Are you the universe?

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Machinaforce

But it isn’t entirely without reason, the paragraph I posted on this page explains it yet people keep telling me it’s just nonsense without saying why. I mean scientifically it seems like it makes sense since everything is made of the same atoms at the base level, everything contains the atoms present at the start of the universe. Then heavier elements formed and we have what we see today. So how is everything not the universe then? People keep saying no but they don’t explain to me how.

Say there’s a lump of ice in a bucket. Say there’s a lump of steel in another bucket in another room. Say a deaf woman puts a magnet on the lump of ice and then picks the magnet back up with no trouble at all. Say a man with perfectly good hearing puts a magnet on the lump of steel and notes an odd effect when he picks the magnet back up. Say they heat the ice and the steel up to the same temperature: half of the ice promptly melts away into a puddle of liquid, but the steel remains solid.

You apparently say the ice is the steel. You apparently say the man is the woman. You apparently say the people who disagree with you are you. Sure, in every case they’re apparently in different places, and they apparently react to stuff in vastly different ways; and we can apparently determine whether they differ in mass and volume, and after we ask the man and the woman whether they’re aware of one another we can spot the difference upon comparing their answers; and so on.

So let’s see if you’re right. Say the buckets are put on a table in front of me. Say you see me offer a short guy some remarkable amount of money to hand me a lump of ice; say he peers into the buckets, and he picks up the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and he hands me the lump of ice from Bucket #1, and I pay up. Say you see me place the ice and the steel back in their buckets, and make a tall guy the same offer; say he picks up the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and he hands me the lump of steel from Bucket #2, and no money changes hands.

Say I then put the ice and the steel back in their buckets and offer you that deal; can you tell the difference between the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and casually make a fortune in less time than it takes to tell it? Or do you look puzzled, and say I haven’t explained how they’re not the same thing — adding that you also can’t tell the difference between the short guy and the tall guy? Or do you, perhaps, wind up handing one lump or another to the deaf woman from earlier in this post, claiming that you honestly can’t tell the difference between her and me?

[QuickSilver]

@Machinaforce

But it isn’t entirely without reason, the paragraph I posted on this page explains it yet people keep telling me it’s just nonsense without saying why. I mean scientifically it seems like it makes sense since everything is made of the same atoms at the base level, everything contains the atoms present at the start of the universe. Then heavier elements formed and we have what we see today. So how is everything not the universe then? People keep saying no but they don’t explain to me how.

If you enjoyed reading that, then I believe Seb Pearce will provide you with endless hours and days of contemplative entertainment.

Enjoy.

[Machinaforce]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Say there’s a lump of ice in a bucket. Say there’s a lump of steel in another bucket in another room. Say a deaf woman puts a magnet on the lump of ice and then picks the magnet back up with no trouble at all. Say a man with perfectly good hearing puts a magnet on the lump of steel and notes an odd effect when he picks the magnet back up. Say they heat the ice and the steel up to the same temperature: half of the ice promptly melts away into a puddle of liquid, but the steel remains solid.

You apparently say the ice is the steel. You apparently say the man is the woman. You apparently say the people who disagree with you are you. Sure, in every case they’re apparently in different places, and they apparently react to stuff in vastly different ways; and we can apparently determine whether they differ in mass and volume, and after we ask the man and the woman whether they’re aware of one another we can spot the difference upon comparing their answers; and so on.

So let’s see if you’re right. Say the buckets are put on a table in front of me. Say you see me offer a short guy some remarkable amount of money to hand me a lump of ice; say he peers into the buckets, and he picks up the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and he hands me the lump of ice from Bucket #1, and I pay up. Say you see me place the ice and the steel back in their buckets, and make a tall guy the same offer; say he picks up the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and he hands me the lump of steel from Bucket #2, and no money changes hands.

Say I then put the ice and the steel back in their buckets and offer you that deal; can you tell the difference between the lump of ice and the lump of steel, and casually make a fortune in less time than it takes to tell it? Or do you look puzzled, and say I haven’t explained how they’re not the same thing — adding that you also can’t tell the difference between the short guy and the tall guy? Or do you, perhaps, wind up handing one lump or another to the deaf woman from earlier in this post, claiming that you honestly can’t tell the difference between her and me?

