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What guarantees the consistency of reality ?

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We see the sun rising everday ..so we conclude that it will rise again tommorrow..but what guarantees that a pattern that is true today will not break down tommorrow?
Just because something has happened a certain way every single time we have taken an observation, is it guaranteed to happen the same way the next time?
If an apple is seen to fall down from a tree a million times, is it guaranteed to fall down a million and one-th time?
No, there is no surety it will. Similarly, even if gravity and other modern scientific laws are observed to be true a trillion times, there really is no guarantee it will be true the next day. We just assume it always will. But there is no law in this universe that guarantees that. It seems a basic assumption of science is: there are some basic laws that will always be true
But it is only an assumption, the universe doesn't guarantee it, God doesn't guarantee it.

I think what this means is that, literally everything, is logically possible, and we can never 100% rule out any possibility. Science cannot rule out God, nor can it rule out that I will wake up tomorrow in the body of a lioness. Science only has observations, it doesn't have the rulebook of the universe.
It is based on an assumption, and there is no reason why that assumption must be true.

And this makes me feel scared sometimes. Think. There is no guarantee you will be rewarded for your hard work. No guarantee, even if everything happens right, that you will live a good life. Even if everything happens in your favor scientifically, well there's always a chance the universe says "screw science" and just give you immeasurable suffering randomly. In fact there is no reason why that can't happen, we just assume it won't.

Worst of all, we toil hard, see our friends and family and others work hard, suffer, and pin everything they have on this one basic assumption, which has no reason to be true. For example, a father working his ass off to pay medical bills for his disabled daughter could wake up to find his daughter dead for no reason. Everything he has in his life could crash all in one moment. There is no reason why it can't happen. And it isn't even a game of probability, because probability assumes that past events are linked to the future events, and can be used to make predictions of the future.
But in reality, every event possible must be, "logically", equally likely, since we have no real laws to tell them apart, only the assumption that what happened in the past will also happen the same way in the future. Only an assumption, nothing else

Edited by Someone here

"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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Well, that's basically Hume's criticism of causality, but he didn't see that it is consciousness that is responsible for the consistency, and Kant, as I understand him to say, kinda understood it, but not fully. 

 

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33 minutes ago, Vibroverse said:

Well, that's basically Hume's criticism of causality, but he didn't see that it is consciousness that is responsible for the consistency, and Kant, as I understand him to say, kinda understood it, but not fully. 

 

 Hume's main argument against causality is that we see things happening in the world in  pattern.  Then we conclude that the same phenomenon will repeat the next time it's tried. What this also means, is that a truly two linked events will never do anything because they  don't  have any concrete laws to rely on and it cannot logically justify why past observations must be linked to the future either. Equivalently, it may do anything it wishes because there is no reason why one set of actions is better than another. So no reason why doing nothing is better than doing something. They are all equally good options for it. The universe is lawless to it unless it figures out some new information.

Then it means human being are not completely logical beings either. As I type this, I rely on the same assumption that I talked about earlier, and consider this course of action better than others. My actions therefore are completely irrational. There is no way to justify them. It is just that I have a desire, and I'm hoping the said assumption is true and will help me fulfill my desires, even though I cannot logically justify it. My human instincts want me to believe that there is a pattern. In fact my instincts developed like this in the first place because there was a pattern, and because it contained a link to predicting the future. There is still no way to guarantee that the patterns always work, or will continue to work, but biological systems discovered that their best bet to survival was working under the assumption that it will mostly work.


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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55 minutes ago, Someone here said:

the universe doesn't guarantee it, God doesn't guarantee it.

How do you know the Universe or God don’t guarantee it?

No, there’s 0 chance the Universe will randomly say “screw science” and give you unmeasurable suffering.

God creations are perfect, even if unfair and damaging to the beings in them. One thing you can be sure of is that no matter what you do today, the sun will rise tomorrow. How can you even fathom infinite intelligence to make such mistakes?

