Are there really unbreakable particles?

[JIkj fjds j]

absolutely chimes with my (sometimes overwhelming) need to see the world in terms of connections and correspondences that sit above the brute scientific.

Really? What exactly is so brutal about science? It might be "cold" in some sense---but brute is hot, and seems more applicable to things less rational.

I agree. Putting too much faith in the rational of mathematics, for example, will hamper freedom of expression, every time. Of course I can only say this from a non-academic viewpoint, viz. i'm no scholar. Though I can imagine a collapsing universe where there is less and less time for calculation, as mathematics inevitably breaks down, ie the numbers becoming too large and bulky for an ever decreasing concentric curve of space\time. The singularity\bottleneck of the collapse is just too damn small for any number of any description to have any use whatsoever.

Logic tells us that a leap of faith is much better experienced than understood.
After all, isn't that what life is - one leap, after another!

And so an idea occurs that a collapsing universe is forever imminent. Like life and death. It may happen yesterday or tomorrow - God Forbid - never today!
But what if it did happen, today?
The total collapse in all probability would be too fast for matter itself. When Time draws away from the Space holding it all together, the life is sucked out of every living atom of our entire universe, too fast to observe, too fast to understand, too fast to calculate. Then, and only then, the beating Heart of God breathes life into a new universe, once again.

[peter]

Subjecting ourselves to externally imposed laws, and by extension punishment if we break them, is part of the 'social contract' is it not? It is in essence 'agreed upon' by the individual members of a society and as such could be viewed as our 'method of choice' - the linking mechanism of our own making - connecting the chain of events (cause and effect?) between crime (sin) and societal redemption (spiritual redemption).

By far the hardest form of redemption to achieve (in my experience) seems however to be internal/self redemption. Our every action seems steeped in guilt and the overcoming of this in ones internally turned eye is one of life's great challenges.

[JIkj fjds j]

Self redemption is easy. Redemption in the eyes of the accursed is one of life's great challenges - should one be crazy enough to task it upon one's self.

I would imagine that matter is unbreakable. Thankfully, the participle isn't.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Subjecting ourselves to externally imposed laws, and by extension punishment if we break them, is part of the 'social contract' is it not? It is in essence 'agreed upon' by the individual members of a society and as such could be viewed as our 'method of choice' - the linking mechanism of our own making - connecting the chain of events (cause and effect?) between crime (sin) and societal redemption (spiritual redemption).

Once a law is fixed in public, our subjection to it is external. However, regarding the question of autonomy, the first thing to ask is whether the publication(!) of the law was brought about externally (by a charming tyrant or overwhelming invasion, say) or not. If it was not, well, that it becomes external is no more than a sort of spatial fact, not a... spiritual one.

The second question for me then is whether laws have to be put hand in hand with the idea of punishments for violating them. Here issues like retributive vs. restorative justice appear clearly enough. Of course, if we ever reached a society where X could attempt to murder Y but Y will have a tendency to want to "restore" X vs. inflict retribution thereupon... if we reached that, we probably would have had something really weird happen to the whole world, beforehand.

By far the hardest form of redemption to achieve (in my experience) seems however to be internal/self redemption. Our every action seems steeped in guilt and the overcoming of this in ones internally turned eye is one of life's great challenges.

Now this is rather true of me, in fact I have started thinking of myself as working at a "sin factory" (a fast-food restaurant, indeed the most horrible of all these in terms of the brand name...) and have chronic apologizing issues. OTOH, I feel as if there might be tons of people out there who don't self-consciously use moral language very much, who might have flaws and all but are otherwise so invested in the good that they are, in fact, doing, that they don't stop to think, "I'm such a good person!"

[Vraith]

Self redemption is easy. Redemption in the eyes of the accursed is one of life's great challenges

I actually think redemption is a different kind of thing from the others...and is probably a myth. I think I've said this elsewhere.
You can, in some way, make an equation involving bad deed and punishment and apology and forgiveness. The scales of justice, or whatever.

But I don't think you can "redeem" a bad deed.
If you kill someone, no amount of life-saving afterwards can make up for it, balance the scales, "pay" for it.
The act is a permanent member of the set that is your life. Your set may have more positive members than negative ones---but there is no equation, and no balancing or canceling out of one deed by another.
In some cases restitution may be possible---If I steal something, but later pay for it and the theft didn't cause harm other than purely monetary.