I remember trying a similar argument (though not that detailed) against someone who told me about being the universe. The answer kept coming back to “what is X made of”? The argument being that such appearances are just the illusion of separation but that fundamentally everything is made of the same basic elements. That fundamentally its all an “expression of the universe” which is what the quoted paragraph was saying. The other part was about believing yourself to be an individual consciousness (which is what that annablat guy was on about in the link to his blog), though that one is a little harder to buy into since evidence shows that consciousness is the result of biological processes and not a feature of the universe. Granted our senses don’t show what is, only what they take in, but that doesn’t make consciousness magical.

The other bit they mentioned was that you are not a lonely being but connected to a great whole, again in the paragraph. Personally I just get this nagging sense in the back of my mind that there is something wrong about that, like it’s not the whole truth.

In the case of humans the idea was similar to being born a blank slate and that our tastes, dreams, etc are largely based on where we grew up an raised, that there is no enduring core or soul or aspect you can claim to be a you. Though recent research does show that humans are not born blank slates and that our genes have an influence in aspects of who we are. I don’t know about dreams or wants though, that seems to be culture but there are some exceptions. But the idea is that if you cleared all of that away then we aren’t that different, that the differences between us are largely the result of our own inventions.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Machinaforce

I remember trying a similar argument (though not that detailed) against someone who told me about being the universe. The answer kept coming back to “what is X made of”?

To the best of my knowledge, the lump of ice is made of hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms, while the lump of steel isn’t — there are, uh, iron atoms in there instead, which helps explain why magnets affect them differently and why the ice becomes a liquid at a temperature where the steel remains solid, like I’d just said.

I think I also said a golden ring, which has different properties than ice or steel, is, y’know, made out of gold atoms instead. And so on.

The argument being that such appearances are just the illusion of separation but that fundamentally everything is made of the same basic elements.

Uh, okay. But I don’t care if they’re made of the same basic elements — which, again, steel and ice and gold aren’t, are they? — because, well, that doesn’t interest me. Say that I appear to be hungry. Say, too, that food which will apparently nourish me, and to all appearances will be delicious, is locked up where I can’t readily get at it. Say as well that I have a steel key that’ll unlock that door.

If there’s a coin near that steel key, I don’t care whether it’s made out of tin or out of brass or even out of steel: it’s not the key, is all.

What about you? If you were so hungry that death was on the way, and the steel key in my left hand would let you get to that delicious food, and there was some sand in my right hand, and I handed you the sand, you’d say — what?

I don’t know about dreams or wants though, that seems to be culture but there are some exceptions. But the idea is that if you cleared all of that away then we aren’t that different, that the differences between us are largely the result of our own inventions.

Uh, okay. So there are differences between us? And we invent stuff?

[Machinaforce]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

To the best of my knowledge, the lump of ice is made of hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms, while the lump of steel isn’t — there are, uh, iron atoms in there instead, which helps explain why magnets affect them differently and why the ice becomes a liquid at a temperature where the steel remains solid, like I’d just said.

I think I also said a golden ring, which has different properties than ice or steel, is, y’know, made out of gold atoms instead. And so on.

Uh, okay. But I don’t care if they’re made of the same basic elements — which, again, steel and ice and gold aren’t, are they? — because, well, that doesn’t interest me. Say that I appear to be hungry. Say, too, that food which will apparently nourish me, and to all appearances will be delicious, is locked up where I can’t readily get at it. Say as well that I have a steel key that’ll unlock that door.

If there’s a coin near that steel key, I don’t care whether it’s made out of tin or out of brass or even out of steel: it’s not the key, is all.

What about you? If you were so hungry that death was on the way, and the steel key in my left hand would let you get to that delicious food, and there was some sand in my right hand, and I handed you the sand, you’d say — what?

Uh, okay. So there are differences between us? And we invent stuff?

I would normally agree with all of that. But then there was that post make about atoms not being discrete units and just excited states, which I think is an indication of there being nothing “Solid”. I don’t think this has anything to do with atoms being empty space mostly.

But I still think that the major point being argued is where things came from. Gold just doesn’t exist independently on it’s own, it came from something else, same with steel and water. What I am getting at is that the bulk of what I hear used against me tends to be that “what is it made of and where does it ultimately come from”, to which their answer would be the universe. I mean there is SOME truth to that in that the Big Bang had mostly atoms of hydrogen and carbon and all the stuff we have now is born from those elements. Yet I still feel like they are missing something.

Because you are right, not everything is made of the same atoms. I don’t have gold atoms, and likely a few others as well so saying I am gold would be utterly wrong. My guess is that the sages of the past didn’t know about atoms as we do today so it would appear that everything is fundamentally the same.

[Guinastasia]

@Machinaforce

I can’t just dismiss something without a reason

Says who?

