Everything you know is wrong!

Ahnimus

Has anyone heard the Weird Al song Everything You Know Is Wrong?

Here is a sample:
I was driving on the freeway in the fast lane
With a rabid wolverine in my underwear
When suddenly a guy behind me in the back seat
Popped right up and cupped his hands across my eyes

I guessed, "Is it Uncle Frank or Cousin Louie?"
"Is it Bob or Joe or Walter?"
"Could it be Bill or Jim or Ed or Bernie or Steve?"
I probably would have kept on guessing
But about that time we crashed into the truck

And as I'm laying bleeding there on the asphalt
Finally I recognize the face of my hibachi dealer
Who takes off his prosthetic lips and tells me

Everything you know is wrong
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you thought was just so
Important doesn't matter
Complete Lyrics

I actually named it that way, because that's kind of the skeptic line of thought. Anything known could possibly be wrong, it ultimately leads to serious questioning and disbelief of supernatural theories. Many things have so much supporting them that it actually goes beyond skepticism. However, I'm fully open to the idea that there is a multiverse or parallel dimensions.

So, the problem I have really, truly, with this theory, is almost too obvious. Maybe I'm not thinking deeply enough about this, but... Let's say other dimensions do exist, and let's also say that colored orbs open up portals to these dimensions. Wouldn't it be a well-known natural phenomena by now? We have millions of years behind us, surely something like this would be well documented and studied. Unless the portals are being manually opened by another intelligent species. Is that species that is more advanced than us really Bigfoot? I can't compute this, my processes are blocked, I got so many threads, I just don't have the resources for this. I give this a priority one, but it locks me up.

Byrnzie

Ahnimus wrote:

Sorry typo!

Main Entry: prob·a·bi·lis·tic
Pronunciation: "prä-b&-b&-'lis-tik
Function: adjective
1 : of or relating to probabilism
2 : of, relating to, or based on probability
- prob·a·bi·lis·ti·cal·ly adverb

I use it so as not to sound definite, cause you know that can always be taken the wrong way. Though I suppose someone will say "You aren't too sure then are you." It's actually meant to be kind of a jab at the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. I like the word by it's self though

You've got way too much time on your hands young man!

OutOfBreath

Ahnimus wrote:

So, the problem I have really, truly, with this theory, is almost too obvious. Maybe I'm not thinking deeply enough about this, but... Let's say other dimensions do exist, and let's also say that colored orbs open up portals to these dimensions. Wouldn't it be a well-known natural phenomena by now? We have millions of years behind us, surely something like this would be well documented and studied. Unless the portals are being manually opened by another intelligent species. Is that species that is more advanced than us really Bigfoot? I can't compute this, my processes are blocked, I got so many threads, I just don't have the resources for this. I give this a priority one, but it locks me up.

You are dismissing multiverse theories because of this one guy who uses them for justifications for wild theories of his own? Anyway, even if these things he refers to did happen, are you aware how little about our world even only a milennia back that can be documented? How little of our world today we can document, even though we work our asses off at it? But I'm not defending this guy's peculiar theories, then I could just go back to reading Erich von Däniken again.

Using this speculative stuff to slander multiverse theories is a stretch if that was your point. And if it was meant to slander faith, well, it doesnt do much of a job there either. Reading it as is without any intent, just makes me shrug really. Unsubstantiated and hard to prove statements from this one guy I dont know who are, although he's pushing a book, which makes me suspicious. Maybe he's honest and sincere, maybe he isn't. Wouldn't use it as basis for my worldview though.

Peace
Dan

Byrnzie

OutOfBreath wrote:

You are dismissing multiverse theories because of this one guy who uses them for justifications for wild theories of his own? Anyway, even if these things he refers to did happen, are you aware how little about our world even only a milennia back that can be documented? How little of our world today we can document, even though we work our asses off at it? But I'm not defending this guy's peculiar theories, then I could just go back to reading Erich von Däniken again.

