I'm always perplexed by how people with mathematical or scientific training (like Weinstein) fail to grasp the "dimension" metaphor.
If I propose that perhaps these "things" operate in a manner which is as incomprehensible to us as our three dimensions of space would be to two dimensional "flatlanders" of the famous story--i.e. *as though* they exist in *something by analogy like* a higher "dimension" than ours, just as ours was to the flatlanders in that story-- the Weinsteinian response seems to be to say "but physicists say there are only 4 dimensions (or 7 other "small" ones in string theory)! Why haven't they discovered these other dimensions if they are there!"... They completely miss the point in a manner that is frankly bizarre and makes me wonder how it is possible these people are socially functional and use language at all if they are that incapable of understanding simple metaphors.
It seems to be a overarching pattern in these "skeptic/atheist" types when it comes to anything to do with metaphysical speculations--they regress to pedantic, "Young Sheldon"-y literalist autism with regard to language, whereas they obviously aren't like that when it comes to other subjects (or else they wouldn't be able to socially function at all).
I recall another conversation I had on here with my previous account with someone who was pretty open minded/"red pilled" to many things, but had some gears still stuck in stilted atheist/skeptic mode with regard to a great deal of The Science". He was a sci-fi fan and I tried to point out to him the inherent limits of rational observation/empiricism by referencing Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun"--where the characters live enclosed on the inside of a giant cylindrical starship, spinning to generate a centripetal pseudo gravity--since they've been on there for generations and forgotten their origins, their physics, despite being "embedded" in a universe like ours, would be different--there'd be a preferred direction, things would get lighter moving against the spin of the cylinder (say East-West) while they'd be heavier moving with it (West-East), they'd have no means at all of ever discerning an isotropic, homogenous gravity like Newtons--even though their world was entirely compatible with it, as a special case. Nor could they ever know there was an "outside", their entire world would be the cylinder and any cosmology they developed by scientific methods would have to assume the entire universe was such a cylinder too.
Of course, the point I was trying to make was that no matter how much we feel we have worked things out, we don't know that we aren't embedded in something much deeper which in fact thoroughly contradicts our worldview. And no matter how "successful" our physics are, we have no way of knowing that we aren't just further elaborating a limited, special situation while we are in fact wandering further and further from the general truth.
To my amazement, the guy's response (who was otherwise highly intelligent and articulate) was just "yeah... but we're not on a spaceship like them though"... still boggles my mind.
I'm always perplexed by how people with mathematical or scientific training (like Weinstein) fail to grasp the "dimension" metaphor.
If I propose that perhaps these "things" operate in a manner which is as incomprehensible to us as our three dimensions of space would be to two dimensional "flatlanders" of the famous story--i.e. *as though* they exist in *something by analogy like* a higher "dimension" than ours, just as ours was to the flatlanders in that story-- the Weinsteinian response seems to be to say "but physicists say there are only 4 dimensions (or 7 other "small" ones in string theory)! Why haven't they discovered these other dimensions if they are there!"... They completely miss the point in a manner that is frankly bizarre and makes me wonder how it is possible these people are socially functional and use language at all if they are that incapable of understanding simple metaphors.
It seems to be a overarching pattern in these "skeptic/atheist" types when it comes to anything to do with metaphysical speculations--they regress to pedantic, "Young Sheldon"-y literalist autism with regard to language, whereas they obviously aren't like that when it comes to other subjects (or else they wouldn't be able to socially function at all).
I recall another conversation I had on here with my previous account with someone who was pretty open minded/"red pilled" to many things, but had some gears still stuck in stilted atheist/skeptic mode with regard to a great deal of The Science". He was a sci-fi fan and I tried to point out to him the inherent limits of rational observation/empiricism by referencing Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun"--where the characters live enclosed on the inside of a giant cylindrical starship, spinning to generate a centripetal pseudo gravity--since they've been on there for generations and forgotten their origins, their physics, despite being "embedded" in a universe like ours, would be different--there'd be a preferred direction, things would get lighter moving against the spin of the cylinder (say East-West) while they'd be heavier moving with it (West-East), they'd have no means at all of ever discerning an isotropic, homogenous gravity like Newtons--even though their world was entirely compatible with it, as a special case. Nor could they ever know there was an "outside", their entire world would be the cylinder and any cosmology they developed by scientific methods would have to assume the entire universe was such a cylinder too.
Of course, the point I was trying to make was that no matter how much we feel we have worked things out, we don't know that we aren't embedded in something much deeper which in fact thoroughly contradicts our worldview. And no matter how "successful" our physics are, we have no way of knowing that we aren't just further elaborating a limited, special situation while we are in fact wandering further and further from the general truth.
To my amazement, the guy's response (who was otherwise highly intelligent and articulate) was just "yeah... but we're not on a spaceship like them though"... still boggles my mind.