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Machinaforce

I would normally agree with all of that. But then there was that post make about atoms not being discrete units and just excited states, which I think is an indication of there being nothing “Solid”. I don’t think this has anything to do with atoms being empty space mostly.

But I still think that the major point being argued is where things came from. Gold just doesn’t exist independently on it’s own, it came from something else, same with steel and water. What I am getting at is that the bulk of what I hear used against me tends to be that “what is it made of and where does it ultimately come from”, to which their answer would be the universe. I mean there is SOME truth to that in that the Big Bang had mostly atoms of hydrogen and carbon and all the stuff we have now is born from those elements. Yet I still feel like they are missing something.

Because you are right, not everything is made of the same atoms. I don’t have gold atoms, and likely a few others as well so saying I am gold would be utterly wrong. My guess is that the sages of the past didn’t know about atoms as we do today so it would appear that everything is fundamentally the same.

I still don’t get why you care whether it’s made of the same stuff.

I meant what I’d said, and still want to hear your answer: say you’re locked in a jail cell or whatever, and you’re hungry and maybe on the brink of dying of thirst, and you’re staring at food and water that’s right over there on the other side of the bars, and that’s when I walk up to said bars to cheerfully greet you.

And say I have, in my pocket, the steel key that’d unlock the door.

And so you can stride out of imprisonment, and over to delicious nourishment, about as fast as I can hand you the steel key in question. And say I reach into my pocket and hand you — a steel coin. And then a gold coin. And then some sand.

Now, the sand and the gold aren’t made of steel; but put that aside for a moment. What do you say, upon handling the steel coin? Do you say, “hey: while this coin is made of the same stuff as the key — unlike the gold coin — I don’t care whether this coin is made of the same stuff as the key; neither gold coins nor steel coins are that steel key; death is approaching, and these coins are as useless to me as a handful of sand; can you please just hand me the steel key?”

[Buck_Godot]

Depending on how you define things I could answer the question in the OP in an affirmative. The universe I inhabit contains all sorts of things. It contains atoms, Donald Trump, Moscow, quantum mechanics, Alpha Centari, and a giant black hole at the center of the galaxy. None of these I have experienced first hand, but I have been told they exist, I believe they exist, and I can imagine their qualities. Now I’m not a solipsist so I suspect strongly that all of these ideas in my head actually correspond to some sort of reality outside of me. But for me, all that Moscow truly is what I have seen in pictures, and read about. Not all of what I imagine Moscow to be is likely to be correct, but for all intents and purposes for me, Moscow is what I imagine it to be. I get some new insight that suggests my belief is wrong, then my universe will change. Of course everyone has a different understanding of the universe so each person is his own universe.

[Machinaforce]

@Guinastasia

Says who?

Because that would be confirmation bias, or just bias of any kind really.

[Machinaforce]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

I still don’t get why you care whether it’s made of the same stuff.

I meant what I’d said, and still want to hear your answer: say you’re locked in a jail cell or whatever, and you’re hungry and maybe on the brink of dying of thirst, and you’re staring at food and water that’s right over there on the other side of the bars, and that’s when I walk up to said bars to cheerfully greet you.

And say I have, in my pocket, the steel key that’d unlock the door.

And so you can stride out of imprisonment, and over to delicious nourishment, about as fast as I can hand you the steel key in question. And say I reach into my pocket and hand you — a steel coin. And then a gold coin. And then some sand.

Now, the sand and the gold aren’t made of steel; but put that aside for a moment. What do you say, upon handling the steel coin? Do you say, “hey: while this coin is made of the same stuff as the key — unlike the gold coin — I don’t care whether this coin is made of the same stuff as the key; neither gold coins nor steel coins are that steel key; death is approaching, and these coins are as useless to me as a handful of sand; can you please just hand me the steel key?”

I kind of see your point, but I guess I am concerned with trying to reconcile whether or not what I was taught in my science classes isn’t exactly how reality matches up.

Like physics seems weirder than I remember it:

Particles aren’t solid little pieces of anything until you look at them. Before that they act like a superposition of possible states with a specific probability distribution that they will be found at specific locations. They are like a wave, until you stare at them, after which they act like a little solid piece of something.

Atoms are made up of these wave-particle things, as is everything. They are mostly empty space, even if you treat the particles in the atom as solid little pieces of stuff.

Or:

The even more interesting thing is the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment.
In effect, set up a more complicated experiment where the information from the sensor looking at which slit the electron goes through is gathered after the electron would hit the screen. Even if the information is acquired AFTER the electron would hit the screen, if it is acquired (again, more complicated experiment that allows for multiple things to happen), the distribution changes, even though technically your acquisition happens AFTER it should hit the screen.

