7 ms·

Towards the end of the article was the question I had all along reading it: "Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the

by Tiki 8y ago

Towards the end of the article was the question I had all along reading it: "Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be? He nonetheless bravely offers us a lovely, chilling paradox: At the heart of everything is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled face looking back at us." Can someone explain how his 'answer' is chilling or lovely? It's fine if he wants to offer his own pet theory of reality, but to give a cop out answer to its most fundamental question doesn't go far to support it.

RobertoG 8y ago
Well, I suppose the answer is the same that for the game of the '20 questions in its “surprise” version' that the article mention. Where was the word before the first question is asked?
noiv 8y ago
You may want to exclude language from reality. The dichotomy of questions and answers might not happen in the latter. Or the other way round: As long you have questions you're not there yet. I present you one piece of the puzzle: The Physics and Philosophy of Time - with Carlo Rovelli on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M In a way he supposes minds as entropy inducing entities.
s-shellfish 8y ago
I find it both chilling and lovely. Because on one hand, life, endless adventure, full of surprises, insights, new understandings and experiences, feelings, etc. On the other, absolute, fundamental, loneliness (sophistry?) of our own nature - having an individual sense of self but also feeling related to everything we define as not 'I'. Why this life, why is this the one I have? Where did all of this come from? How did all of this happen? Life is a waking dream, because we often completely forget that we really just don't know at all why we are here. But we pretend, we forget, we make up stories, we do anything we can do to run away from that question. Why. How did all of this happen? Why does everything happen the way it does? What does that mean, for what I am, all the way at the core? It's not really nihilism, but it sort of is. It's just, that's the perpetual question that never gets answered directly. I've thought of myself before as a monad - a being so fundamentally lonely in their own existence that they split themselves up into infinite pieces, just to forget, there's nothing more than what they are. Maybe some buddhist influences, but, we all have our struggles in life. It's not really intended to be sophistry. It just is a very beautiful, but very chilling awareness. What if I go back into what I was when I die? You could see this as a mental metaphor my mind has arbitrarily made up for all events I've witnessed and been a part of, some sort of perpetual social ostracism I keep walking myself into. But I still think it's more than just that. I loved science growing up. But I can never answer that question - and I know absolutely, that I never will. What happened before 'I exist'?. For any of us. My father often has had a variant of this question, and in the past, it's rubbed people the wrong way because, only a fraction of it gets expressed. We all wear masks. Sometimes there's just a profoundly deep sadness that no one can see. Chilling, and lovely. In perpetuity.
- rellui 8y ago
  Whenever anyone asks me: why do you live? Where do we come from? I just ask back: why do you care?
  - sametmax 8y ago
    And now we got 3 "I don't know".
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    > The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. > For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question "How can we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?", and the third by the question "Where shall we have lunch?"
  - bpchaps 8y ago
    Because it's interesting, dammit!
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  > loneliness (sophistry?) Solipsism?
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    That's the one I intended, thank you!
- katzgrau 8y ago
  Really well articulated. Im not sure the question of what happened before "I" is so puzzling though. If your're making up the events that you're witnessing today, why would the "time" prior to you be any different?
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    Thank you. Time is something I'm learning to both be able to see as something to keep in mind from a practical perspective, but also, something I can seem to let go of. It's very challenging, sometimes - but it seems essential to grasp 'flow'. Thank you for that.
empath75 8y ago
> Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be? The past was created when people started probing it, in the same sense that the present is.
- optimuspaul 8y ago
  That is what I was thinking as well... made me wonder, did my mind create your comment 2 hours in the past when I had the thought? Are you even real?
opportune 8y ago
I agree, it’s not profound except at face value. Just strikes me as extremely vague and hand-wavy metaphysics This is the reason that a lot of people don’t like philosophy - because people hide behind verbal tricks which have little meaning beyond sounding “deep”. Green ideas sleep furiously
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I agree. If you immediately know the candle light is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    Can't there be room for both awarenesses in a single mind?
- gowld 8y ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deepity#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deepity#English
- tylerjwilk00 8y ago
  Some ideas are so subtle that words fail to describe. In the same way lay explanations of physics lack understanding that pure equations deliver. The trick of the philosopher is an attempt at conveying meaning with a blunt instrument. "To cross a river you need a boat. But when you reach the other side you don’t pick up the boat and carry it." ~ Alan Watts
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    My former PhD advisor said something along the lines of 'the incompleteness of natural language', this being one of the hardest problems he's been aware of. This is him: https://www.cs.stevens.edu/~naumann/publications/publications.html https://www.cs.stevens.edu/~naumann/publications/publication...
sbjs 8y ago
"Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be?" I'm sorry but this is just dumb. Things existed before the author was born, and the author doesn't question that. Are philosophers really so far detached from reality that they can't imagine that maybe the simple answers to things are the right ones? I think xkcd's squirt gun is a genuine solution for an existential crisis like this. Reality is what's around you, and getting lost in deep and complicated thoughts doesn't change what's actually real outside your mind.
drb91 8y ago
One might have emotional attachment to an explainable universe; in such a scenario you might find the concept of an ultimate unanswerable question chilling. Or alternatively if you’re a skeptic, you might find it lovely.
sridca 8y ago
> Where was mind when the universe was born? This is an answer in the guise of a question, and the answer (belief) being that the universe is finite. Let me offer a better question: is the universe finite or infinite?
- wu-ikkyu 8y ago
  >Let me offer a better question: is the universe finite or infinite? What is the concept of infinity but the outer limit of our mind's ability to conceptualize?
  - drdeca 8y ago
    "Infinite" can be understood as "not finite" or "without limit", or "equinumerous with a strict subset of itself". (I don't know why you switched from "infinite" to "infinity". I am opting to answer for the word "infinite".)

