41 replies to this topic

[General]

Ok, firstly this subject must not make you think I am thinking that way, it is just a theory which came up to my mind currently and wanted to know what others think about it even though it may look like complication theories sweeping all over the web.
Here is the deal then :

Imagine there is a running elite ( this maybe humans or extraterrestrial life forms ) in this world for thousands of years and what we know today is completely what they ' make up ' , all scientific information they give to us about this world and universe is what they want us to know but not real, archeological evidences and all other things mostly we don't experience by ourselves and only believe what scientists says, what if those scientists somewhat in that elite or indoctrinated and making these statements completely for a higher goal ? what if you learn almost every scientific articles you've seen merely a lie ?

Edited by Turian, 18 June 2009 - 16:31.

[CodeCat]

Then you set out to find things out for yourself. Reproduceability is what science is all about.

[Erik]

This. if you dont believe something, try it.
Example: Quantum physiks can be "rediscovered" by doing a simple experiment with a laserlight and a double gap.

[Golan]

Isn't the double-gap interference due to regular light-phases? You need a lot of power to prove that the concept applies not only to photons, but every object.

Regardless, @Topic, every case that involves an elite actually capable of this would make every kind of opposition futile, so yeah... accept defeat and get over it. As long as the lies are close enough to reality not to draw attention, who cares?

[General]

CodeCat, on 18 Jun 2009, 18:54, said:

Then you set out to find things out for yourself. Reproduceability is what science is all about.

It will be impossible for most of the population to go to space or conduct experiments on LHC at Cern, I mean such things

[Golan]

You can test the math behind their theories though, and many things can indeed be verified with simple experiments. The little things that remain... well, I can't imagine anyone needing them in their schemes for world-dominance.

[WNxMastrefubu]

many people question that America made it to the moon, but even if they are lying there is no way to tell. just accepti it and move on IMO. in the Matrix scenario i'd rather be on the inside

[Camille]

same. if you don't experience any change or don't notice anything different there's really no reason you should meddle with "the truth".

but then again humans are oh so damn curious... there'll always be at least one who HAS to, and will do just about anything to know.

[Dauth]

WNxMastrefubu, on 18 Jun 2009, 22:09, said:

many people question that America made it to the moon, but even if they are lying there is no way to tell. just accepti it and move on IMO. in the Matrix scenario i'd rather be on the inside

Just get a really good optical telescope and look for yourself.

[Ghostrider]

Rene Descartes, one of the most famous philosophers, called this the "evil demon" dilemma: What if an evil demon put humans into a dream, and thus everything we know was false? How could we know what was true or real, or when we could wake up from this dream?

Basically Descartes stated that he would first doubt everything, then try to see what he could prove existed from that point. His first discovery was the famous "I think therefore I am".

[Golan]

Which totally disregards that if we are indeed living in a dream, then we cannot validate it, as every experiment is bound to the rules of said dream's "reality". Without reliable control data, there's no way of deciding what's real and what's fake.

[SquigPie]

Lemme guess, you read 1984 right?

Same here, I've thought about that theory as well.

[Rich19]

WNxMastrefubu, on 18 Jun 2009, 22:09, said:

many people question that America made it to the moon, but even if they are lying there is no way to tell.

Yes there is, they left a bunch of stuff there which you can see.

EDIT - As to the topic, scientific knowledge is based upon the idea that anyone with the same experimental setup can reproduce your findings. And it's all peer reviewed as well.

Edited by Rich19, 21 June 2009 - 17:50.

[General]

I don't get it how they know what happens when a sun dies or larger ones, as I know there is no evidence about '' the moment this event happens '', only theories, I personally didn't see any photo or video about the moment a black hole come to existence so how come this can be proven ' only by mathematics ', I don't mean there is no black holes or something, also how they calculate the age of the sun without taking any example from it ( well, thats maybe not so precise since taking some helium will not do that much thing ) same goes for earth or the age of the universe, there is mostly ' theories ' around, and facts are less than what they talk all around.

[CommanderJB]

Do you need photographic evidence about the moment a raindrop forms in order to understand the process? We can observe the varying stages of a star's life cycle by virtue of the billions of varying samples we have available, and measuring the time they have been burning is as simple as measuring the distance, which can be done by an interferometer. You cannot call mathematics a theory because if the data in the equation is correct then the outcome is not open to debate, and while we do not have every single last bit of data (and never will) that which we do is conclusive enough to form the basis for an explanation which also fits in with every other piece of evidence we have ever had. Black holes may yet to be directly observed (it's kinda difficult after all), and even further from being understood, but what we draw from the evidence we do have is that this is an extremely likely outcome. In the absence of a better solution, is it wrong to treat it as fact?

Edited by CommanderJB, 19 June 2009 - 14:01.

[Libains]

Mathematics suit solving happenings in our universe very well, and make sense and are logical, most of the time. However, no matter whether we can prove something exists, it does not mean that it exists, as the method to prove it in turn may not exist. If we were all brains in a jar and wired up to a Matrix-esque simulator, we would never know, never understand, never realise, and most of all, think that we could prove our existence. Mathematics suits the world we are in, but what if the world we were in did not exist, and all factors of it were built to make it seem more real?