Using this speculative stuff to slander multiverse theories is a stretch if that was your point. And if it was meant to slander faith, well, it doesnt do much of a job there either. Reading it as is without any intent, just makes me shrug really. Unsubstantiated and hard to prove statements from this one guy I dont know who are, although he's pushing a book, which makes me suspicious. Maybe he's honest and sincere, maybe he isn't. Wouldn't use it as basis for my worldview though.

Peace
Dan

Nice signature quotes dude.

OutOfBreath

Byrnzie wrote:

Nice signature quotes dude.

Thanks. They are meant to convey, respectively, how different perspectives give different meaning, my scepticism towards the belief in neverending linear (technological) progress and finally my scepticism towards absolutist claims of knowledge.

Peace
Dan

Byrnzie

OutOfBreath wrote:

Thanks. They are meant to convey, respectively, how different perspectives give different meaning, my scepticism towards the belief in neverending linear (technological) progress and finally my scepticism towards absolutist claims of knowledge.

Peace
Dan

You'd probably appreciate Theodor Adorno's 'Negative Dialectics'. Although I warn you, it's not an easy read.

OutOfBreath

Byrnzie wrote:

You'd probably appreciate Theodor Adorno's 'Negative Dialectics'. Although I warn you, it's not an easy read.

I have tried to read Adorno, but apart from a few essays, it gets too dense for me. Also he is often too much about music, where I really fall off. But I have had about the frankfurters and "the dialectic of the enlightenment" in school.

If that book isn't too heavy on the music-side of things, I might check it out. But it is a common problem that the writers with the really interesting ideas write in an incredibly dense and hard language. This also goes for Habermas and Bourdieu.

Peace
Dan

Byrnzie

OutOfBreath wrote:

I have tried to read Adorno, but apart from a few essays, it gets too dense for me. Also he is often too much about music, where I really fall off. But I have had about the frankfurters and "the dialectic of the enlightenment" in school.

If that book isn't too heavy on the music-side of things, I might check it out. But it is a common problem that the writers with the really interesting ideas write in an incredibly dense and hard language. This also goes for Habermas and Bourdieu.

Peace
Dan

He wrote it as a response to Hannah Arendt's collection of essays 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil', and as a polemic against idealism, or the belief in the possiblility of absolute 'truth', such as the Nazi's 'truth', the Communists 'truth', or of the Christian 'truth'. He sees any and all idealism's as dangerous. It's an impossible read but the philosophy behind it is interesting.

ClimberInOz

Commy wrote:

Maynard James Keenan.

no, atheism is pretty unoriginal though, a form of nihilism. If its easier to believe in nothing that's fine...

I know there is more to this world than what is commonly perceived.

Atheism would indeed be pretty unoriginal if it was 'believing in nothing'... Of course, most atheists can tell you about the numerous things they do believe in, not least of which is the truly remarkable and somewhat confusing state of existence.

We (atheists) just remain unconvinced of the merits of attempting to explain it all by calling upon some form higher power.

soulsinging

trappedinmyradio wrote:

that is pretty interesting...is the school private or public?

public school in california.

VINNY GOOMBA

Marble Madness!!!

genie

gossardstradlin wrote:

How about this one to rattle your brain?

From the great philosopher,

"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know." -Donald Rumsfeld

Very educational from now on i must live by this theory

Ahnimus

genie wrote:

Very educational from now on i must live by this theory

Rumsfeld is an idiot. Copernicus said it way better "To know that we know what we know and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

genie

Ahnimus wrote:

Rumsfeld is an idiot. Copernicus said it way better "To know that we know what we know and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

thank you,
right now my brain is giving off such a rattle i'm afraid i'll be attracting a lot of snakes pretty soon

gossardstradlin

genie wrote:

thank you,
right now my brain is giving off such a rattle i'm afraid i'll be attracting a lot of snakes pretty soon

He's no Rummy but didn't that other great philosopher Socrates say,

"I am wise because I know nothing." Maybe not directly...

Ahnimus

I like this one:

If at first you don't succeed, destroy the evidence that you tried.