by Tiki 8y ago

RobertoG 8y ago

Well, I suppose the answer is the same that for the game of the '20 questions in its “surprise” version' that the article mention. Where was the word before the first question is asked?

noiv 8y ago

You may want to exclude language from reality. The dichotomy of questions and answers might not happen in the latter. Or the other way round: As long you have questions you're not there yet. I present you one piece of the puzzle: The Physics and Philosophy of Time - with Carlo Rovelli on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M In a way he supposes minds as entropy inducing entities.

s-shellfish 8y ago

I find it both chilling and lovely. Because on one hand, life, endless adventure, full of surprises, insights, new understandings and experiences, feelings, etc. On the other, absolute, fundamental, loneliness (sophistry?) of our own nature - having an individual sense of self but also feeling related to everything we define as not 'I'. Why this life, why is this the one I have? Where did all of this come from? How did all of this happen? Life is a waking dream, because we often completely forget that we really just don't know at all why we are here. But we pretend, we forget, we make up stories, we do anything we can do to run away from that question. Why. How did all of this happen? Why does everything happen the way it does? What does that mean, for what I am, all the way at the core? It's not really nihilism, but it sort of is. It's just, that's the perpetual question that never gets answered directly. I've thought of myself before as a monad - a being so fundamentally lonely in their own existence that they split themselves up into infinite pieces, just to forget, there's nothing more than what they are. Maybe some buddhist influences, but, we all have our struggles in life. It's not really intended to be sophistry. It just is a very beautiful, but very chilling awareness. What if I go back into what I was when I die? You could see this as a mental metaphor my mind has arbitrarily made up for all events I've witnessed and been a part of, some sort of perpetual social ostracism I keep walking myself into. But I still think it's more than just that. I loved science growing up. But I can never answer that question - and I know absolutely, that I never will. What happened before 'I exist'?. For any of us. My father often has had a variant of this question, and in the past, it's rubbed people the wrong way because, only a fraction of it gets expressed. We all wear masks. Sometimes there's just a profoundly deep sadness that no one can see. Chilling, and lovely. In perpetuity.

rellui 8y ago
Whenever anyone asks me: why do you live? Where do we come from? I just ask back: why do you care?
- sametmax 8y ago
  And now we got 3 "I don't know".
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. > For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question "How can we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?", and the third by the question "Where shall we have lunch?"
- bpchaps 8y ago
  Because it's interesting, dammit!
Bromskloss 8y ago
> loneliness (sophistry?) Solipsism?
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  That's the one I intended, thank you!
katzgrau 8y ago
Really well articulated. Im not sure the question of what happened before "I" is so puzzling though. If your're making up the events that you're witnessing today, why would the "time" prior to you be any different?
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  Thank you. Time is something I'm learning to both be able to see as something to keep in mind from a practical perspective, but also, something I can seem to let go of. It's very challenging, sometimes - but it seems essential to grasp 'flow'. Thank you for that.

empath75 8y ago

> Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be? The past was created when people started probing it, in the same sense that the present is.

optimuspaul 8y ago
That is what I was thinking as well... made me wonder, did my mind create your comment 2 hours in the past when I had the thought? Are you even real?

opportune 8y ago

I agree, it’s not profound except at face value. Just strikes me as extremely vague and hand-wavy metaphysics This is the reason that a lot of people don’t like philosophy - because people hide behind verbal tricks which have little meaning beyond sounding “deep”. Green ideas sleep furiously

TeMPOraL 8y ago
I agree. If you immediately know the candle light is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  Can't there be room for both awarenesses in a single mind?
gowld 8y ago
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deepity#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deepity#English
tylerjwilk00 8y ago
Some ideas are so subtle that words fail to describe. In the same way lay explanations of physics lack understanding that pure equations deliver. The trick of the philosopher is an attempt at conveying meaning with a blunt instrument. "To cross a river you need a boat. But when you reach the other side you don’t pick up the boat and carry it." ~ Alan Watts
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  My former PhD advisor said something along the lines of 'the incompleteness of natural language', this being one of the hardest problems he's been aware of. This is him: https://www.cs.stevens.edu/~naumann/publications/publications.html https://www.cs.stevens.edu/~naumann/publications/publication...

sbjs 8y ago

"Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be?" I'm sorry but this is just dumb. Things existed before the author was born, and the author doesn't question that. Are philosophers really so far detached from reality that they can't imagine that maybe the simple answers to things are the right ones? I think xkcd's squirt gun is a genuine solution for an existential crisis like this. Reality is what's around you, and getting lost in deep and complicated thoughts doesn't change what's actually real outside your mind.

drb91 8y ago

One might have emotional attachment to an explainable universe; in such a scenario you might find the concept of an ultimate unanswerable question chilling. Or alternatively if you’re a skeptic, you might find it lovely.

sridca 8y ago

> Where was mind when the universe was born? This is an answer in the guise of a question, and the answer (belief) being that the universe is finite. Let me offer a better question: is the universe finite or infinite?

wu-ikkyu 8y ago
>Let me offer a better question: is the universe finite or infinite? What is the concept of infinity but the outer limit of our mind's ability to conceptualize?
- drdeca 8y ago
  "Infinite" can be understood as "not finite" or "without limit", or "equinumerous with a strict subset of itself". (I don't know why you switched from "infinite" to "infinity". I am opting to answer for the word "infinite".)