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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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Goldfish Physicists * 1
    #10391218 -

There is a goldfish bowl near a large window wherein three highly intelligent goldfish can see cars drive by and a small portion of the sky. They all have many theories on what cars are, where they come from and where they go. They have more theories on clouds and what they mean. Of course, they rarely agree, argue incessantly and ALL are always wrong. Often, the questions they ask are meaningless or wrong-headed. The idea of a world beyond the view provided by the window never even occured to them.

The bacteria physicists cannot even conceive of a world more than a few inches away and their philosophies are even more wrong-headed than that of the goldfish (if that is possible) - but not my much.

Now humans have an intellect perhaps a thousands times that of a goldfish and can see much, much further, but the same principles apply. We have such a small view on the universe and our universe may just be a picture window that disallows us to see past the frame no matter how clever we are, yet we postulate endlessly and try to extrapolate on the big picture with so little data when it may never even be possible.

"But OC, we have learned much about our universe."

True to some extent and the goldfish have learned much about the living room through careful study, but the knowledge of what really goes on outside of the living room will be forever forbidden to them.


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10391250 -

wow what a great post.:thumbup: really got me thinking. thanks

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. [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10391268 -

.


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Edited by AnonymousRabbit (05/18/22 06:28 PM)

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: ShroomerRoss]
    #10391271 -

Yeah good topic, but if the universe is a hologram and the whole universe can be found within the goldfish bowl, then your point is lost.

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: ShroomerRoss]
    #10391272 -

Trick question. Goldfish have a crappy memory and are actually reusing the same hypothesis over and over


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: ShroomerRoss]
    #10391274 -

You are thinking sushi for lunch?


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10391279 -

your theory of everything has proven successful


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: AnonymousRabbit]
    #10391322 -

No matter how powerful our telescopes/spaceships or whatever technology, there are likely galaxies past the light horizon (space frame) that we will never be able to examine. And even events before the Big Bang will also likely be forever outside of our view (time frame).

Then there are micro and macro limits (size frame) to our view.

Some limits cannot be circumvented through mere cleverness.


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10391354 -

well that and some things are so far out there that when we see them, since light only travels so fast, they could well be long gone


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. [Re: learningtofly]
    #10391385 -

.


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Edited by AnonymousRabbit (05/19/22 01:00 AM)

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: AnonymousRabbit]
    #10391412 -

I think what OC is pointing to is the possibility of indefinitely many unknown unknowns, forever out of our reach, even if they make themselves subtly manifest in our universe.

It's the sorrow of the recently convert empiricist; longing for more even if one knows it doesn't matter. You may be past over than and fully enjoy what is given to you to interact with and intelligibly make sense of, all the power to you.

Edited by deimya (05/24/09 02:51 PM)

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: AnonymousRabbit]
    #10391424 -

Perhaps the goldfish rock the bowl and move it several inches closer to the window. Their frame will have expanded substantially and yet their assumptions will not likely be anymore true. Perhaps one particularly clever goldfish invents a land suit and leaves the bowl for a short period of time and 'walks' up to the window. Their knowledge will be increased many fold and yet...


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10391449 -

the goldfish who invented the landsuit got ahold of a car owner's manual and read it.


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: learningtofly]
    #10391582 -

We may have the makings of new TV series.


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10392011 -

I would argue that the goldfish are limited by thier brains and thier brains ability to sense. Just as our brains limit our own senses . Many things are happening around us that we just dont have the ability to percieve. The goldfish "see" the window , they don't see the bacteria on the transparent glass window , or the photons actually bending through the bowl of water into thier eyes.

  We too are as blind as our senses limit us to be.

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: ofo]
    #10392061 -

ofo said:
We too are as blind as our senses limit us to be.


You should consider microscopes and telescopes to be extensions of your senses then, and mathematics is a system that doesn't rely on your senses.

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: learningtofly]
    #10392132 -

learningtofly said:
Goldfish have a crappy memory and are actually reusing the same hypothesis over and over


This comment reminded me of the CTMU thread, lol


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: Mufungo]
    #10392276 -

Keep in mind that as the level of intelligence increases the possible skill set does as well.

Let's look at a person that is legally mentally challenged, they have let's say x IQ. They can understand the principles of walking, eating and that when they want to go to sleep the bed is much better than the floor.

Now let's look at person this is not retartded. They have a much higher IQ than x IQ. They too can understand walking, eating and a bed. But they can do more too as you said. They can understand where food comes from, why food is neccasary. They can walk and run and not only do they know a bed is better than the floor but they know how to make a bed and why it's more comfortable.

To make my point is that the more intelligence you have the more resources you have and the more tools you can create. Will we ever know everything? No I don't think so. But we don't have to rely on just our raw intelligence we can build tools to help us get much futher than our raw intelligence will allow us.

Example: Computers, math, leverage.

There's always a ceiling but I think that in our case it's pretty damn high.

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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10392739 -

Now that I've had my breakfast, I have a question..

What does it matter if there are limits to our available knowledge or that our knowledge might be flawed?

It's not like we learn things for learning sake. It's what people do with knowledge that matters more than the having knowledge in and of itself.


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Re: Goldfish Physicists [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #10392894 -

You can only live by what you know... or believe you know.


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