[peter]

This is undeniably true V - and probably why (for me) the idea of 'self-redemption' remains just that: an idea and not achievable in any real sense. But in the external world it does seem possible for individuals - the lucky ones and only occasionally - to 'have the slate wiped clean'. This agreed, does not balance out the bad act to the point of its negation - but serves as partial redemption at least.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

But I don't think you can "redeem" a bad deed.
If you kill someone, no amount of life-saving afterwards can make up for it, balance the scales, "pay" for it.
The act is a permanent member of the set that is your life.

There's the kicker, but also then another question...

One of the things claimed as perhaps possible, by me, in this thread, is that the forces "ought" to be of different strength. But who "ought" to make this so? Three options come to mind for me:

• God.
  The universe/multiverse/cosmos itself (if it is itself alive, and not just by virtue of containing life).
  Individuals who discover the natural power to do so.

With respect to the first option: if God exists, then the resurrection of the dead does seem to be a "live option" (pardon so many puns at once!). In the second case, the idea is perhaps not clear enough to allow us to even hypothetically infer whether the cosmic zoomorph could reverse individual deaths. However, the third wish is the one explored in The Light of Other Days (Clarke and Baxter), where (please forgive me for invoking a science-fiction scenario to express my point...) the following scenario obtains:

• Wormholes (this is true IRL btw) would probably have to be fantastically enormous and fueled by enormous energies to allow the transport of even a single human-sized person (I saw a documentary/educational TV program once that said it was expected that moving an Enterprise-sized ship would require a wormhole as large as the planet Earth or something). Too much mass for them to sustain and it is theorized that if such structures existed within known parameters, they'd collapse. So in TLOOD(!), wormhole tech is here, but it only transports photons. Now, there is therefore developed, nevertheless, a means to using wormholes for the sake of a vast camera system, one that can look back into ancient times (and by ancient I mean maybe Precambrian IIRC) or within (again IIRC) a ten-millionish lightyear radius around the Earth. This leads to all sorts of historical discoveries/resolutions of debates, to the end of privacy, but also to the identification of a meteor or comet or something destined to collide with the Earth at some specified future date (not necessarily "soon" but maybe "soon enough"). But, finally, though, it leads to people using the cameras to record the genetic structures of all human beings who have ever lived and died, copying their bodies, and then ultimately opening wormholes between the neuroelectrical fields of the ones who died (as they were about to die) and their copies, basically copying/translating their souls into a resurrection form.

OK, entirely speculative, sure. However, consider what some string theorists have suggested (again and again IIRC, haha!): in the total cosmos, there could be objects or even, for all we know, entities, made of pure energy, operating in the context of forms of perceptions and molecular composition and even force-field maps wildly different from the analogous ones in our region of the string-theory landscape. Whether we could honestly say that, if string theory is true, then there is some obscure possibility for technology that can undo death (in some sense---recall after all debates over the concept of personal identity, or the moment of death itself, and so on...), is perhaps actually beyond us, much less how this might take place. Indeed, as the case may be, it is just because (in case it is) we can't show how this would be done, that we can't honestly say whether it could be period.

[Zarathustra]

Is it down at this level that reality actually becomes mathematical: the reason why math actually works - because at the fundamental nuts and bolts level the universe is math?

I mostly don't even know what people mean when they say that.

It means that reality is form, not substance. Substance is an illusion. Even our daily experience of it is not real. We feel weight, texture, solidity, etc. but this is really just electrons repulsing each other.

Everything is relation. It just so happens that those relations can be "modeled" to an astonishing degree with math. This is no coincidence. Something that is merely relations and has the form of math is the same as that something being math. There is absolutely no reason that reality should be "modeled" to such an astonishing degree with math if it weren't ultimately mathematical itself. The chances of reality being accidentally patterned according to mathematical relations from the largest scale down to the smallest scale--without a deep connection to math itself--is unimaginable. That's like winning the lottery every time you play for eternity. It's no longer a matter of beating the odds ... something else is going on here that defies any notion of coincidence.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I think Vraith is pressing a subtle distinction between these two claims:

• 1. Reality is mathematical.
  2. Reality is mathematics.

