How old are you ?

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
Post Reply
Velatus
Posts: 75
Joined: Mar 21, 2009 23:43
Location: France

Post by Velatus »

@Lachie
Same here.

Anyways. My training in philosophy at university enabled me to understand that there were no such things as facts. Only random noise (maybe perlin noise, but before any interpolation stage), that one's mind tries and organize after his own mental patterns (that would be the interpolation). Fiction surely is one way to acquire new patterns, by melting into someone else's mind. Fiction, science, poetry. Only mental constructs.
Dr_D
Posts: 2451
Joined: May 27, 2005 4:59
Contact:

Post by Dr_D »

I understand the idea of random noise, which I partly agree with. After all, even this is just random noise... in essence. I have a hard time with the suggestion that no facts exist though. I mean... I just typed these characters into the keyboard. An organized sequence of "noise" was broadcast across the internet to make an appearance on some server, somewhere... and eventually on to this message board. Those are facts. Maybe it's a theory I haven't been enlightened to, or even heard of before. It rouses my curiosity though...
Velatus
Posts: 75
Joined: Mar 21, 2009 23:43
Location: France

Post by Velatus »

@Dr_D
Yeah I might have gotten somewhat cryptic along the way. Since I'm not a native english speaker, formulating things that are already hard to explain in my own language can get quite problematic. :)
Simply put or, well, as simply as I can, given the above, the main theory is that rational thinking, and facts as we all experience them DO work, and ARE predictable. They're as close to truth as we can get. BUT nothing can be proved. Because there is no valid evidence that something that works all the time, or at least each and every time we witnessed it, might work in just every case. All we actually know is that things work the way they do for as far as we can tell. But how far is that? In other words, unless one manages to witness every phenomenon from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch (or whatever end awaits us sentient masses of matter), there is no way to be sure that what we are used to thinking of as causality is not a mere chain of coincidences. How then does one achieve knowledge? So there IS a theory behind what I said. A certain flavour of contemporary philosophy that assumes that the world might not be cognizable at all. Clément Rosset one of such thinkers, if you need a reference.
Well now, to put Rosset's theories in a nut shell. The world we experience cannot be proved, neither to be structured, nor even to exist. So what if, behind the apparent structures and links one perceives, behind the glimmer of phenomena, there was nothing but blunt randomness? That's a potentially terrifying thought. Well, it was to my virgin mind by the time I read his books. But as I grew older, I realized it was also a very exciting perspective, because it meant that every instance of beauty I would ever witness would be gratuitous. And that very idea of an alien universe displaying gratuitous beauty was very appealing, and also probably as close to GRACE as I could ever manage to be.
We've gotten ourselves far from pointer arithmetics, haven't we? ;)
anonymous1337
Posts: 5494
Joined: Sep 12, 2005 20:06
Location: California

Post by anonymous1337 »

I don't know why, but this reminds me of people's unawareness that mathematics is a science.

Fiction is real enough to me. Who says the world outside is more important than the one in my head? I don't exist externally. Only to other people. In addition, my dreams and thoughts are only fiction until realized.

"All is vanity." - Ecclesiastes 1:2

I've abstained from television, news, fast food and social groups for several years now without regret.
Lachie Dazdarian
Posts: 2338
Joined: May 31, 2005 9:59
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Post by Lachie Dazdarian »

Well, I do think philosophy books are useless. :P
TJF
Posts: 3809
Joined: Dec 06, 2009 22:27
Location: N47°, E15°
Contact:

Post by TJF »

Lachie Dazdarian wrote:Well, I do think philosophy books are useless. :P
You can use them to make a stack and place your monitor on top of it.
Theunis Jansen
Posts: 248
Joined: Jul 01, 2010 9:35

How old are you

Post by Theunis Jansen »

1. I appear to be the oldest guy on this Forum. A fact until proven otherwise.
2. I am therefore the wisest. Fact. - wisdom should come with old age but sometimes old age comes alone.
3. Fact If I don't get food and water I die from starvation.
4. Fact - Fiction is based on facts but with the premise of "What If"
5. Fact. Philosophers - They waste their time in pondering the imponderable while there are much better things to do.
6. Fact - Because of this Philosophers are great entertainers.
7. Fact. This whole story of this world is not real, comes from Yoga where they saw that just about anything could be changed.
8. Fact - With Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) it was found that when one personality was in charge that body had diabetes. When the other personality took over the diabetes vanished. ( a mind bogglin Fact, Medically proven - Google it)
9. Fact - Item 8 proves Item 7.
10. Fact. We have digressed from "How Old Are You"
TJF
Posts: 3809
Joined: Dec 06, 2009 22:27
Location: N47°, E15°
Contact:

Post by TJF »

TJ gives the decalogue to the people of FreeBasic forum!

Did you know that the German Democratic Republic have had their Ten Commandments?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zehn_Gebot ... _und_Ethik
Richard
Posts: 3096
Joined: Jan 15, 2007 20:44
Location: Australia

Post by Richard »

anonymous1337 wrote:I don't know why, but this reminds me of people's unawareness that mathematics is a science.
Since when has mathematics been a science?
Mathematics is a provably consistent logical construction based on agreed fundamental assumptions.
Science is the hypothesising and testing of rules that explain past observations and correctly predict future observations.
Mathematics is robust and continues to expand as new fields are added to extend the structure.
Local fields of science can collapse and be replaced overnight. Science is nothing more than a fairy tale.
anonymous1337
Posts: 5494
Joined: Sep 12, 2005 20:06
Location: California

Post by anonymous1337 »

Hi Richard,

The foundations of mathematics are based on observations and assumptions made by philosophers, mathematicians and lawyers of their time.

