Reality Definition and 494 Threads

Does the uncertainty principle suggest that at the quantum level the activity going on cannot be measured (due to the fact that to measure the elements at this range will either cause, through the measuring method, either a disruption in velocity or a disruption in location, thereby allowing the...

I was recently readin the cover article for the lastest Time magazine issue. Some of you may have read it also. It was about the end of the world and the Apocalypse. Also, the author mentioned a series of books called the "Left Behind" series (anyone read them? how are they?).Anyway, in the...

First let me admit my title was meant to torment materialists a bit, but good naturedly. I am hoping to have a debate to determine if the materialist stance allows one the full range of information available for reasoning. Also, my "list" of reasons below represent what I consider the worst...

I saw Michio Kaku on the Discovery channel the other day. He was describing what happens when steam in a boiling pot of water heats to extreme tempetures. He went on the talk about what would happen if you had a situation where the heat reached billions and perhaps trillions of degrees.He said...

"This reality is not real," for some reason just now sounded to me like, "This statement is not true."What are the essential differences between a reality that is nearly all 'out there' (material, but relative and uncertain), and a reality that is only 'in here' (immaterial, still relative and...

Science is the rational-enquiry of the universe we perceive. Science looks within our perceptions and tries to decipher the order that is present there, amongst theeffectsof our universe - thus enabling it to make predictions about future effects, or explain the causality of the present.It is a...

What happens if we measure the speed of a moving train the same way we measure the speed of light. Imagine yourself sitting in your car in front of the railroad tracks waiting for the train to pass. Looking straight ahead, count how many train cars pass in front of you in one second (assume...

Poll Question:what is your view of what goes on "behind the scences", what is the nature of reality.Choices: There is no deep reality. Reality is created by observation. Undivided uniform reality. Objective and subjective realities combined. Reality consists of a steadily increasing number of...

Most of you believe that our brains are the product of our environment. The key-word here, is 'product'. Keep it in mind...On several occaisions, I've mentioned the fact that sensory-awareness is self-imposed - an experience of 'reality' which is received by conciousness, but created by our...

According to reciprocity, congruence exists between a transmitter and a receiver. That is, their roles can be reversed without changing the physics of the situation. So a radio wave may be emitted by a tower and received on a home radio, or the radio may be made to transmit, given the same...

As a function of time, now cannot be a point because that would eliminate motion from the equation, so there would be no time.Reality is energy recording information. As energy can't be created, or destroyed, old information is destroyed as new information is created. The past is information...

Many discussions in the threads at PF revolve around the nature of reality and our ability to perceive it (several such debates are going on now), and I've read several other threads on reality that have gone on over the last few months. I wondered if it might be possible for some of those...

Poll Question:Planet Omega has found conventional physics obsolete. Instead, the Omegans practice:Choices: Self-deification Pleasure Interdimensional travel Extra sensory perception Peace Naturalism Sustainability Metaphysics

Hiya!I was thinking recently about force shields and the possiblity of them actually being created! What could create such a shield, and would it be possible with posts beaming the "laser like shield" accross triangles!If have no logical reasons to how this would be possible, but i have been...

How do we know we are awake? A simply fundamental (or seeming to be) question... but where is the emperical evidence?

Neutral infinite reality - (only does one action)Positive infinite reality - (only reacts)Negative infinite reality - (only reacts)if they all do the best in thier own perfect ways then the universe makes sense. let me give an anology of what the thing above is saying.Both positve and negative...

One day I will prove the essence of the physical *independant* of the mind!Also I will make artificial intelligence with a free will.I will give animals intelligence.I will resurect the dinosaurs.I will construct a time machine.And if I cannot do these things due to time constraints, than...

By physics, is it possible to construct laser sword and laser gun as that in StarWars. ?_____________________Patience yields stamina.

Consider:Virtual physics projects onto real physics.Virtual overdetermines real.Virtual interacts with real as real interacts with observer.Both real and virtual states are discrete in conventional space.Real states are continuous in extradimensional virtual space.Virtual conditions...

"To see a world in a grain of sand,And a heaven in a wild flower,To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,And eternity in an hour."

OK, relativity says that, because of the finite speed of light, no two observers will agree on thier perceptions of an event (unless they occupy the same space), and the concept of simultaniety is a fallicy. Which of the two statements is more accurate -"Relativity shows us that there isno...

Life's origins among the stars.< >**************************************************" Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."- Philip K. Dick

Poll Question:I recognize observers primarily as:Choices: Conscious, sentient beings Complementary to objects Experimenters with measuring devices The entire physical universe A community of mutual participators Aspects of myself Objective and dispassionate Actuators of reality

I'm in high school, and I am quite good at physics. lol :DI really love physics, but something about it bothers me. My AP physics teacher keeps changing the absolute value signs, and the +- signs at will, saying that "Reality prevails, math be subordinate". What do you think about this outrage...

Physics is the most abstract of the measurable sciences. Students avoid it for its seeming separation from immediate reality. But physics is also the measureable science most fundamental to reality. It connects the truths of mathematics to universal matter and motion. How can we account for...

