Okay /lit/, let's settle this once and for all. We live

>>9158902
There is no definitive evidence for the Matrix Theory

>>9158904
There isn't definitive evidence for a lot of theories out there. I'm by no means a scientist, but from what I've read and looked up, to explain reality based on my paragraph isn't really farfetched. Reality as it is, clearly consists of physical matter and mental representations, of which the latter is much more difficult to "prove" through a materialistic method in science. But even there, due to the measurement problem, scientists are hitting a wall.

>>9158941
>scientists are hitting a wall
You have no idea about the latest current edge theories or evidence

>>9158998
That was in reference to the measurement problem. I'm all ears if you know of something that solves it?

>>9158902
i believe a bunch of this shit
BUT
>settle this once and for all
ahahahahaha. there is no way to prove or unprove this. it is a belief system. (that i happen to share.)

>>9159016
Well no, that's wrong. I wouldn't give a crap about this if quantum physics didn't turn up such clearly paradoxical results. If physics told us that at the very fundamental level, particles or waves exist then that would be it. Instead, to put it as Wheeler said, "it from bit" is a much more accurate description. Everything in this reality frame is presented as information of probability. Only when a conscious observer makes a measurement, a result is obtained. We can't measure reality outside of being human, because it's made for us.

>>9159029
The problem is you're using our extremely limited understanding of science to extrapolate a worldview. Quantum physics has a ton of guesswork and can not be used as a framework for a belief system.

>>9159068
Well shit, if I can't use physics as a cornerstone to base my belief upon, then what the fuck am I supposed to do? I like objective data and so I naturally turned to science to determine what is correct. Turns out, this is what they are telling us, that reality is more idealistic than materialistic. I agree that our understanding is limited, but that hasn't stopped others from coming up with much more unfounded theories of existence. What do you base your belief on?

>>9158902
Prove it.

>>9158902

This definitely isn't literature.

And for the love of God you should be much less willing to share pet theories that you've *barely* put effort into.

>>9159081

>Well shit, if I can't use physics as a cornerstone to base my belief upon, then what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I'm getting so fucking sick of the zeitgeist.

Everywhere I look it's just petty moderns with their various forms of (metaphysical) materialism coupled with folky sentimentalism.

"We're all just atoms in space but don't kill that guy because that's mean!"
-Modern Ethics

>>9158902
>im 14 and i just discovered popscience videos on youtube

do us all a favor and PLEASE go back to /b/ or better yet reddit

If you are reading this you are in what is effectively a dream. You can begin "lucid dreaming" if you realize that nothing you do in this life matters. You can fuck around and do whatever you want, when die you will wake up.

What are the consequences for murder in a lucid dream? There are none because it's a dream. Same can be said about reality. Now go have fun

>>9159093
Thankfully you're here to show us all the way

>>9159029
>Only when a conscious observer makes a measurement, a result is obtained. We can't measure reality outside of being human, because it's made for us.

At best this is wild conjecture, at worst it's flat out wrong. There are perfectly deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics that do not rely on a psi-ontic interpretation of the wave function.

>>9159081
My beliefs are a leap of faith. Everyone's are. Even people who believe in reductionist Scientism.

Remember when Pluto was a planet, when the moon and Mars had no water? And then all of that flipped.

Quantum physics produces reproducible and measurable results but there are still warring camps of beliefs among scientists about their meaning, such as if the many-worlds interpretation is true or not.

>>9159102

Solving the riddle (modernity) at least requires an extremely thorough grounding in pre-modern religion, literature and philosophy.

In all seriousness I would point to any and all of ancient and medieval literature for guidance.

These are severely under-read, and an adequate appreciation of pre-modern ideas is absent from just about all of us these days.

I'm saying we should toss out all the historical theories of ascent-- of social and intellectual progress culminating in justice and science-- because these necessarily lead to a depreciation of ancient thought.

We have to read the ancients and the medievals because these are the people whose ideas created our world.

>>9159128
>Everyone's are

Prove it.

This epistemologically irresponsible leap from insufficient "evidence" seems incorrect.

