A few days ago we wandered from a conversation about religion in public schools into a debate on just what reality is, anyway.
I had conceded the point without too much resistance that most people would agree 1 + 1 = 2. I knew this was based on mathematical assumptions but didn’t have my arguments sorted out in my head, so I let it go for the sake of moving the conversation forward. I was hasty. Turns out I’ve been working with a different subjective reality at work for the past two weeks and didn’t connect the two.
First, just to get it out of the way, we need to put forward the obvious argument that one and one are frequently eleven. That’s just a tiny shift in perspective that any child can grasp. 3 ones catapult us into the hundreds, and so forth. It’s not until we become all-knowing adults that our tunnel vision has progressed so badly that we lose the ability to shift our perspective around fluidly. 1 + 1 = 11. Easy.
That lays the groundwork for this next subjective shift in the fabric of space & time. Time, anyway. What number comes after 59? 100. Not 60. And most certainly not 61 or 62. One minute, one hour, 1:00. This doesn’t directly affect the question of 1 + 1 but it does illustrate the subjectiveness of reality. A different set of rules changes the whole ballgame, and if you assume your own isolated rules apply to a different isolated situation you are quickly left in the dust.
Oh- the tie-in: At work I’ve been synching the picture and audio from the dailies for a new movie called Mount Pleasant. I’m working with standard time measurement of minutes and seconds but also frames, of which there are thirty in each second. But those frames have two sub-frames each and I really don’t know why they don’t just count sub-frames as frames and keep everything nice and tidy in base-sixty to make my life simpler but what can I do but muddle onward and boy things will be different when I rule the world…
Anyway, not only does 59 + 1 not equal 60 (even though in conversation we do, in fact, say there are sixty seconds in a minute) but sometimes you can’t even count on 29 + 1 equaling 30. You can’t just subtract 01:12:35:17.2 from 01:13:09:08.1 using everyday base-10 math. In this case 8.1 less 17.2 leaves a difference of 9.2; and 13:09 less 12:35 is 34, but don’t forget to carry the one from the frames.
Not that I’m asking you to throw yourself at this particular wall right now. I merely want to illustrate that the very fabric of reality is maleable not only in the philosophical sense, but in the most simple of ways: dependant on the set of rules you’re using to look at it. From my perspective 100 – 1 is quite demonstrably 59.
We do use conventions in our lives. We rely on a common set of assumptions so we can get on with things. We use base-10 math (except when we’re measuring time, for some reason) so it is fair and even expected to claim that 1 + 1 = 2 and 19 + 49 = 68. Having to establish a common reality at the beginning of every conversation would quickly bring society to its knees. As a side note, failing to make the effort has often led to war. But that’s another post.
We use conventions. Sets of rules that we can generally agree on, established over time and based on other conventions and easily demonstrable logic. It’s limiting but not debilitating, and we get to spend much less time in line-ups at the bank. Some might dismiss the whole debate as semantics but the illustration can’t be ignored: as soon as you agree that other perspectives are possible you have to allow that they are equally possibly correct.
And since there is no more weighty evidence that the One God exists I have to allow for the possibility that He doesn’t, or that He is in fact half a dozen Shes. Or a spotted lemur from Leeds with a penchant for shiny objects and creating universes. And because that possibility exists the only responsible thing to do is keep public education simple – show what you know.
First off, I agree with your conclussion. Keep it out of public education.
BUT, what you are saying in no way illustrates that “reality is maleable”.
First of all, when you are talking about 1+1=2 and 1+1=11 and 1+56=100, you are not even talking about reality. 1+1=2 doesn’t exist anywhere in reality. It is an abstract thought. Just like 0, -1, i, 1.5 don’t really exist anywhere. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, doesn’t really exist in reality either.
Next, when you say 1+1=2 and 1+1=11 you are essentially saying the exact same thing. But it doesn’t require some magical shift in space time and the alteration of reality, you’re not God here (hehe).
This is the same thing because in this case 11 and 2 are representing the same thing. Yes, you are right in saying that it requires conventions that are agreed upon. And yes, having to state these explicitly is a complete waste of time. But like you say, we are dealing with base-10, base 60, base 1, base whatever. Changing the base, doesn’t change the “reality” of it, it only changes the label attached to it. The underlying “reality” stays objective. Even when using the different notations and representations, we are not really doing anything subjective. The mind is not altering “reality”.
When you say 1+1=11 you are completely right. 1+1 does equal 11, and 1+1=2, therefore 2=11. 11 is the representation of 2 in base 1 (using 1 as the alphabet). Just as 1+1=10 in base-2, so 2=11=10, but these are all representations of 2.
then you say 1+59 = 100. Well 100 = 60 then in base-60 (using 0..59 as our alphabet).
like 7+7=E in base-16.
So when you say “some might dismiss the whole debate as semantics”, you are right… but we should ALL ACCEPT it as semantics as that is EXACTLY what it is. Ya, other “perspectives” are possible, and they have a equal possibility of being correct, but that possibility is 1 (or 100%) and thus they are equal and one in the same (in addition to being correct). But these aren’t really perspectives as the “reality” of it remains consistent. All you’ve realy done is change the syntax, the underlying semantics remain the same.
