TL DR



im drunk btw, can you temp ban

You really are this arrogant.

lol

No i am not arrogant. Its only recently that philosophy has finally embraced science enough to allow itself to stop being so imprisoned by the fact we are humans developing both. The next victory for physics and further decoupling from philosophy will be the reframing of QM when finally liberated from the perspective our senses enforced in an attempt to actually derive that perspective (a form of illusion even) from a truly fundamental one. In doing so of course one is forced to ask what is the purpose of modern philosophy (without the leadership of science, if not show it to me) that is not already incorporated in science itself. A decent scientist is also a thinking person that has invested substantial time to consider the main issues that concerned philosophy for thousands of years. But at least now its done from a position of actual understanding of how it all works that is far less subjective and can even deliver some answers.

My argument is that philosophy in asking all kinds of questions and requesting logic in arguments may have initially lead us to sciences but now it is actually following not leading and the ultimate victory for physics will be the liberation from the classical thinking that philosophy guided the very formulation of physics, in terms that would be friendly to human perception of the world. What was preventing physics from making the next step until now was its own philosophical foundation.

You really haven't a clue masque. Go back to the SMP Luminaries thread and consider just how many philosophers were also doing science. This isn't an area where you are particularly well informed yet you speak as authoritatively as you do on subjects where you seem better informed.

All this does is make me question whether you are actually as strong as I thought in the S&M of SM&P.

Tell me how the scientist is entitled to say what we should do? You've been making ethical claims all over this thread and yet you think the scientist should answer this rather than the ethicist?

I'll play along and be the devil's advocate now =)

If you record the world while I'm unconscious and then you show it to me after I regain consciousness, in order to for me to believe in that recording I am required to make the assumption that you exist independently to my subjective experience - and that the recording and everything else exists independently to my subjective experience.

Don't be fooled that you're not making an assumption just because you take independent reality for granted. I can never be inside your head and experience the subjective that you experience so I can never directly know that you exist. The experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that person. The contents of one's mind are the only things one has direct access to. I can only ever know that you exist - indirectly, and that in itself requires additional assumptions to be made.

If you want to talk about the base-level of experience and understanding you must minimize any and all assumptions - no matter how absurd the conclusions may appear at first. I suspect the biggest breakthrough in science to date will likely occur through such seemingly absurdest inquiry.
I don't know, but I do know that I need to make assumptions in order for the world to exist independently to my own subjective experience.
I don't know why everything 'magically appears' and neither do scientists. The implication doesn't necessarily have to be that - it's for my benefit. There are countless possibilities.

Furthermore, if in a universe or multiverse with infinite possibilities (and if mathematical infinities translate into reality) - there is a point of minimum complexity, by logical extension, there would also be a point of maximum complexity. A point of maximum complexity is likely to resemble something so miniscule/tiny and so energy efficient that it could generate a seemingly independent reality. And I am not talking about the 'brain' here, but something far smaller on a quantum-scale or below (if we do find something below).
So you're still concluding that an 'observer' is necessary, but instead, you're re-defining the observer to be the universe...Well this is another wacked-out theory that I'm quite fond of - and have started a thread on in SMP quite recently: "if a biological body was to genes, what the universe was to the laws of physics", but let's leave that for another discussion so I can continue on with my devil's advocacy

If the earth is going to be destroyed in 20 years, energy isn't a problem. Burn the coal, burn the gas, burn the forests, it won't matter, the Earth is done for anyway...

IOW, business as usual.

A joke, sort of.

Itt, people are assuming that everyone else thinks like you do. I can see it just turning into a scenario where we try and make everyone happy until we all die. Governments could provide abundance to everyone if they wanted to.
I could also see governments hiding it from the people to prevent panic.

If you knew for sure, were the only one, and could prove it, would you tell?

I would definitely tell.

Destroy the future, i dare you to challenge us not getting there...




Better watched in full screen with speakers (from the following link instead)
http://www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers/

In 2o years time, robots will have taken 50% of our jobs according to a recent oxford study.

There was a fairly recent SMP thread about this, do a search if you wish.


This thread needs a theme song - or at least a last hoorah concert and final song while we all blink out at the end of twenty years time and I have just the one - most may already know the lyrics:

Nonsense.

It depends on the scenario. If we would be completely helpless to save anyone or anything, I might not.