Is there a Single, Objective, Absolute TRUTH?

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Intriguing post @Captain Steel

I don't usually think about changing things in the past. Like you said, it could seriously screw up one's present day life...or even screw up other people's lives. Even strangers who one never met and never interacted with could end up in a totally different situation. It's quite mind boggling. But I DO think about the different avenues life could've taken if different decisions were made. Perhaps in a quantum universe every possible outcome to our lives has taken place in other parallel universes. Hmm, I think I've watched too much Star Trek.

Not to go off on yet another ST tangent - but wasn't there an episode where there were two Rikers (yes, I know there were several)... but I think it was one where a copy of him was created by the transporter (if memory serves correctly) and his copy didn't have all the experience of the current Riker?

Unlike the episode of TOS where Kirk was split by the transporter and reconstituted by the end of the episode, making him whole once more... Riker wasn't "split" in two halves, but copied (more like cloned), but by the end of the episode, there were two complete Rikers and the copy was allowed to go on with a completely separate life?



Not to go off on yet another ST tangent - but wasn't there an episode where there were two Rikers (yes, I know there were several)... but I think it was one where a copy of him was created by the transporter (if memory serves correctly) and his copy didn't have all the experience of the current Riker?

Unlike the episode of TOS where Kirk was split by the transporter and reconstituted by the end of the episode, making him whole once more... Riker wasn't "split" in two halves, but copied (more like cloned), but by the end of the episode, there were two complete Rikers and the copy was allowed to go on with a completely separate life?
That was one of my favorite episodes. It was an interesting study of how different life experiences could affect a person in such different ways. The Riker who was duplicated by the transporter and ended up abandoned on an uninhabited planet for a number of years became use to being his own boss, improvising instead of follow the book and had a problem with authority. All quite the opposite of the Riker who made it back to his ship and that later joined the Enterprise as the 1st officer. Not surprisingly Deanna Troy fell back in love with the more roguish, undisciplined Riker, who in the end made a lot of the same decisions the other Riker did. The other Riker later made an appearance on Deep Space Nine and his story arch is one that ST fans feel is still unresolved.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Wasn't sure where to put this train of thought - so this old thread seemed random enough yet close enough in subject matter to express some thoughts about reality and changing it if such a thing were possible...

Been thinking about time lately... and time travel.

We often wonder: what if we had it to do all over again?

And I was thinking about various scenarios.

If you were given the chance to live your life over again - say starting at early childhood - would you?
I was thinking, if that was the choice - not just popping in at one point in time for a day or so then returning to the present, but having to relive the whole thing - I definitely would NOT do it.

Granted, there'd be plenty of opportunities to correct mistakes, do things differently, maybe make for a better adulthood with the benefit of inerrant foresight, but the whole idea of living it all out again in "real time" just seems unbearable.

Now, if the option existed, as mentioned earlier, of being able to go back to key moments just for a short while and relive them or make corrections, then return to the present - that seems much more palatable.

But there would be the potential for danger or benefits... if you made changes in the past (like say stand up to a bully instead of backing down, or asking someone out who you were too scared to, or stopping someone from making a fatal mistake you didn't know would happen when it occurred in your past)... then you might not recognize your present when you returned.

Your present might be pretty much the same, similar or very very different. Things might be much better or much worse - or a mixture of the two. Even correcting mistakes in the past might end up causing a chain reaction of disaster in your present... OR... may have been the key to a live of health, wealth, love, success and any of the things you wish you had, but have seemed to elude you!

Understanding all that... if given the chance to go back and relive events or correct your mistakes & erase your regrets - would you take the chance knowing that even the most seemingly positive changes you could make might alter your present in ways you could not foresee?

It's interesting to think about, but I wouldn't go back. I believe that everything happens for a reason. We might not always know what that reason is, but there is a reason.
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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Intriguing post @Captain Steel

I don't usually think about changing things in the past. Like you said, it could seriously screw up one's present day life...or even screw up other people's lives. Even strangers who one never met and never interacted with could end up in a totally different situation. It's quite mind boggling. But I DO think about the different avenues life could've taken if different decisions were made. Perhaps in a quantum universe every possible outcome to our lives has taken place in other parallel universes. Hmm, I think I've watched too much Star Trek.

