Originally Posted by Hector Cerif

No, what I'm suggesting is that the ultimate nature of our existence is unknowable.

Originally Posted by AGRETZOR

The physical limits to computation have been under active scrutiny over the past decade or two, as theoretical investigations of the possible impact of quantum mechanical processes on computing have begun to make contact with realizable experimental configurations. We demonstrate here that the observed acceleration of the Universe can produce a universal limit on the total amount of information that can be stored and processed in the future, putting an ultimate limit on future technology for any civilization, including a time-limit on Moore's Law. The limits we derive are stringent, and include the possibilities that the computing performed is either distributed or local. A careful consideration of the effect of horizons on information processing is necessary for this analysis, which suggests that the total amount of information that can be processed by any observer is significantly less than the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy associated with the existence of an event horizon in an accelerating universe.

Originally Posted by maverickf1

I always wondered if humans would ever reach a point where we cant progress because it would take a lifetime just to understand the current level. This would of course be hundreds of thousands of years into the future if we last that long, which is doubtful.
Take surgeons for example, they are studying until they are at least 30 before they actually qualify, and this age will surely increase as time goes on and more discoveries and more techniques are discovered.