>>9159029
Only when a conscious observer makes a measurement, a result is obtained.
I'm not up to date with quantum physics, so I'm speaking from a standpoint of taking what I've got, and reasoning from those few points available to me -- But I'm intuiting a problem here. ...Of course it's the god damned case that only when a conscious observer makes a measurement a result is obtained. This means to me nothing more than that you need to observe something to measure it. People have this flipped understanding of the idea in their minds, then go out on a shaky leg and deduce that, therefore, if we didn't exist to observe, then neither would the observable reality exist. This is just bad philosophy, and has already been picked apart into a confetti-litter of sub problems that need to be sorted out before we can even say anything with confidence about the matter. I mean, this is one of the most major, long-running modes of inquiry throughout the entire history of philosophy. I don't really understand how this observer-dependency thing is as evidencing towards all that quantum-mysticism stuff as people think it is. I also think that basing such massive beliefs on the (read: at this stage) available evidence is not only bad philosophy, but also bad science. There will exist a paradigms at once stage, which is founded on available evidence. But as soon as the existing evidence is either altered or added to, oh shit, what do you know, the paradigm can shift! This behaviour of the scientific method should be sufficient to convince anyone with a responsibility towards truth-with-a-capital-T not to place so much faith in available evidence, and be at all times vigilantly aware that your currently held paradigm could shift, that you could be proven wrong, etc.

>>9159130
>We have to read the ancients and the medievals because these are the people whose ideas created our world.

Wow, I was reading this in a condescending way until your last sentence, but I think you struck gold with it. You're right, the first sophisticated thinkers ought to be indulged, investigated and criticized for precisely that reason.. oh wait. We've done that ad nauseam

>>9159160
>oh wait. We've done that ad nauseam
Correction: other people have. You've been to reddit and looked at black science man pictures.

>>9159160
Oh, cool so you can explain the underlying principles of Kabbalah and the most commonly accepted beliefs of that branch of thought. Since, after all, you've investigated that ad nauseum.

>>9159110

No faggot, we're 4th dimensional beings using a linear time simulator because spatial time is bor-ing.

>>9159165
>Kabbalah
say what? who cares about some jewish magic pop-psychology stuff. Are you jewish?

You religious types want to have it both ways. You want for religion to be, in some way, just as important as science because for some reason metaphysics is just as important as physics, even though we can see that physics is relevant and any two fields that are mutually exclusive are not just as valuable.

But then you want for "science" to be this leap of faith. But, years back, we didn't have faith that there wouldn't be water on mars - we believed it because there was evidence to support a theory which predicted there wouldn't be. But now we have a rover on mars, and detailed images of the ice caps, and now we say there's water. We've got more interesting evidence which shows our model was incomplete.

If you really want us to need religion because it's totally, 100% mutually exclusive from the physics of actual existence and the physical world, you will never find anything in the physical world to support your theory. Ours, on the other hand, supports absolutely everything we have ever measured or else is discarded.

>>9159160

>.. oh wait. We've done that ad nauseam

If you "we" means "academics and scholars" then sure. If "we" means "4chan's /lit/ board" then no.

What can one do? I'm just pointing at some bookshelves where I think we (as individual degenerates striving to conquer our shitty, bored, modern computer-lives) can find some answers.

Personally, my entire sense of history and reality fell apart quickly when I decided to start studying religions. The reason for this is simple: it goaded me into breaking the massive ideological barrier most moderns have: absolute materialism as the absolute condition of human life and inquiry.

I don't reject materialism but it appears to be roughly as convincing as other metaphysics (pantheisms, dualisms, God/world system). I find this fact endlessly frustrating.

>>9159184
Does the number 1 or 2 or 3.534265 exist?
Does long-term storage and short-term storage in the brain exist?
Do intentions, meaning and purpose exist?

Can you prove any of this without metaphysics?

>>9159184

>You religious types want to have it both ways

There's nothing wrong with reading Genesis and Darwin at the same time.

>>9159180

Yes, goy. Why do you think us Jews can manipulate you so well. We're hardly human at this point because our minds are so dense with power. The Kabbalah is a compilation of our secrets and discoveries.

>>9159200
no u

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4024.pdf

>>9159184

>b-but the problem of induction

>>9159202

moar

>>9159194
1. Whether or not math "exists" is a way different question which will some day be settled with physics. Moreover, it's inconsequential. If math is just a belief system because it has axioms, physics gets around it by saying that math is a framework which makes predictions. The predictions exist and so there's no need to believe in the framework, or to invoke metaphysics.
2. This seems to me like just a science question that's beyond our understanding, either for now or forever. I don't understand how you want to relate this to metaphysics but would be very happy to have you explain it.
3. Because I read number 2 as a hard science question it seems to me that this one is just a science question taken so to the extreme that it's hard to dismiss as just a matter of time. But it doesn't strike me as fundamentally a different issue.