So… you are going to have to try harder to show subjective reality
COMMENT:
Try harder? Doesn’t seem much point. You’re saying that there is an underlying and inviolate truth, rendering a discussion on subjective reality essentially moot.
What I’m saying is that because we are each isolated observers there is no base-line of reality. We observe as individuals and therefore there is no common ground.
Einstein’s Relativity illustrated that someone moving near the speed of light looking backward observes time slowing down. He hypothesized that time really IS slowing down and subsequent experiments in ultrasonic flight have borne this out. A stationary clock versus a clock on board the aircraft do show disparity. It has also been hypothesized that time dilates at the event horizon of black holes for the same reason.
If time itself measures differently from one circumstance to the next, to preserve your argument we have to then allow that time is not an inviolate truth.
So what is?
I laughed my way through the whole post, not because of the content, that was great, but because (you’ll hate this), you sounded like my dad on a real good high! Hahaha
There you go… that is a MUCH better example of what you are calling a subjective reality.
Einstien, Kant, Hume, (and Locke?? don’t think so) all pretty much agreed that all we can know is what we observe, subjectively.
But this is all secondary to the objective reality that we live in. But how do you prove that? Hey, you probably can’t. It requires belief. Since science requires an objective world, science requires some faith. Which is the whole point of my original argument.
Back to this thread at hand. To preserve my argument we have to allow that time is not an inviolate truth. YES! We do. At least our understanding of it anyways. But I still believe in an objective, concrete, non-magical reality that I can’t just mold with my mind.
We are on the same side here, DJ. I promise.
Now to what Grant comment on about scale. Ya, the scale is different when we are talking about microscopic and macroscopic systems, but that doesn’t mean that the mind has any say in what is going on in reality. In quantum mechanics and superposition, these little point particles move about in wave functions existing or not existing in a smeared out superposition somewhere between the two states… it is only when we observer them that the wavefunction collapses and the point particle becomes existing or not. At the macroscopic level, this could be true too. I could jump off a building and magically just not fall or even better, blink out of existence. But all those little point particles that make up myself are entangled with each other and the possibility of not falling is so damn slim…. but I don’t really have any “subjective” say in wether or not I fall or not do I? I don’t magically create the reality around me like some special force field against the objective reality.
Skip back to this thing about time now (and tying it in with religion).
If God exists, then he’s all knowing and all powerfull right? Well he bloody well should be, or he’s not really worth believing.
And He created us in his likeness and gave us free will (thanks). But if he is all knowing, then he knows what we are going to do… infinity? Then we really don’t have free will do we? What we have is determinism (which science requires). Furthermore, if he is all knowing… doesn’t he also know what he is going to do into infinity? Sooo… does that mean that He doesn’t really have free will. If he doesn’t have Free will, then he’s not really all that powerful is he, and if he doesn’t have free will, then the world around us is the function of something else (determinism, causality). Or is it that time just doesn’t really exist. And this free will stuff is just a big old illusion and is really hard to figure out.
Whaoo… where the heck am I now. Yikes, I’ve wandered over the place.
Ahhhh, Free Will. I’ve always found fault with the Omniscient God vs Humanity’s Free Will idea. I mean, we can have free will with an omniscient god. He just already knows what we’re going to choose. There’s no real conflict there for me.
I get a lot more fun out of the omniscient god with no free will of his own idea. That’s a quandary.
And if this god is omniscient then… why bother? You know? Why create a universe and hit the big green Go button? You already know what’s going to happen. Yes, people still went in droves to see Titanic, but that’s because we wanted to see the story, which we didn’t know.
So I think an omniscient god is a pretty lame idea. And Ours Is Not To Reason Why is just not a good enough excuse. It’s just a cop out so people don’t have to take responsibility.
If it does turn out that there is a Great Progenitor then I imagine we will discover that He or It or They are just as fallible if hopefully a lot more wise than we are.
Then we can ask why we have to plummet every time we jump off a building.
Maybe the all knowing-ness of god refers to his ability to be aware of all the superpositions and states of possibility.
Free-will could refer to our own abilities to influence probability of occurance. Maybe that’s the surprise god’s looking for after he pushed the green button.
He’s TOO all-knowing. He requires us humans narrow down our probabilities into a specific reality.
Blah, a weak stretch- I apologize. I personally just have a hard time talking about a “being” in charge of all this order n’ chaos. Especially since all we can use is language rooted in human experience. It seems so futile to try and comprehend the powers, comprehension and possabilities beyond what we experience.
:)
-G
A stretch, but well said regardless. When you put it that way it underlines a fundamental flaw in one of my big arguments about religion- I wonder what sort of god would put us all here to spend our whole lives saying thank you and toadying about trying to please him rather than getting on with living… and yet here I am going on and on in theo-philosophical debate… rather than getting on with living.
Touche.