These thoughts you’re having come from thinking time is linear. God created the entire tape the moment the Universe was born, it was over before it began. 0 chance of a mistake. 

The Absolute is beyond chance or probability. This is just mental masturbation.

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1 minute ago, michaelcycle00 said:

How do you know the Universe or God don’t guarantee it?

No, there’s 0 chance the Universe will randomly say “screw science” and give you unmeasurable suffering.

God creations are perfect, even if unfair and damaging to the beings in them. One thing you can be sure of is that no matter what you do today, the sun will rise tomorrow. How can you even fathom infinite intelligence to make such mistakes?

These thoughts you’re having come from thinking time is linear. God created the entire tape the moment the Universe was born, it was over before it began. 0 chance of a mistake. 

The Absolute is beyond chance or probability. This is just mental masturbation.

To my mind this is mostly based on expectations. Those who anticipate that life has a deeper meaning or some sort of cosmic justice or balance are vulnerable to disappointment when they observe the randomness or "unfairness" of life. OTOH, those who accept the lack of any discernable "plan" or deeper meaning and concentrate on the numerous aspects of life that are within their personal control or at least direct influence can enjoy the benefits of that influence and control and thus create a local (as opposed to universal) "plan" (their own).


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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The reason the Sun will, highly probably, rise again tomorrow is your belief that it, highly probably, will rise again tomorrow. This is what Hume missed and believed that there is a pattern just in itself with no guarantees. 

 

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7 hours ago, Vibroverse said:

The reason the Sun will, highly probably, rise again tomorrow is your belief that it, highly probably, will rise again tomorrow. This is what Hume missed and believed that there is a pattern just in itself with no guarantees. 

 

So if I stopped believing that the sun will rise up tommorrow...it won't? 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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9 hours ago, Someone here said:

And this makes me feel scared sometimes. Think. There is no guarantee you will be rewarded for your hard work. No guarantee, even if everything happens right, that you will live a good life. Even if everything happens in your favor scientifically, well there's always a chance the universe says "screw science" and just give you immeasurable suffering randomly. In fact there is no reason why that can't happen, we just assume it won't.

Nothing stops reality from just collapsing into nothingness right now. Nothing to worry about though :D 

Edited by Carl-Richard

Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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8 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Nothing stops reality from just collapsing into nothingness right now. Nothing to worry about though :D 

Yeah isn't it scary though  ?

Breaking news.. 

The universe might end this very second..that's a fact.  You can't prove that everything won't just disappear boom gone this very second. No you can't.  You want to believe it can't. But it most certainly can.

What the fuck is holding everything together anyways?..

Just a creepy thought. Pulling it out of my stuffy subconscious.  And be sure you can find thousands of such creepy thoughts. 

When you understand this you might want to consider to let go of a lot of bullshit that you think you know. 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Yeah isn't it scary though  ?

It's a scary thought, but it's just a thought :>


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's a scary thought, but it's just a thought :>

That doesn't comfort me. 

Seriously though..isn't there anything I'n the laws of physics that prevents that ? Like these cosmological constants ? There must be some force that  is holding the universe together and preventing it from just flying apart randomly for no reason at all ..

Otherwise this would be a huge glitch in the matrix 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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2 minutes ago, Someone here said:

That doesn't comfort me. 

Seriously though..isn't there anything I'n the laws of physics that prevents that ? Like these cosmological constants ? There must be some force that  is holding the universe together and preventing it from just flying apart randomly for no reason at all ..

Otherwise this would be a huge glitch in the matrix 

Listen to yourself. The universe has been chugging along for 12 billion years, but here you are, concerned because your primate brain farted out "what if it stops chugging along within my tiny primate lifespan? ?". Like bro ?


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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8 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Listen to yourself. The universe has been chugging along for 12 billion years, but here you are, concerned because your primate brain farted out "what if it stops chugging along within my tiny primate lifespan? ?". Like bro ?