If the information is acquired, then erased (by means of adding two beams together that destructively interfere, if I recall), then even if information is at one point received, the pattern will revert to the expected pattern as if no information was observed, even if all of these observation end erasing events happen after the stuff hits the screen.

Effectively it tells us that time plays no real part in how matter works on that scale. Forward and backward in time are analogous, and quantum mechanics works consistently regardless of time based experiments that would seem like a paradox.

I don’t know quantum physics that much but the idea of nothing solid because actually “solid” is a head trip for me. And again I’m still trying to get over their argument of “what is X made of” which they take ALL the way back to the beginning

[QuickSilver]

@Machinaforce

Because that would be confirmation bias, or just bias of any kind really.

Bias against stupidity is no vice.

[Machinaforce]

@QuickSilver

Bias against stupidity is no vice.

yet it is still being close minded, so it labeling something stupid without a reason.

[Telemark]

@Machinaforce

yet it is still being close minded, so it labeling something stupid without a reason.

Keep your mind open, but no so open that your brains fall out.

[QuickSilver]

@Machinaforce

yet it is still being close minded, so it labeling something stupid without a reason.

How long am I required to contemplate foolishness before I am permitted to dismiss it without bias? Should I obsess over it like you do? Or should I value my time and energy towards things that improve my quality of life rather than detract from it.

N.B.: The irony of taking time to read and respond to your repeated posts is not lost on me.

[Machinaforce]

@QuickSilver

How long am I required to contemplate foolishness before I am permitted to dismiss it without bias? Should I obsess over it like you do? Or should I value my time and energy towards things that improve my quality of life rather than detract from it.

N.B.: The irony of taking time to read and respond to your repeated posts is not lost on me.

But my question is how do you determine what is foolishness and what isn’t?

[DrFidelius]

@Machinaforce

But my question is how do you determine what is foolishness and what isn’t?

Experience.
But if you have been unable to gain that experience yourself, store bought is fine.
First, find people whose opinion you trust. That is clearly not us, so I fail to understand why you continue to ask.

[GreenWyvern]

@DrFidelius

Experience.
But if you have been unable to gain that experience yourself, store bought is fine.
First, find people whose opinion you trust. That is clearly not us, so I fail to understand why you continue to ask.

I’ve never seen Machinaforce accept anybody’s argument, opinion, or suggestion here about anything.

Apparently what some random guy said on some random Buddhist website is more convincing 100% of the time.

This is not really about Buddhism, or the nature of reality, or anything like that. It’s about serious OCD, or some other mental health issue.

[Machinaforce]

@GreenWyvern

I’ve never seen Machinaforce accept anybody’s argument, opinion, or suggestion here about anything.

Apparently what some random guy said on some random Buddhist website is more convincing 100% of the time.

This is not really about Buddhism, or the nature of reality, or anything like that. It’s about serious OCD, or some other mental health issue.

Because the replies here aren’t addressing what I say is the base level of their argument. That since nothing exists independently of anything else because it depends on other things that preceded or surround it to exist there is no “essence” or in the case of people “you”, it’s all the same thing, the universe.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Machinaforce

Because the replies here aren’t addressing what I say is the base level of their argument. That since nothing exists independently of anything else because it depends on other things that preceded or surround it to exist there is no “essence” or in the case of people “you”, it’s all the same thing, the universe.

I asked you before; I’ll ask you again: say you’re locked up, behind bars, ravaged by hunger and thirst, and I stroll over with the steel key that’d let you swing the cell door open. And for a good long while, I look real hard at that steel key in my hand; and then, as if something had only just now dawned on me, I look up at you and ask: should I give you that steel key, or should I instead give you the steel coin that I’ve been holding in my other hand? I also have a handful of sand right here, if you’d rather I give you a handful of sand; it’s your call all the way.

Do you say, “oh, well, it’s all the same thing, isn’t it?”

Do you say, “they depend on other things that precede and surround them, so, hey, each one is the universe; handing me the coin is handing me the key — and handing me the sand is handing me the coin and the key, right?”

[Machinaforce]

The last line is what they are trying to say, yes. Like the guy I linked when he said you realize you are the tiger and you metaphorically kill it. Or that large paragraph I linked to about atoms and the like.

The more times that I read you analogy the less I’m convinced that it has anything to do with what it being said. It doesn’t really disprove their point or what they are saying.