If you mean does consciousness physically exist in the same way the number 3.53 (or probably root 2 would be better) exists, then I don't see how it should be surprising that people have words for things that turn out not to have a physical existence that you can point to.

>>9159233

>Whether or not math "exists" is a way different question which will some day be settled with physics.

In your opinion, what accounts for the applicability of purely deductive mathematical reasoning to the experimental (inductive) realm of science?

>>9159204
Sorry, what do you mean?

>>9159196
Hopefully for their values in your life, whatever forms those take.

>>9159251

How much of your worldview hinges on Darwin, and how much of Darwin have you read?

Just think about that for a second

This is from a man, much smarter than any of you guys here:

The thing that causes people to argue about when and how the photon learns that the experimental apparatus is in a certain configuration and then changes from wave to particle to fit the demands of the experiment's configuration is the assumption that a photon had some physical form before the astronomers observed it. Either it was a wave or a particle; either it went both ways around the galaxy or only one way. Actually, quantum phenomena are neither waves nor particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are measured. In a sense, the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley was right when he asserted two centuries ago "to be is to be perceived."

Ask yourselves what the delayed choice eraser experiment really proves. It proves that the light from a distant galaxy is not following path A or B, but rather when we measure it, we determine retrocausally where it came from. If that doesn't blow your mind, then nothing will.

>>9159291

I'm going to ask you a basic math question to try and ascertain your level of study.

True or False:
"there exists an abelian group G such that for any a,b in G (ab-ba)=/=(ba-ab)"

Based on how good the shit I just took felt, I don't give a fuck how simulated our world is.

>>9159247
I believe you are saying that just the existence of mathematics alone and the success of mathematical physics requires a metaphysical explanation? In which case I agree with you. I don't think I ever meant to argue that physics can explain itself. But physics and math are seen to be things that we have in our universe, for whatever metaphysical reasons; I just mean that believing in the framework that they - clearly existing - develop is not the same sort of belief as speculating wildly about why they're here. I also think from the very early history of math that it's not that surprising, but I mean to read up on the subject.

I'm reading "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" right now, which anyone, this being /lit/, can find below if they'd like.

http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/wigner.pdf

>>9159204
It's a real problem.

>>9159336

>I believe you are saying

I asked you a question, I didn't say anything. Let me try again:

Mathematics can be done strictly in one's head without any reference whatsoever to "reality." Physics on the other hand, requires a laboratory. It also requires mathematics.

Why is that?

>>9159346
string theory is completely theoretical

>>9159359
didn't we establish in this thread that string theory is a bunch of baloney? :^)

I'll email a crisp 500 dollar bill to whoever can answer this:

>>9159304

>>9159375
not sure but i've always believed string theory is pure wankery

>>9159383
false. now give me my moneys you hack: [email protected]

>>9159304
It's false.
>>9159383

>>9159401

I have sent you an email requesting your routing number and DOB/SSN. Please respond so I can send you your Free Five Hundred Dollar AMerican Eagle Bill Emails (or your money back 100%!).

Are you the quantum physics guy though in all seriousness? Because I'm on the lookout for an intro modern physics text that will keep me on my mathy toes (or else I'm going to forget everything since I graduated).

>>9158902

>fine-tuned constants

Seems like a misunderstanding. It's not clear what determines cosmological constants. To imply that a source outside the universe must have consciously determined that our universe have specific constants that result in a stable universe seems like an unnecessary leap.

2 problems with cosmological constants as evidence for matrix universe:

1-the alternative explanation that multiple, potentially infinite, universes exist, and only ones with stable physics live long enough for conscious beings to form.
2-matrix hypothesis doesn't actually explain anything, because then the universe in which ours was intelligently designed must also be mysteriously well equipped for stable physics and the possibility of conscious life. I'm not against the idea of infinite Russian dolls universes but it doesn't have any explanatory power

>>9159346
>Requires a laboratory
I can just go outside and drop a rock. That's physics as it really exists.

Alternatively, I can write down a mathematical model for a rock. But I don't write down that it's spinning with the earth. I don't write down that the earth is orbiting the sun. I don't write down that the sun moves in our galaxy. I haven't the faintest idea what I would write down to describe how our galaxy moves. So I admit that what I'm really doing is math.

