10 mind-blowing theories that will change your perception of the world

[Jamaal510]

More: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9qDp9V/:z6CkXXwW:l2@rILfn/www.learning-mind.com/10-mind-blowing-theories-that-will-change-your-perception-of-the-world/

Reality is not as obvious and simple as we like to think. Some of the things that we accept as true at face value are notoriously wrong. Scientists and philosophers have made every effort to change our common perceptions of it. The 10 examples below will show you what I mean.

1. Great glaciation.
Great glaciation is the theory of the final state that our universe is heading toward. The universe has a limited supply of energy. According to this theory, when that energy finally runs out, the universe will devolve into a frozen state. Heat energy produced by the motion of the particles, heat loss, a natural law of the universe, means that eventually this particle motion will slow down and, presumably, one day everything will stop.

[Dash87]

1. The perception ones never make sense to me.

The crux of them is that, if nobody experiences something, it ceases to exist. While it might not exist in our perception, it still does exist. The same is true about the "tree falling in the woods" problem - it still happened - perception is just confused for absolute reality. This is fairly egocentric, imo.

A good comparison would be with video games. Even if you aren't "looking" at something in-game, such as two 'mobs' duking it out, it's still happening in memory (HP is draining, their XYZ locations are moving, a pseudo fight is occuring). Rendering uses memory to present a picture to you. Items are rendered based on their location on the plane (much like how our brain interprets a 3D field of elements). You might completely miss an event occuring right behind you, but memory was processing it the entire time.

Video games are also a terrible example because processing is done around the player experience (eg mobs beyond delta X (distance between mob and player) = 500 (meters) may stop fighting and freeze in time to save computer resources).

Does this make any sense in the least bit? I tend to ramble, and nerdy things like computer science are my passion.

[Sweeney]

2. makes no sense.

Life is all meaning, and if something is happening beyond the veil of our attention it will have as much meaning as it affects our lives or life.

If we die, all meaning dies with us. It is easy to imagine some of the mighty cosmic events happening beyond our consciousness, but do they have meaning? The only meaning they can have is the possibility of some how affecting our existence. So, meaning is life, and life is the meaning of all meanings. And if you die, as you die, meaning dies with you. And even the question of cosmic event, are they real, will have no meaning.

Will see if I can phrase it another way: Life is meaning, which means being is meaning. With our all meaning lives; if we encounter something large, small, loud or soft the question is never so much what it is, but what it means. If it affects our lives little, we may say it has no meaning, but when our own lives end we have in every sense, physically and psychologically lost the sense of meaning, so that both being and meaning have left us.

Then, wait. When the world comes to an end, and darkness settles like snowflakes, one person is left alive, alone. What is his meaning? What is the meaning of all about him? We do not take the actual being of life to look after and share with others. If something we experience has meaning, that meaning we share; and what for the one with no one to share meaning with. Is he not in fact dead too, and without meaning since even meaning is meaningless?

A few years back some flunkfailure of a human shot up a mall and then killed himself. He left a note saying: now I will be famous. No; now you will be dead, and so deprived of meaning. People will remember for a long time the pain you caused, but you are dead and meaningless because you are no threat, and without threat or promise you have no meaning.

Sweeney

[recycled60]

3. 10 mind-numbing theories

worth nothing including the time spent reading them. 5 minutes I'll never get back.

[SheriffBob]

4. all I know is ...

I would not have nothing I could not feel sometime.