Can you imagine discovering addition? Bring two stones together, then two more, and count. You will always count four. Even more remarkable, this will apply to any number of things, as well as any thing being counted, and even to negative things, as would later be discovered.

This is definitely science to me.

Of course, most mathematicians work within what's already been established. They don't see much of the science.

A few months ago, I attempted to devise a topology-inspired mathematical system which would help me solve 4x4 slide puzzles. I would later give up and take a divide and conquer approach to the puzzles. It wasn't a very robust system, mind you, but I got to play around with the science.
vdecampo
Posts: 2992
Joined: Aug 07, 2007 23:20
Location: Maryland, USA
Contact:

Post by vdecampo »

@Richard/anonymous1337

I found an article that discusses this topic and found it very interesting. I found the conclusion also thought provoking...
Let me ask a question. Did Dirac invent his equation, or did he discover it? If we claim he invented it, because nature subsequently obeyed Dirac's equation and in ways no one could have expected, this must make Dirac God. But Dirac isn't God, therefore he discovered his equation. If Dirac discovered his equation, where did he find it? He found it in nature. For the entire history of the universe, Dirac's equation lay as an undiscovered treasure in the bosom of nature, until Dirac happened upon it.

Conclusion? Nature is innately mathematical, and she speaks to us in mathematics. We only have to listen.

Because nature is mathematical, any science that intends to describe nature is completely dependent on mathematics. It is impossible to overemphasize this point, and it is why Carl Friedrich Gauss called mathematics "the queen of the sciences."
See the entire article here... Is Mathematics a Science?

-Vince
rolliebollocks
Posts: 2655
Joined: Aug 28, 2008 10:54
Location: new york

Post by rolliebollocks »

1. I appear to be the oldest guy on this Forum. A fact until proven otherwise.
The potential for it to be proven otherwise proves it is not a fact.
2. I am therefore the wisest. Fact. - wisdom should come with old age but sometimes old age comes alone.
This is a highly dubious equivalency given the ambiguous nature of the word "wisdom" which is more often than not associated with: philosophers, psychics, shamans, and the equally ambiguous (and reflexive) notion of insight.
3. Fact If I don't get food and water I die from starvation.
Ok. I'll give you this one.
4. Fact - Fiction is based on facts but with the premise of "What If"
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
5. Fact. Philosophers - They waste their time in pondering the imponderable while there are much better things to do.
The inability to tell fact from opinion is one of the major reasons we still need philosophy. Certainly the philosophers themselves wouldn't consider their work a waste of time. You might, but then you end up confusing "philosophers waste their time" with a fact.
6. Fact - Because of this Philosophers are great entertainers.
Philosophers are poor entertainers, because they write 400 page books in an abstract, opaque language that it requires years to understand.

Either way, these sentiments are not facts, they are opinions.
7. Fact. This whole story of this world is not real, comes from Yoga where they saw that just about anything could be changed.
It is more likely that Yoga is the only system of philosophy you know about and therefore are convinced it's the origin of this idea.
8. Fact - With Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) it was found that when one personality was in charge that body had diabetes. When the other personality took over the diabetes vanished. ( a mind bogglin Fact, Medically proven - Google it)
I'm going to look this up.
9. Fact - Item 8 proves Item 7.
It proves that we can exert conscious control over the autonomic functions of our body.
10. Fact. We have digressed from "How Old Are You"
I'll give you that.

However, the inability to distinguish fact from opinion constitutes a major deficit in understanding, and "proves" that not only is philosophy valuable, but necessary.
dodicat
Posts: 7976
Joined: Jan 10, 2006 20:30
Location: Scotland

Re: How old are you

Post by dodicat »

Theunis Jansen wrote:1. I appear to be the oldest guy on this Forum. A fact until proven otherwise.
You are, I've updated the histogram on page 3.
40 contributers with mean age about 40.
I shall look up fact 8 also.
Not that I'm diabetic, but I would wish my other personality to be a great karaoke singer, so I could get up on stage among cheers from the revellers, and Dodicat's name could appear outside bars and county fair marquees.
vdecampo
Posts: 2992
Joined: Aug 07, 2007 23:20
Location: Maryland, USA
Contact:

Re: How old are you

Post by vdecampo »

Theunis Jansen wrote:2. I am therefore the wisest. Fact. - wisdom should come with old age but sometimes old age comes alone.
Wisdom starts with "I don't know."

So I will let you claim to be the wisest! ;)

-Vince
vdecampo
Posts: 2992
Joined: Aug 07, 2007 23:20
Location: Maryland, USA
Contact:

Re: How old are you

Post by vdecampo »

dodicat wrote:
Theunis Jansen wrote:1. I appear to be the oldest guy on this Forum. A fact until proven otherwise.
You are, I've updated the histogram on page 3.
40 contributers with mean age about 40.
I shall look up fact 8 also.
Not that I'm diabetic, but I would wish my other personality to be a great karaoke singer, so I could get up on stage among cheers from the revellers, and Dodicat's name could appear outside bars and county fair marquees.
I wish my other personality had a 12" johnson! :p

-Vince
Post Reply