So of course when someone just says (rather breathlessly!), "Reality is math," they might mean either, and it's the latter, even so, that doesn't ultimately make sense. "Mathematics" is the study of the mathematical, so taken literally and not as an analogy for (1), (2) says that reality is made up of the study of mathematics.

Well, actually, does this not perhaps make sense? The prefoundations of physical reality had to allow for the physical possibility that mathematically-adept sentient forces would arise within it. Assuming that the existence of all information states depends on compilation from prior transformations within parameters (if that description fits?), then the laws of physics totally stated would map the order of procession from basic matter (point-particulate, string-theoretic, fractal, or otherwise) to that sentience, which would pre-explain the sequence then (if you will). A sort of warped, quasi-Kantian Anthropic Principle, maybe.

However, there are interesting arguments in epistemology that I feel like I have read, that address a similar issue. I think it's the Knowledge Paradox, which basically says that if all truths can be known, then all are known, so we know, in a sense, that there are unknowable truths---says this, that is, with an analysis of how the inference goes through, of course. So anyway, another way we could cash out "Reality is math" is: reality is like doing mathematics: evaluating expressions, computing equations, solving for variables, integrating continua, mapping shapes and figures, and so on. Or: reality is algebra.

[Zarathustra]

I get what Vraith says. I'm just saying that the fact that 1 is so improbable to have happened accidentally, that it must mean 2. And the evidence for this being the case is that substance turns out to be an illusion of force, and force turns out to be a distortion of space, and space is little more than the relations between "things," and so the deeper one probes, the more it turns out that there is nothing there except relations that are mathematical. Not merely have a mathematical resemblance, but rather that relation is nothing else besides its mathematical form. It has no other content.

[JIkj fjds j]

[peter]

Which goes to show that even Armageddon can have it's own beauty if seen through the right eyes.

[Vraith]

Which goes to show that even Armageddon can have it's own beauty if seen through the right eyes.

No, it shows that Rune has spammish sense of humor, which can be fun once in a while, but should stop now-ish.

Z--yea, as I've said before, I'm in complete agreement that everything is relational. Possible---barely---that some"thing" could exist in total isolation, BUT everything that is, even potentially/theoretically, meaningful, anything that is informative, everything that could in any way be a "cause" or an "effect" MUST exist in relation/interaction with something else.

Nevertheless, the mathematicalness of the fundamentals is STILL not anything about is-ness. The math---no matter how accurate and encompassing---is still an "aboutness."
There is, and will always be, a gap/difference.
The fact of "1" can be true and real---in one kind of real. It isn't improbable at all.
Spaces/universes might be able to exist where "1" is not applicable---but in such a space nothing even remotely like even the simplest things would be explicable, stable...
Math works BECAUSE of the nature of forms that CAN exist in stability can be described mathematically.
But the gap exists---minds are the result of physicality that allows the math to be "true" in an application/pragmatic/useful/meaningful sense.
But the math is still only a description of places that can work.
And math can STILL describe places that cannot ever be real.
You see? I think you probably already did..but still.
3 fundamental/familial kinds of reality [[very rough]]
Math universes---of which many cannot possibly exist, and evolve no intelligences that can understand anything.
Physical Universes that are so utterly random/unrestricted/non-relational that no minds can evolve to understand anything.
And real universes---where they physical nature makes the math workable, and allows minds to evolve.
Intelligence is the process---probably the ONLY process---of negotiating and APPLYING the fact of the gap. And the thing that [once far enough along] recognizes the fact, meaning, and usefulness of the Math, the Thing, AND the gap.
When people say something like:
"There are no absolute truths" and then say that is a statement that refutes itself by being absolutely true, so the issue is a paradox or untrue, they are simply missing the fact of distance---the existence of the gap.
A picture of your face---or a film of your life [including how you came about from the big-bang till the end of the universe]---will never BE your face/life.
Mapness and territoryness will ALWAYS be different actual "things"---and that is a good thing...that space is where thinking lives, where it does everything meaningful.
At the level you address, all the way down, the math is still only [hah.."only"] aboutness...the content may be [and so far, for anything humans can call knowledge, at that level is] describable only with mathematical language...but the description and the content are not the same thing, are not indistinguishable. Especially when you consider that you can use the math to build a device to alter the thing...and you HAVE to build a device to alter it---you cannot simply use the math to alter the thing.