"Your brain farted "lol xD

Well, you are of course familiar with the big bang theory which is the only theory in modern physics and cosmology that explains the origin of the universe..and it says the universe is expanding.

And  the universe is not only expanding, but the expansion rate is actually accelerating. Essentially this indicates that there is a force still being applied which is making things expand. There are many schools of thought on how the end of the universe as we know it will play out, and one of those theories is “the big crunch,” which indicates that everything will eventually start collapsing in back towards the center. If the expansion of the universe is still accelerating, however, it's indicative that if the universe will end in a big crunch, then chances are it's not even close to the point where it will begin to slow it's expansion… we may, in fact, still be part of the big bang in what has, so far, been a nearly 14 billion year long explosion. It's also possible that the universe is full of dark matter, and that somehow the dark matter is what's facilitating this acceleration. Will we ever find out the answer? Probably not… at least, not until it actually starts to happen…. So ask me this question again in 15 trillion years, xDand we will see then if the universe is still accelerating outward or if it has yet to begin to slow down… if I were a gambling man I would put my money on eternal expansion and eventual heat death as the cause for the end.


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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How'd ya know the universe hasn't collapsed into nothingness already? How do you know you are speaking coherently and making sense? You don't know if any of your thoughts are rational or not. You don't know if your idea of rational is rational or not. How do you know you're not in complete and utter chaos right now. You don't. I think worrying about consistency should be done more like this. What happens physically should be a secondary issue. You can worry about whether the sun will rise tomorrow after figuring out if it ever rose to begin with.

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3 hours ago, Someone here said:

So if I stopped believing that the sun will rise up tommorrow...it won't? 

Yeah, but it is a very very very deep seated belief that you, highly highly probably, won't be able to stop believing it, so far so that it will appear to you to be something that is just outside of you, just something that is "objectively" true. 

 

Edited by Vibroverse

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An example of someone who wants guarantees of a consistent reality:

”Hello, I have found my reality to be defective and I’d like a refund or to see if it’s covered under warrantee. Can I have a word with your manager?”

Oh, Karen.............

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3 hours ago, Vibroverse said:

Yeah, but it is a very very very deep seated belief that you, highly highly probably, won't be able to stop believing it, so far so that it will appear to you to be something that is just outside of you, just something that is "objectively" true. 

 

I disagree.  What about the laws of physics? Are they real or just figment of our collective imagination?  What keeps the sun rising everday is the rotation of the earth around its axis.  If I stopped believing the earth will keep rotating around its axis that won't make it happen. 

reality is not a matter of belief. Beliefs do not create reality as it is. Sometimes beliefs don’t even reflect reality. For instance, many religious beliefs are basically founded on pure wishful thinking. Such sectarian beliefs have certainly created a reality for millions if not billions of people. The same goes for so-called scientific beliefs like evolution and abiogenesis.


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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4 hours ago, Swarnim said:

How'd ya know the universe hasn't collapsed into nothingness already? How do you know you are speaking coherently and making sense? You don't know if any of your thoughts are rational or not. You don't know if your idea of rational is rational or not. How do you know you're not in complete and utter chaos right now. You don't. I think worrying about consistency should be done more like this. What happens physically should be a secondary issue. You can worry about whether the sun will rise tomorrow after figuring out if it ever rose to begin with.

The universe hasn't collapsed  into nothing already because well..here it is . We observe it everyday. And it's functioning super well.

I don't know if I'm making sense or not. But since people who replied on this thread responded with coherent answers that tells me that I'm making sense .

Of course we are not in complete chaos right now because the entropy in the universe around us is not infinite. Scientists expect it to reach infinity at the moment of heat death. But it didn't happen yet .

