Do the greatest scientists question Reality itself?
Apr 12, 2010
in
Earthquake Questions
Are perhaps the greatest thinkers those who question the nature of Reality?
Since the human brain does not record all of the sensory input coming to it, should not scientists wonder if our five senses are to be completely trusted? Now that we have many scientific instruments that reveal things that the brain misses, from microscopes to infrared sensors to seismographs to radios, showing us so many things beyond our ability to sense, should we wonder if Reality itself is so solid and real as we thought?
After all, we are just mostly space at an atomic level, whirling electrons, and we don’t actually have a solid reality except as a convention of thought.
What do you think?
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18 comments
Uncle Wayne (new camera) on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Last night I saw I documentary about our universe. It is now believed by most scientists that there are 11 dimensions. And that we have more than 5 senses, so to say.
Which gets to my copyrighted hypothesis: Workability is the main test to decide if something is real.
Ray G on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
That’s their job.
evirustheslaye on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
the repeatability of observations by third party sources, ie other people, give us more than enough reason to suggest we are in the same reality as everyone else.
666777 on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I think a real scientist questions everything, that’s how you discover thing, there’s no point in looking if you already concluded
Madmartigan on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
That is more the arena for philosophy.
I believe it was Descartes that was famous for the matrix-like postulation. I’d have to look it up tho. But yes it has been debated.
Regarding scientists, it isn’t necessarily a testable hypothesis, so until we find a way to test such a hypothesis, it belongs in the realm of philosophy.
azure tiger on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Not all of the great thinkers were scientists, just most of them…
Booka on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
um..what do you think science is?
zocor on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
yes, they’ve drink’n too many test tubes
Zargon on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Scientists, particularly physicists are well aware that there are things they cannot directly measure. Two of those things they call "dark matter" and "dark energy." In the sense used here, "dark" means invisible.
Dark energy and dark matter don’t emit or absorb electromagnetic energy, of if they do, we haven’t observed it happening.
Jack on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
science is not a slave to philosophy
solipsism, TAG, and all that other shit is not relevant
Aya Rose on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Then you’re getting into cross discipline philosophy.
It’s hard to test things that we can’t perceive, and theorizing ways to test it is technically a complex philosophy.
And no, not the ‘greatest’ scientists. Just people that have reached the point where they begin to theorize that they aren’t getting all the information.
Soltan on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
oh yes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens%E2%80%93Fresnel_principle
Rjinswand the Doctor on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Er…yes?
They’re way ahead of you on that one, hun
Let’s face it….no one even knows what "matter" is made out of. It’s technically nothing. Questioning the very fabric of reality is basically procedure now for anyone working in theoretical sciences.
(= smiley chick [DA] on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I saw something that once said there was a fifty/fifty chance that were we all actually characters in some uber advanced game of The Sims.
Which sounds ridiculous, unless you really think about it… O_o
Jennifer on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
If you cannot trust your senses, then what sense did you use to come to the conclusion that "you cannot trust your senses?" And, if you did not use a sense to come to that conclusion, then is knowledge available in some other form, not through the senses? Whenever you begin to question reality, you will always end up in a contradiction; and if contradictions prove that something is false, then the something that was a contradiction must be false. Well, at least people who claim the Bible is false, do so on the basis of the presence of contradictions. But, we can’t be consistent all the time, especially when it comes to our own beliefs!
Christian M on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Of course science is aware that there is more space in matter than substance. The distance between atoms and their particles is greater than the distance between the stars in the heavens. They know that the mass of the universe is about 3% of the mass of the unseen reality behind the universe and that the 97% that cannot be seen or known with the senses is the more substantial part of the whole. Is it Reality that we question or the experience of Reality?
Reality is unchanging and the experience of it changes constantly until we are awake in the Truth of It.
Thimmappa M.S. on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
You are absolutely right. We, including scientist, cannot apprehend Reality as it is with the limited instrument(bodily or otherwise) and anybody believing that he can would only hitting head hard against the wall. True scientist have known this and actually wondered at the marvel of Reality, considered themselves as only discoverer of the nature’s bounty and never went about challenging or questioning the wisdom.
Yusofa's 3 Tribes & 2 Clans on April 12, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Dr. Hawkins has written on whether reality really is what we perceive it. Same with the Physicist, Aryeh Kaplan, also a Biblical scholar, and was in international Who’s Who. His writings like "If You Were God?" is quite interesting, also his book "The Waters of Eden". The Jewish sages have always asked this questions and the majority were also scientists or engineers. In "The Way of God" by Moshe Luzzatto, written around 1730, discusses the dimensions of time, space, creation and reality. At Chabad.org, the scientists discuss, "What is God?", "Is God Agnostic?", "Spiritual Molecules", "Quantum Repentence", "Reality and its Shadow", "Something from Nothing", "Knowledge and Reality" and more.