[peter]

Are existence and reality the same thing? They ( or one or the other) must be 'layered' in some way because otherwise there could be no difference between the material fact - that chair exists - and the ideal fact - I think that girl is beautiful (and it's because I think that I am). Once accepting a layered nature for reality are we not back into Plato's world where the question f the reality of math has effectively answered itself?

(Apologies V - I wrote the above half way through reading your post, because I didn't want to forget it ........ then of course discovered you had effectively answered the question already in the second half! I leave it in in case it frames the question in a way that it can be viewed from a different angle {but also in truth, because I just kind of like it: forgive me my hubris }).

My first question by the way, is a genuine one: are they in philosophy considered to be the same thing?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Well, we've got not only "exists" and "is real" but "is actual," and then there're Meinongian objects and impossible worlds (alongside the possible ones!) to boot. Depending on the argument, such terms do or do not overlap...

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

By way of elaboration on this notion of musical fractals I'm peddling...

There are 4! different orders for the categories of amendment, and each seems associated with a specific emotion (rage-punishment, sadness-apologizing, happiness-being forgiven/forgiving, and saudade-redemption). Accordingly, there are 24 orders of relevant moral emotion. Now, supposing autonomy is the ideal, here, then the problem is first to be glossed: supposing we start from an order that is not "in the right order," let's say by involving an overemphasis on retribution in judgment, and supposing we can make any note exchange place with an adjacent note, one at a time, then if we started from

• P, F, A, R

it would take

• 1. P, F, R, A
  2. P, R, F, A
  3. R, P, F, A
  4. R, F, P, A
  5. R, F, A, P

to "reset the order" (is how I always phrase this process in my mind). So using the analogy between musical form and emotional form as our guide, we can imagine a song to be played, the song of the orders being reset:

P, F, A, R, P, F, R, A, P, R, F, A, R, P, F, A, R, F, P, A, R, F, A, P (for P, F, A, R and if the process emphasizes affirming redemption instead of denying punishment, and if each proper step in the sequence is not blocked or reversed at some point).

The only reason I feel like I've come up with for this idea of this process is the background belief of mine that there is a very special game-theoretic aspect to reality in general/total, so that the process of "moving" the notes in the orders is a matter of making moves in some kind of game. Applied to history, the model indicates that Christianity and Islam are examples of attempts to help "reset the order," Christianity by (in principle if not historical practice!) prioritizing forgiveness over vengeance, and Islam by allowing that Adam and Eve apologizing to God was sufficient to remit their primal sin (that is, Islam does not insist on an Atonement by Christ since it recognizes the sufficiency of apologizing in order to the remission of certain sins).

[Vraith]

My first question by the way, is a genuine one: are they in philosophy considered to be the same thing?

That depends on the philosophy. Seriously, there are many different schools that, whatever their OTHER agreements and disagreements, also fundamentally disagree on that point...sometimes at the basic axiom/principle/necessity level, sometimes further down the road in argument, sufficiency, consequences, etc.

Well, we've got not only "exists" and "is real" but "is actual," and then there're Meinongian objects and impossible worlds (alongside the possible ones!) to boot. Depending on the argument, such terms do or do not overlap...

True, but often whether they overlap or not is a definition decision...the person is [explicitly or implicitly] saying, for instance, "For the purposes here, "real" is things that are material."
BUT--whether the terms/states overlap or not, connection/relationship of some kind must still " exist" [ ] to examine, derive, create, discover meaning. IF you use the above defintion of "real" in your conceptualization, you nevertheless MUST interact/engage with, and take seriously/solve/resolve, that which is "not real."
That necessity is, as people have suddenly turned into a cliche in the last decade or so, a feature not a bug. In my view it is not only feature/not bug in thinking/explaining---it is feature/not bug PROBABLY of all kinds of reality---but definitely of all realities with actual and/or potential thinking "beings."

[peter]

I'm like a man blundering by mistake into a post-grad seminar on quantum mechanics who scratches his head wondering why he cannot understand what is being said! As I noted above, Sophie's World never prepared me for this.