Is there really such a thing as "too much Star Trek"?



You ready? You look ready.
If I could time travel I would hope that it is a la About Time.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza



That was one of my favorite episodes. It was an interesting study of how different life experiences could affect a person in such different ways. The Riker who was duplicated by the transporter and ended up abandoned on an uninhabited planet for a number of years became use to being his own boss, improvising instead of follow the book and had a problem with authority. All quite the opposite of the Riker who made it back to his ship and that later joined the Enterprise as the 1st officer. Not surprisingly Deanna Troy fell back in love with the more roguish, undisciplined Riker, who in the end made a lot of the same decisions the other Riker did. The other Riker later made an appearance on Deep Space Nine and his story arch is one that ST fans feel is still unresolved.
You answered one of my questions before I asked it, Rules - I always wondered if the Riker copy ever showed up again. (It seemed like an awful big matzo ball to leave hanging out there!)

Seemed like incidents like this (transporters creating copies of people) might call into question transporter ethics in the 25th century (not to mention all that came before it - people trapped in a transporter beam - ala Enterprise, people getting split into halves ala TOS, horrifying transporter malfunctions ala ST-TMP, etc.)

Another philosophical conundrum.



...

We often wonder: what if we had it to do all over again?

And I was thinking about various scenarios.

If you were given the chance to live your life over again - say starting at early childhood - would you?
...
Who's to say we don't? Perhaps in an alternate universe we aren't even born yet. And maybe there's something to reincarnation.

But if I had the conscious chance, you bet I'd start again and live it the exact same way. Had more good times than bad.



Who's to say we don't? Perhaps in an alternate universe we aren't even born yet. And maybe there's something to reincarnation.

But if I had the conscious chance, you bet I'd start again and live it the exact same way. Had more good times than bad.
My issue with that is that an alternate universe me is not me. I speculate they're experiencing things for the first & only time as I did. (Although I often fantasize about switching places with an alternate universe me, and going to a reality where certain key points in the past had been different and resulted in a far different present.)

And with reincarnation (which may indeed be real), if it is real, we don't seem to retain any memories (or at least many memories... although I've always had a strange affinity for swing music!).

I'd love to relive good times - or just see how things were again - but if it were a permanent thing where I'd have to go 50 some years to get back to where I left from... then I think the novelty would wear off and I'd start to feel imprisoned in time (a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog day - but stretched out over a longer period).

I'd probably become obsessed with preventing bad things from happening to myself & others. But it would be kind of impossible to anticipate certain events - who remembers the exact date or time something happened in school?

Also - would you warn people of 9/11 before it happened?
If you did, people would probably just ignore you - then (since you probably would not be unable to stop it in any way) after it happened, the FBI would realize you had called them with all this information no one else could possibly know and arrest you as a terrorist co-conspirator!



Everything you said there Captain in your last post, I believe to be true. If one could go back and relive their live with forehand knowledge, it would be a Twilight Zone type hell. I'm talking Rod Sterling not the fluffy kiddie movies.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Is there a Single, Objective, Absolute TRUTH?
Yes. My film taste.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Everything you said there Captain in your last post, I believe to be true. If one could go back and relive their live with forehand knowledge, it would be a Twilight Zone type hell. I'm talking Rod Sterling not the fluffy kiddie movies.
Heh, heh. Yeah, "going back" is wild enough. But going back, and having knowledge of the future, either with or without the ability to change your actions or events in general gets crazy real quick. I ain't knockin' it though...



Its not that they act differently because of the observation, its that when you are trying to measure things on such a small scale you, inevitably, effect what you are trying to observe just through the use of the equipment to observe it. For example, the photons needed to SEE a what you are looking at can change the state of the matter being observed by interacting with it and knocking off electrons or such. Its not an issue when what you are observing is macro phenomenon but on a sub atomic level it can significantly effect the results because of its interaction with the material being studied. But its not about the conscious mind somehow effecting the subatomic material. This phenomenon is true even when they "observing" is done with non human detectors. It still alters the results because of its interference with the material its trying to observe.
Revisiting this post from a while back...

On an episode of Cosmos (the newer series hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson - I think maybe in season 2), Neil says something astounding...