The information conjoined over all observers defines all possible universes. The death (birth) of observers diminishes (increases) physical reality by the action of their perspective. What we sense in life is unique, and at death, exclusive as well.A wake to imagination! {^,^}

Is utopia possible?-skaz-----------------------------------------------------Dragonball Z: "The Most Demented, but Amazing Anime of All Time"

Imagine looking at an object - a tree, for example.Now, I'm not an expert in the quantum-field, but as far as I am aware, the photons emitted from the surface of that tree are indeterminate entities. I.e., they do not follow a precise path through space or time.So, by the time the photons reach...

An observer represents the accumulation of physical projections upon an initial state, whose properties are those of "epi-constants" (parameters locally unchanging) like h, c, G, e and k (kappa) and their associated physics. Measurement communicates to our person a physics at first uncodified...

The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch. He writes about the four strands, epsitomology, evolution, computation, and quanta (guess which chapters I mainly skimmed . . .). Quantum Reality, by Nick Herbert (is he Frank Herbert's son?). He writes about the various competing interpretations of...

well I have mixed feelings about this. I think the anwser is one I dont personally like.............yes and nothings we hear could quite possibly be different if our ears were different and our brains interpreted them differently this would change our reality so in a way our reality is only a...

I've been reading a book called the Elegant Universe (can't remember the author) and from the information I've read in the first few chapters I have concluded that according to Einsteinian Relativity and Doppler shift mechanics, the universe is not only expanding, butaccellerating!If the red...

Now that science has successfully spliced the DNA of different species, and the Swedes have started cloning humans, what was once considered as horribly deformed might become known as another species.What affect might this have on the present earth's population, to have a new species of...

Force fields are displayed as protective barriers in the latest Sci-Fi movies, but are they a possibilty in real life? Read this short summary for a few ideas.http://www.physicspost.com/articles.php?articleId=9admin@physicsforums.comAll New!

John Archibald Wheeler once mused that of all the great physics formulas, none could "fly" for themselves. A mathematical statement, on one hand, seemingly contains information more efficiently than a black hole. On the other hand, equations only ever approximate physical reality. Is, then, a...

SubjectiveObjectiveThe single most important distinction to be understood before any philosophical discussion is entered.Loosely termed, objectivity is'not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings; based on real facts ', while subjectivity is'influenced by or based on personal beliefs or...

An interesting paper (written by a co-poster from another forum) at ...<http://www.geek-central.gen.nz/peeves/objective_reality.html>- Sivakami.*******************************************" Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. " - Carl Sagan

By measuring you create a false reality? Of course you do.ie: We prosume that light travels in waves because that is what our technology has detected. If we look for a wave, that is what we'll find. By measuring the "wave", you transform it into wave form. Therefore, whatever it was is no...

"The only thing worse than existence, is non-existence; and that is the horror of life; if one wish's to wake from the nightmare, one must surrender one's being..."

I'm playing devils advocate for a moment and assuming LG is correct in his view that sciences' initial premises are faulty because the reality on which those premises rely hadnt yet been 'proven' to begin with. My question is this, how could the immateriality of material reality been tested...

Light makes quantums bounce. By definition, it follows we will not be able at this time to ever percieve anything in it's complete resting state, because if we can see it, quantums must be bouncing all over the place due to the light particles we are using to view the subjects.Neural...

What is reality? If reality is what an individual sees and each individual are in their own little worlds, then there would be no real reality?

Yes....yes....I know its just science-fiction, but is it possible?Did anyone like the new version of POTA????I saw it tonight, it was alright.The old ones were better!-mao

I've been reading about Quantum Field Theory and what it says about subatomic particles. I've read that QFT regards particles as excited states of underlying quantum fields. If this is the case, how can particles be regarded as objective? It seems to me that this also removes some of the...

In 1935, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger was looking at a concept called a "superposition." Superposition is when two waves meet and overlap and interact, which can lead to different results based on the circumstances. The concept can be seen in the regular-sized world as well, in...

Did Schrödinger believe that contradictory or inconsistent things could exist in reality?

If MWI and collapse-theory are both possible interpretations of QM, then both of them are not a fact, right? If MWI is a fact then collapse isn't and vice versa, you could say the least. So, shut up and calculate, i.e. the minimal interpretation, makes no inference about the realness of these...

Could MWI signify that there are not necessarily a (near) infinite number of real worlds, but rather that officially we can't tell if, or to what degree, the world we are in is real?

I recently acquired the tome of Penrose's Road to Reality. I'm trying to figure who this book is intended for. It has a mix of deep mathematical physics concepts with light explanatory diagrams. I have a little bit of a mathematical background, bachelors in math, so I can follow it pretty...

I don't know how to make that question better, to not seem as if I'm asking why is time relative (that's not what I'm looking, I think). When we say that time is relative, we look at how many time takes light to go from one point to another, in order to be seen from another perspective. So...