There's no interesting point in saying that I first need a laboratory and then math. The real interesting question here is whether or not the *rock* needs math, and whether, when it checks the square of the distance to the earth, it's using a real or a rational number.

>>9158902
the world was created five minutes ago and all things that prove it otherwise are just red herring put by the demiurge.
also you are a lala prancing homo
Try to prove me wrong you homo

>>9159204
Is this a meme? Are you really worried that the laws of physics will change on us just because we can't show they won't?

>>9159421

What if each nanosecond of your seemingly continual existence is a new conscious being, experiencing only the briefest moment, but that experience includes memories of the past, which color and define the experience of the current moment. And this experience of the current moment is recorded in the brain for future use (one nanosecond later) by the next "you".

Is there any evidence that consciousness is actually continuous?

>>9159426
No. Did you have a point?

>>9159428

Not really, it's just something I thought about once, and I was reminded of it by the post I replied to.

I guess the point is that all truth and knowledge is relative to certain assumptions, and it's not particularly meaningful to merely point out that something commonly accepted as truth relies on unjustified assumptions. If you want to undermine some commonly accepted truth you have to provide something more.

>>9159418

I can say to any person in the world that "The tallest guy in the room is shorter than another guy in the room" and they will notice something is off.

Why do humans have that ability? It's staggering! I used to think that maybe human reason was an imprint of the universe's qualities or something, but that sounds spurious to say the least.

The ability to design an experimental apparatus is scandalous considering that the next smartest thing in the universe is a bonobo.

It places humans in an altogether unique category of harmony with the cosmos, which I find uncomfortable.

Forget the "fine-tuned" universe. What are the odds that I'm the only sort of thing in the universe that does experiments?

>>9159435
As a counter-argument, physics now is spectacularly counter-intuitive. If it wasn't that people evolved with classical physics and so have a handle on how to think about it, why should we suddenly be at the limit of what we're comfortable thinking about?

Also, we're about to find aliens on Trappist-1, they're probably way smarter than we are.

>>9159435

I think bonobos, other primates, and mammals in general do experiments and use logic

Dumber animals maybe easily misled by their experimental results, ignore confounding factors, fail to utilize proper controls and all that, but I still think they utilize the basic idea, which is to develop intuitive expectations, then test those expectations, and adjust them in the future according to the results

Dolphins learned to do their crazy coordinated hunting shit by watching the fish and trying different ways of catching them

Do they have thoughts like "well shit this method isn't working, what if we blow bubbles to confuse them?", no dolphins don't speak English, but I think it's a mistake to assume that experiments and logical reasoning can ONLY exist within the framework of human languages

So let me get this straight. Looking at the current problems of physics, instead of concluding the possibility that our models of understanding are limited, and while they got us to this point, they might be irreparably flawed in our attempts to go further, you decided to make the leap of faith into the idea that we're in a "simulated universe" and using the potential faults of our tools as evidence.

Honestly, I think that's a really lazy, limited perspective despite it seeming like such a revolutionary conclusion. Maybe the scientific community needs to take a cue from the mathematics community and (like it did in the late 19th/early 20th century) closely inspect the axioms and methods it had previous taken for granted to reckon with the serious flaws it found itself facing, which, in the process of rebuilding its foundations, was able to advance mathematics significantly.

Or we can make erroneous conclusions that might be "correct" only to the extent that it's not possible to disprove (or, more importantly, prove at all). Since this is easier, less upsetting and makes life more like a cool sci-fi blockbuster, I can see why this is appealing.

>>9159472
>they got us to this point
And what point is that exactly? Without knowing the bounds of what is physically possible, you cannot assess how well we've "done" technologically. For example, if FTL and other crazy shit is possible, then you cannot say that current physics has done much for us just because we have toilets.

>>9159472
Well said. I just think this whole simulated universe, or any other wild theory derived from quantum-bamboozlement, is both intellectually lazy and irresponsible.

>>9158902
You should not have a drivers license, my dude

>>9159617
"That point" I'm referring to is simply the degree of precision we have reached in describing and modelling our universe. It wasn't meant to suggest anything more than that. Technological application is pretty irrelevant when talking about cutting edge physics.

Talking about "the bounds of what is physically possible" really misses the key part of my argument, and makes me think you didn't go further than the first sentence of my post.

>>9158902
>Double slit experiment
Dropped

>>9161020
Can you explain the delayed choice double eraser experiment from the 1999 then? Because its implications are literally groundbreaking.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9903047.pdf

thread music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk2O3yyOgwE