Yeah thats a nerdy point..the sun doesn't rise..its the the rotation of the earth around it's axis . So we could reframe the question "what guarantees that the earth will continue to rotate around its axis ?";)


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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30 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I disagree.  What about the laws of physics? Are they real or just figment of our collective imagination?  What keeps the sun rising everday is the rotation of the earth around its axis.  If I stopped believing the earth will keep rotating around its axis that won't make it happen. 

reality is not a matter of belief. Beliefs do not create reality as it is. Sometimes beliefs don’t even reflect reality. For instance, many religious beliefs are basically founded on pure wishful thinking. Such sectarian beliefs have certainly created a reality for millions if not billions of people. The same goes for so-called scientific beliefs like evolution and abiogenesis.

Laws of physics are consciousness, they are the patterns of consciousness, and when I say "belief", I'm talking about a very deep level of your psyche, not like when people say "I believe this, I believe that". But you cannot understand this by mere thinking, because your mind will take you anywhere and convince you about anything that, it requires the experiential understanding of what I'm saying. So, philosophizing, in that sense, will help you just to an extent, but after that point you need to think about what thinking itself is, and, maybe, that can help you. 

 

Edited by Vibroverse

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16 hours ago, Someone here said:

We see the sun rising everday ..so we conclude that it will rise again tommorrow..but what guarantees that a pattern that is true today will not break down tommorrow?
Just because something has happened a certain way every single time we have taken an observation, is it guaranteed to happen the same way the next time?
If an apple is seen to fall down from a tree a million times, is it guaranteed to fall down a million and one-th time?
No, there is no surety it will. Similarly, even if gravity and other modern scientific laws are observed to be true a trillion times, there really is no guarantee it will be true the next day. We just assume it always will. But there is no law in this universe that guarantees that. It seems a basic assumption of science is: there are some basic laws that will always be true
But it is only an assumption, the universe doesn't guarantee it, God doesn't guarantee it.

I think what this means is that, literally everything, is logically possible, and we can never 100% rule out any possibility. Science cannot rule out God, nor can it rule out that I will wake up tomorrow in the body of a lioness. Science only has observations, it doesn't have the rulebook of the universe.
It is based on an assumption, and there is no reason why that assumption must be true.

And this makes me feel scared sometimes. Think. There is no guarantee you will be rewarded for your hard work. No guarantee, even if everything happens right, that you will live a good life. Even if everything happens in your favor scientifically, well there's always a chance the universe says "screw science" and just give you immeasurable suffering randomly. In fact there is no reason why that can't happen, we just assume it won't.

Worst of all, we toil hard, see our friends and family and others work hard, suffer, and pin everything they have on this one basic assumption, which has no reason to be true. For example, a father working his ass off to pay medical bills for his disabled daughter could wake up to find his daughter dead for no reason. Everything he has in his life could crash all in one moment. There is no reason why it can't happen. And it isn't even a game of probability, because probability assumes that past events are linked to the future events, and can be used to make predictions of the future.
But in reality, every event possible must be, "logically", equally likely, since we have no real laws to tell them apart, only the assumption that what happened in the past will also happen the same way in the future. Only an assumption, nothing else

Good job....so now you realize...all meaning is...utter and complete delusion and all explanations are complete fabrications. So what does that mean? Could it mean....that you could just be like animals and act on instinct and intuition and get things done? Could there be a different use for thinking that humans haven't possibly considered? 

I told you in the past I know I am full of shit....have you realized that you too are full of shit? Or do you still believe you aren't?

Edited by Razard86

The same strength, the same level of desire it takes to change your life, is the same strength, the same level of desire it takes to end your life. Notice you are headed towards one or the other. - Razard86

Your ACTIONS REVEAL how you REALLY FEEL. Want TRUTH? Observe and ADMIT, do the OPPOSITE of what you usually do which is observe and DENY. - Razard86

Think about it.....Leo gave the best definition of the truth I ever heard...."The truth is what is..." so if that is the truth.... YOUR ACTIONS IN THE PRESENT ARE THE TRUTH!! It's what's happening....do you like what you see? Can you accept it? You are just a SENTIENT MIRROR, OBSERVING ITS REFLECTION..... can you accept what appears? -Razard86

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