October 6th, 2014, 12:30 AM
I have been on this forum for some time. I encountered some questions which are impossible for me to understand and I possess no capability to solve them. So when not answered people resort to philosophy to evade.
And I ask you to put your similar questions unable to be answered , here
1- What is life?
2- What is largest number humans have been able to count even with any device/computer?
3- what was before Big Bang?!
4- Can we understand a human being fully?
5. Why do some people turn to religions as to answer the unknown ?
6. How many galaxies are there ?
~ But ; To Precious Siraj.. Some of those questions have answers established as scientific theory and thus far tested as real..
There is a difference between saying "this question is not a science question, but one of philosophy" and evading answering a question. If you ask philosophical questions you must expect - if you want honesty - philosophical questions. Complaining about this is evading reality.Originally Posted by precious siraj
1. Life has a vast number of definitions, most of which share many common elements. Any definition you find in a good quality biology textbook should be close enough for most purposes. What do you find unsatisfactory about these?
2. What do you mean by count? I am guessing you do not mean represent.
3. Before the Big Bang? We don't know. We don't even know if before has any meaning in this context. That is not evading an answer. That is not pushing you towards philosophy. That is giving you an accurate account of our current knowledge. Why do you find that problematic?
4. I can't even understand my wife partly, so my estimate is "no". More seriously, what do you mean by understand? (And fully?)
Yes. you are right. But lets not confuse matters. i am very clear. Evading to philosophy while lacking in matter ,is usually trait which I have observed in my actual life.
I mean when you count, how large number you can imagine , or are able to write/count. even scientific notation can be used. this number may represent any quantity/idea etc.2. What do you mean by count? I am guessing you do not mean represent.
No , I have no problem with this.3. Before the Big Bang? We don't know. We don't even know if before has any meaning in this context. That is not evading an answer. That is not pushing you towards philosophy. That is giving you an accurate account of our current knowledge. Why do you find that problematic?
It is puzzling and astonishment that engulf me, while I try to understand myself. I lack vision (or frame of reference) to measure myself through any instrument. See I am evading the real question too.4. I can't even understand my wife partly, so my estimate is "no". More seriously, what do you mean by understand? (And fully?)
Other questions which seem untouchable and baffle me
7- What is reality? and what is relative and absolute in actual sense?
8- what is infinity?
9- Is there any ET life on any other planet in any other solar system in galaxy?
JG, what baffle you. is it vastness of universe? what are your secret questions?
I have a book on probability and random variables. In it there is a quote I find cute:
This terse account of our program gives rise to a few questions of detail, which we address
here, as follows. Do we in fact need to know what probability `really' is? The
answer here is, of course, no. We only need our model to describe what we observe. It is
the same in physics; we do not need to know what mass really is to use Newton's or
Einstein's theories. This is just as well, because we do not know what mass really is. We
still do not know even what light `really' is. Questions of reality are best left for
philosophers to argue over, for ever.
Bold mine.
Oh, and shorter than a Planck time for gravitational waves that may have been detected by the BICEP2 telescope aside, we can't say anything meaningful about the early universe until after one Planck time. It also baffles me that, if a closed string -in string theory- has the circumference of one Planck length, what is its diameter?
Last edited by Beer w/Straw; October 6th, 2014 at 06:21 AM.
There's always going to be questions that cannot be answered by science but can be understood at least somewhat by philosophy. Perhaps one day someone will find out the facts that can answer questions that today can't be answered. I realise that there are always going to be questions that today don't have answers but will keep in mind there's someone out there who is looking for it.I have been on this forum for some time. I encountered some questions which are impossible for me to understand and I possess no capability to solve them. So when not answered people resort to philosophy to evade.
These are pretty big questions.
There are about 25,000 scientific journals that publish about 1,350,000 articles a year (2006) and that number is increasing. If you google any science journal and look at the titles, you will not see ones like "Understanding Humans Fully" or "What is Life?."
They have titles like this:
Structures of the human and Drosophila 80S ribosome
Dusty starburst galaxies in the early Universe as revealed by gravitational lensing
Optical Addressing of an individual erbium ion in silicon
Barium distribution in teeth reveal early-life dietary transitions in primates
Modulation of TET2 expression and 5-methylcyctosine oxidation by CXXC domain protein IDAX
Severe stress switches CRF action in nucleus accumbus from appetitive to aversive.
Filamentous bacteria transport electrons over centimetre distances
Hippocampal-cortical interaction during periods of subcortical silence
The catalytic mechanism for aerobic formation of methane by bacteria
Changes in global nitrogen cycling during the Holocene epoch
The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to starch rich diet.
