S
Smiling Carcass
Guest
We’ve all heard about the tree falling in the woods and if nobody was there to hear it would it make a sound? My answer to this is yes it would. Sound is the movement of air or some other medium and the fact there was no receiver (ears) to hear it does not deny its existence. Just as the BBC broadcasting a program that nobody watched does not mean the program never existed or was not broadcast.
Here’s one that should be quite as simple – perpetual motion. If we devise and make a machine that can run forever and appears to do so, is it perpetual motion if in 60 billion years there is no life left to perceive whether it has stopped or not? If it does not stop (and this poses the question ‘how long is forever?’) then it is perpetual motion. If it does stop but there is no life to see it stop, was it perpetual? One could opt for the simple answer ‘no it is not’. But could we argue that it is, to all intents and purposes perpetual because it has not been and can never be perceived to have stopped.
What do you think?
happy Hiram, I have heard of Shroedinger's cat
and The saint- my point is just that. Is it a question of physics (is Shroedinger's cat dead? We know it is) or of philosophy (How can we know it is dead until we look in the sealed chamber and find its state?)? Which view do you take?
Brian ~Third time's a charm~ this has been debated by greater minds than ours- is sound the physical vibration of the medium through which it passes or is sound created when our receptors (ears) percieve the vibrations?
Being unable to percieve a physical phenomenon does not mean it doesn't exist. Did atoms exist before they were discovered? Maybe we should ask the cat!
Here’s one that should be quite as simple – perpetual motion. If we devise and make a machine that can run forever and appears to do so, is it perpetual motion if in 60 billion years there is no life left to perceive whether it has stopped or not? If it does not stop (and this poses the question ‘how long is forever?’) then it is perpetual motion. If it does stop but there is no life to see it stop, was it perpetual? One could opt for the simple answer ‘no it is not’. But could we argue that it is, to all intents and purposes perpetual because it has not been and can never be perceived to have stopped.
What do you think?
happy Hiram, I have heard of Shroedinger's cat
and The saint- my point is just that. Is it a question of physics (is Shroedinger's cat dead? We know it is) or of philosophy (How can we know it is dead until we look in the sealed chamber and find its state?)? Which view do you take?
Brian ~Third time's a charm~ this has been debated by greater minds than ours- is sound the physical vibration of the medium through which it passes or is sound created when our receptors (ears) percieve the vibrations?
Being unable to percieve a physical phenomenon does not mean it doesn't exist. Did atoms exist before they were discovered? Maybe we should ask the cat!