I'm always perplexed by how people with mathematical or scientific training (like Weinstein) fail to grasp the "dimension" metaphor.
If I propose that perhaps these "things" operate in a manner which is as incomprehensible to us as our three dimensions of space would be to two dimensional "flatlanders" of the famous story--i.e. *as though* they exist in *something by analogy like* a higher "dimension" than ours, just as ours was to the flatlanders in that story-- the Weinsteinian response seems to be to say "but physicists say there are only 4 dimensions (or 7 other "small" ones in string theory)! Why haven't they discovered these other dimensions if they are there!"... They completely miss the point in a manner that is frankly bizarre and makes me wonder how it is possible these people are socially functional and use language at all if they are that incapable of understanding simple metaphors.
It seems to be a overarching pattern in these "skeptic/atheist" types when it comes to anything to do with metaphysical speculations--they regress to pedantic, "Young Sheldon"-y literalist autism with regard to language, whereas they obviously aren't like that when it comes to other subjects (or else they wouldn't be able to socially function at all).
I recall another conversation I had on here with my previous account with someone who was pretty open minded/"red pilled" to many things, but had some gears still stuck in stilted atheist/skeptic mode with regard to a great deal of The Science". He was a sci-fi fan and I tried to point out to him the inherent limits of rational observation/empiricism by referencing Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun"--where the characters live enclosed on the inside of a giant cylindrical starship, spinning to generate a centripetal pseudo gravity--since they've been on there for generations and forgotten their origins, their physics, despite being "embedded" in a universe like ours, would be different--there'd be a preferred direction, things would get lighter moving against the spin of the cylinder (say East-West) while they'd be heavier moving with it (West-East), they'd have no means at all of ever discerning an isotropic, homogenous gravity like Newtons--even though their world was entirely compatible with it, as a special case. Nor could they ever know there was an "outside", their entire world would be the cylinder and any cosmology they developed by scientific methods would have to assume the entire universe was such a cylinder too.
Of course, the point I was trying to make was that no matter how much we feel we have worked things out, we don't know that we aren't embedded in something much deeper which in fact thoroughly contradicts our worldview. And no matter how "successful" our physics are, we have no way of knowing that we aren't just further elaborating a limited, special situation while we are in fact wandering further and further from the general truth.
To my amazement, the guy's response (who was otherwise highly intelligent and articulate) was just "yeah... but we're not on a spaceship like them though"... still boggles my mind.
I'm always perplexed by how people with mathematical or scientific training (like Weinstein) fail to grasp the "dimension" metaphor.
If I propose that perhaps these "things" operate in a manner which is as incomprehensible to us as our three dimensions of space would be to two dimensional "flatlanders" of the famous story--i.e. *as though* they exist in *something by analogy like* a higher "dimension" than ours, just as ours was to the flatlanders in that story-- the Weinsteinian response seems to be to say "but physicists say there are only 4 dimensions (or 7 other "small" ones in string theory)! Why haven't they discovered these other dimensions if they are there!"... They completely miss the point in a manner that is frankly bizarre and makes me wonder how it is possible these people are socially functional and use language at all if they are that incapable of understanding simple metaphors.
It seems to be a overarching pattern in these "skeptic/atheist" types when it comes to anything to do with metaphysical speculations--they regress to pedantic, "Young Sheldon"-y literalist autism with regard to language, whereas they obviously aren't like that when it comes to other subjects (or else they wouldn't be able to socially function at all).
I recall another conversation I had on here with my previous account with someone who was pretty open minded/"red pilled" to many things, but had some gears still stuck in stilted atheist/skeptic mode with regard to a great deal of The Science". He was a sci-fi fan and I tried to point out to him the inherent limits of rational observation/empiricism by referencing Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun"--where the characters live enclosed on the inside of a giant cylindrical starship, spinning to generate a centripetal pseudo gravity--since they've been on there for generations and forgotten their origins, their physics, despite being "embedded" in a universe like ours, would be different--there'd be a preferred direction, things would get lighter moving against the spin of the cylinder (say East-West) while they'd be heavier moving with it (West-East), they'd have no means at all of ever discerning an isotropic, homogenous gravity like Newtons--even though their world was entirely compatible with it, as a special case. Nor could they ever know there was an "outside", their entire world would be the cylinder and any cosmology they developed by scientific methods would have to assume the entire universe was such a cylinder too.
Of course, the point I was trying to make was that no matter how much we feel we have worked things out, we don't know that we aren't embedded in something much deeper which in fact thoroughly contradicts our worldview. And no matter how "successful" our physics are, we have no way of knowing that we aren't just further elaborating a limited, special situation while we are in fact wandering further and further from the general truth.
To my amazement, the guy's response (who was otherwise highly intelligent and articulate) was just "yeah... but we're not on a spaceship like them though"... still boggles my mind.