Hard to sum up here, but it was something to the extent that particles millions of lightyears apart, that could have no possible physical connection to each other being so far apart, will behave in a way where if one changes its behavior, then the same kind of particle millions of lightyears away will simultaneously & instantaneously change its behavior in the same way.

The thing I don't remember is an explanation how they could know this or even claim to know this - are they even able to see microscopic particles millions of lightyears away and observe how they behave?

Found a video on YouTube that kind of goes into something similar (they call it "quantum entanglement") - talk about it begins at the 6:19 mark in the video.




You ready? You look ready.
Neil deGrasse Tyson rags on philosophy. I take everything he says with a grain of salt and approach it with twice the skepticism.

Science has gone a little nutty of late. Stretching measurements as absolutes and wasting time testing all sorts of farfetched stuff just because “well, we haven’t tested it so it’s still possible”.



Revisiting this post from a while back...

On an episode of Cosmos (the newer series hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson - I think maybe in season 2), Neil says something astounding...

Hard to sum up here, but it was something to the extent that particles millions of lightyears apart, that could have no possible physical connection to each other being so far apart, will behave in a way where if one changes its behavior, then the same kind of particle millions of lightyears away will simultaneously & instantaneously change its behavior in the same way.

The thing I don't remember is an explanation how they could know this or even claim to know this - are they even able to see microscopic particles millions of lightyears away and observe how they behave?
I'm thinking this idea must be theoretical...theoretical anything is possible



I'm thinking this idea must be theoretical...theoretical anything is possible
Not exactly,

I'm sure you think germs exist, but germs, too, are a theory. Yet we can prove and measure such "theories" within a great deal of accuracy. "Theory" doesn't imply a wild guess at something, it's a little more educated than that. It's something that can be "tested" and "proved" to within a decent and consistent margin.

Well, is there?
Or is reality, God, the universe (or whatever) fluid, based entirely on perception; altering between person to person and simply a product of our subjective perspective?
Subjective nature behooves objective nature.

Just as subjectives are law our universe, (which as far as we know is relatively dichotomous), so too would it's inverse.

The problem becomes, (and perhaps at the arrival of such a question), is not exactly the "is" of the question, but the "what."

"Is" there objective truth? Yes. Objectively speaking there has to be...

But "what" objective truth is there? And now down the age-old philosophical rabbit-hole we go.

Anyway, it is "objectively" 6:31 in the am where I live, (maybe?) and "subjectively" I'm wondering if I need some coffee.

Adieu.

EDIT:

Oh, and on the subject of "objectives."

"Objectively" Carl Sagan was the better host of Cosmos.
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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage



Entanglement (quantum entanglement) has been verified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

Evidently scientists can observe it, but can't explain it.

Eventually scientists will look at Einstein and Schrodinger in the same way that we now look at Sir Isaac Newton and his falling apple demonstrating gravity in 1665. There is likely infinitely more to know than we already know.

I'd sure like to know how those alien spacecraft have been able to get here from distant galaxies...



Psychopathic Psychiatrist
I am sure there is.

Mankind is just not able/allowed to dig behind it, and by "not allowed" i mean the laws of (quantum)physics, not a "god" or "higher being".

That we are unable to predict the position of a neutron, could easily be due to the fact, that we just aren´t able (not allowed) to predict it, yet it doesn´t necessarily mean that the path of a neutron isn´t predestined.



Concerning truth, the problem might be seeking it, trying to grasp it, attain it, the sound of rain does not need translation, so everything else. How many of you have looked at a mountain, and for ten seconds, one minutes, two minutes, there was nothing but the mountain. That mountain absorbed the you. There was no you looking at that mountain, there were no definitions, nothing, just the mountain, there was the truth of that mountain, afterward, the memory of the incident, if you try to report it back, truth is lost instantly. So now, what do we do with it? Let's see what Bodhidharma had to say:

"(...) They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. Calamity forever alternates with Prosperity. To dwell in the three realms is to dwell in a burning house. To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, “To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path."



To me, there is nothing out there, and in here, all that can be done is to see the beauty, and to really see something, a flower in a garden, not thinking of cutting it and put it in a pot back home, not trying to own it, not recording, not defining it, change it, make it your own, that's the thing. Not to record a landscape, an insult, a flattering, always fresh, that's it.