Differential stem and progenitor cell trafficking by prostaglandin E2.
Autophagosomes for at ER-mitochondia contact sites.
Sodium content as a predictor of the advanced evolution of globular cluster stars
The spin Hall effect in quantum gas
Heat dissipation in atomic-scale junctions
In vivo cardiac reprogramming contributes to zebrafish heart regeneration
Structure and function of Zucchini endoribonuclease in piRNA biogenesis
Elastic energy storage in the shoulder and the evolution of high speed throwing in Homo
De novo mutations in histone-modifying genes inIL congenital heart disease
R1P1-driven autoinflammation targets -1a independently of inflammasomes and RIP3
Vector transmission regulates immune control of Plasmodium virulence
The bromodomain protein Brd4 insulates chromatin from DNA damage signalling
Glucose-TOR signalling reprograms the transcriptome and activates meristems
Discrete clouds of neutral gas between the galaxies M31 and M33
Formation of a topological non-Fermi liquid in MnSi
M-CSF instructs myeloid lineage fate in single haematopoietic stem cells
Meis1 regulates postnatal cardiomyocyte cell cycle arrest.
Thymu8s-derived regulatory T cells contribute to tolerance to commensal micobiota
Multi-periodic pulsations of a stripped red-giant star in eclipsing binary system
Entanglement between light and optical atomic excitation
Oroc mutant mosquitoes lose strong preference for humans and are not repelled by volatile DEET
In vivo cardiac reprogramming contributes to zebrafish heart regeneration
Severe malaria is associated with parasite binding to endothelial protein C receptor
No-synaptic inhibition between grouped neurons in an olfactory circuit
Controlled-reflectance surfaces with film-coupled colloidal nanoantennas
Continous gas-phase synthesis of nanowires with tunable properties.
Identification of rudimentary neural cre3st in a non-vertebrate chordate
Fucose sensing regulates bacterial intestinal colonization
The calcium-sensing receptor regulates the NLRP3 inflammasome through ca2+ and cAMP
B12 cofactors directly stabilize an mRNA switch
An alternative route to cyclic terpenses by reductive cyclization in iridoid biosynthesis
Evaporative cooling of the dipolar hydroxal radical
Fractionalized excitations in the spin-liquid state of a kagome-lattice antiferromagnet
Quasi-cylindrical wave contribution in experiements on extraordinary optical transmission
Flicking gives early warning signals of a critical transition to a eutropic lake
Repeated polyploidization of Gossypium genomes and the evolution of spinnable cotton fibres.
Ventral tegmental area GABA projections pause accumbal cholinergic interneurons to enhance associative learning
Room-temperature ferroelectricity in suprmolecular networks of charge-transfer complexes.
Mutations in the profiling 1 gene cause familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
A subset of dopamine neurons signals reward for odour memory inDrosophila
The human CST complex is a terminator of telomerase activity
Hard-X-ray emission lines from decay of 44Ti in the remnant of supernova 1987A
Zinc isotope evidence for origin of the Moon
Circuit quantum electrodynamics with a spin qubit
Bonding and structure of a reconstructed (001) surface of SrTi03 from TEM
Coastal eutrophication as a driver of salt marsh loss
Delayed build-up of Artic ice sheets during 400,00 year minima in isolation variability
Water structural transformation at molecular hydrophobic interfaces
An early and enduring advanced technology originating 71,000 years ago in South Africa.
Synaptic amplification by dendritic spines enhances input cooperatively
Sometimes there are major shifts in thinking as with Darwin or Einstein, but even those are confirmed by evidence from individual experiments that ask one or two very specific questions. Science progresses one particle experiment, one enzymatic pathway, one cell membrane receptor protein at a time. The answers to big questions like "what is life?" or "what is the origin of the universe" or "what is consciousness" are based on the accumulation of all of this stuff. It can't always be neatly and perfectly summed up in a complete, yet tidy answer.
And I supposed that's where philosophy sometimes gets involved, in assigning value or significance to the answers that science finds.
Last edited by DianeG; October 6th, 2014 at 10:32 AM.
I am a pragmatist. I am not disturbed by the absence of answers to some of the more profound questions. I should like to live long enough to know the answers, but I shall not. I hope that a far distant descendant may one day know - and that's good enough for me.
Meanwhile I do worry about such things as, where do ball point pens go to? Why is there only one Monopolies Commission? Why is abbreviation such a long word?
A great annoyance.
it is relative.A great annoyance.
A greater annoyance is reviving a 5 year old thread with a reply that really adds nothing to the discussion...
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