[General]

CommanderJB, on 19 Jun 2009, 14:58, said:

Do you need photographic evidence about the moment a raindrop forms in order to understand the process? We can observe the varying stages of a star's life cycle by virtue of the billions of varying samples we have available, and measuring the time they have been burning is as simple as measuring the distance, which can be done by an interferometer. You cannot call mathematics a theory because if the data in the equation is correct then the outcome is not open to debate, and while we do not have every single last bit of data (and never will) that which we do is conclusive enough to form the basis for an explanation which also fits in with every other piece of evidence we have ever had. Black holes may yet to be directly observed (it's kinda difficult after all), and even further from being understood, but what we draw from the evidence we do have is that this is an extremely likely outcome. In the absence of a better solution, is it wrong to treat it as fact?

Problem starts at here, how do we know they are ' varied stages of a star's life cycle ', what if all these formed as they are ? Same goes for evolution, some people don't believe in a God because ' they not see it ' , so; should we not believe in everything we ' don't see ' ? Life of the stars and evolution is a very long process that exceeds not only a man's life but takes thousands perhaps millions of years and we just started to observe these ( correctly ? ) for a few hundred years... I don't want to bring religion into debate, it was just another example to make clear my point.

Edited by Turian, 19 June 2009 - 14:47.

[CommanderJB]

How do you know these:

Are different stages of a plant's life cycle? Sure, it might not be identical, but we don't have to take video of it growing to see that it has grown. In the same way we can bypass having to sit and watch a star for ten billion years because there are stars ten billion light years away, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and so on, all the way up to the Sun. We know they are the same types of star because they are made of the same stuff - mass spectrometry tells us this, and mathematical equations for the consumption of nuclear fuel support what we have seen. The life cycle of a star is something that has never been doubted by science precisely because we have so much evidence about it and there is no other theory that can possibly explain it.

To refer directly to the question, reality might be a construction of something we can't even begin to imagine, but given that Golan has already amply demonstrated why we could never actually tell if this is true the point is interesting to ponder but can't really be debated as such. I don't believe it's the case simply because I view reality as too infinitely complex to be constructed by anything, but that is of course far from a conclusive argument.

[SquigPie]

Simple way to disprove you Commander:

Everything is made of cake, but because of our limited intelligence, we have no way to find out how it all can hang together, how everything possibly can be made of cake. So we make up some less complex explaination than the "all is cake" truth.

[Major Fuckup]

i cant not help my self but i have to say THE CAKE IS A LIE!!!
and if every thing we know was a lie its a dam good one imagine of the recourse's and man power it would take to pull off

[CommanderJB]

As I have already said, it is impossible to prove what I believe, but neither is it possible to disprove it because in order to use that example to disprove me you would need to prove that I am made of cake, which you have already stated that it is impossible to do. It's self-defeating.

Edited by CommanderJB, 19 June 2009 - 15:46.

[SquigPie]

Major Fuckup, on 19 Jun 2009, 17:40, said:

i cant not help my self but i have to say THE CAKE IS A LIE!!!

Evil lies made up by the goverment to disprove me!

THE CAKE IS TRUE!

[Libains]

CommanderJB, on 19 Jun 2009, 16:46, said:

As I have already said, it is impossible to prove what I believe, but neither is it possible to disprove it because in order to use that example to disprove me you would need to prove that I am made of cake, which you have already stated that it is impossible to do. It's self-defeating.

I don't believe there will ever be any way to tell, unless a Morpheus comes along and starts freeing us. It's shame as I'm a curious kinda bloke () but to be fair, if we were ever to probe far enough to see if everything is really 'real'. we'd probably be scared to death what we find if it's not a good thing.

SquigPie, on 19 Jun 2009, 17:28, said:

Major Fuckup, on 19 Jun 2009, 17:40, said:

i cant not help my self but i have to say THE CAKE IS A LIE!!!

Evil lies made up by the goverment to disprove me!

THE CAKE IS TRUE!

And while the cake is always a lie, this is not SYD

[Golan]

AJ, on 19 Jun 2009, 17:02, said:

CommanderJB, on 19 Jun 2009, 16:46, said:

As I have already said, it is impossible to prove what I believe, but neither is it possible to disprove it because in order to use that example to disprove me you would need to prove that I am made of cake, which you have already stated that it is impossible to do. It's self-defeating.

I don't believe there will ever be any way to tell, unless a Morpheus comes along and starts freeing us. It's shame as I'm a curious kinda bloke () but to be fair, if we were ever to probe far enough to see if everything is really 'real'. we'd probably be scared to death what we find if it's not a good thing.

Let's assume you somehow did manage to tear down the walls of what we perceive as reality and take a look behind, or some black guy with cool shades and long coat shows you the door to what lays behind... how could you ever that this "new" reality isn't just a dream/artificial either?

[General]

I was talking about science but it turned out into ' is life a lie ? ' topic But probably my mistake because I named it as ' What if everything you know is a lie ', sorry for that