Philosophy Now Forum

Silence ?

Because it is normal for life to be rather loud, the jungle sounds, the birds singing, the celestial music of the planets moving, the wind, the bees, the storm, ....

Humans and apes like to sing if they don´t speak, or to moan or to express their emotions and feelings in an audible way.

duszek wrote:Silence ?

Because it is normal for life to be rather loud, the jungle sounds, the birds singing, the celestial music of the planets moving, the wind, the bees, the storm, ....

Humans and apes like to sing if they don´t speak, or to moan or to express their emotions and feelings in an audible way.

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? ...answer is No.....all sound heard is dependant upon the instrument of hearing without which there is no sound.

And just as an actual drum does not hear it's own drumbeat..All sound is an audible illusion arising from silence. No ear ever heard a sound, the sound and the instrument of sound are one unitary action, arising in the exact same moment inseparable.

No coherent sound would be possible without the silence between each sound. No silence, no sound. No sound, just silence.
Just as no object could be defined without the space between each object. No space, no object. No object, just space.

Space and silence are synonymous to the Awareness of both silence and space.

That which is aware of sound is silence. Silence is another word for Awareness inseparable from the sound.

Objects come and go in space. Space does not come and go in objects. Objects are illusory appearances in space.

Sound comes and goes in silence. Silence does not come and go in sound. Sound therefore is an auditory illusory appearance in silent space.

Words too are auditory illusions of sound appearing in silence or space... synonymous to awareness.

Reality is nothing more than an illusory sound and light show...appearing on the screen of awareness.

Awareness is pure silent emptiness in which everything appears and disappears. It is empty and full at the same time.

A forest is full of living creatures so they will hear the tree fall and they will run away too if they can.

Stephen Hawking:

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”

So thought is not all bad, eh?

The thread premise seems to be a rework of the knowledge argument. From Wiki:

The thought experiment was originally proposed by Frank Jackson as follows:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on.

She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

In other words, Jackson's Mary is a scientist who knows everything there is to know about the science of color, but has never experienced color. The question that Jackson raises is: once she experiences color, does she learn anything new? Jackson claims that she does.

In other words, some of "the truth" (such that it is, or isn't) is gained via thought while some is found by experience. This is something that every person who ever learned a skill is aware of - theory and practice - with both theoretical and kinaesthetic learning being necessary for well-rounded capabilities. Mind and body. Commonsense.

Then again, the Basketball Free Throw Experiment shows that, via imagination, thought itself can generate qualia and it can even effect physical changes. Stephen Hawking, again, is worth quoting in context:

“Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.”

In other words, he conducts physics thought experiments, projecting himself mentally from the confines of his uncooperative body and out into the exotic regions of space that he studies.

So the capacity for abstract thought is a gift. However, like everything that's fun in life, thought can be overused to the point of nausea.

Greta wrote:Stephen Hawking:

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”

Greta wrote:So thought is not all bad, eh?

Mankind's greatest achievements are not only destroying themselves but also what nature voicelessly achieved.

There is no room in life for two. Life cannot serve two masters.

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that doesn't want to be heard.

Or even understood...unless one is quiet, and listens. Life listens, it does not speak.

Dontaskme wrote:Mankind's greatest achievements are not only destroying themselves but also what nature voicelessly achieved.

There is no room in life for two. Life cannot serve two masters.

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that doesn't want to be heard.

Why doesn't the truth want to be heard? Lacking in confidence?

Actually, humans are part of the Earth's systems and are clearly currently acting as agents of change, just as the blue-green algae did about 2.5 billion years ago. It was called the Great Oxygenation Event in which the algae managed to render extinct almost every other living thing by releasing copious amounts of oxygen - a toxin to most life at the time. From that decimation came all the life we see today.

So we humans are also agents of change. Changing into what? As things stand, the biosphere is getting old. In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible, and very likely long before that - not due to humans but the Sun's heating and expansion. What if the biosphere just died as the Earth became too hot, never having a chance to spread to other worlds? Humans are the biosphere's most realistic chance at re-seeding elsewhere (panspermia via meteors is a huge longshot).

I see the advent of humanity on the Earth as most likely akin to an ageing plant putting everything into a final flowering, a final attempt at reproduction. While this is no comfort for the human and other victims of this radical reorganisation of life on Earth, as anyone who's been made redundant at work can testify, restructuring is never a pretty process.

Greta wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:Mankind's greatest achievements are not only destroying themselves but also what nature voicelessly achieved.

There is no room in life for two. Life cannot serve two masters.

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that doesn't want to be heard.

Why doesn't the truth want to be heard? Lacking in confidence?

Actually, humans are part of the Earth's systems and are clearly currently acting as agents of change, just as the blue-green algae did about 2.5 billion years ago. It was called the Great Oxygenation Event in which the algae managed to render extinct almost every other living thing by releasing copious amounts of oxygen - a toxin to most life at the time. From that decimation came all the life we see today.

So we humans are also agents of change. Changing into what? As things stand, the biosphere is getting old. In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible, and very likely long before that - not due to humans but the Sun's heating and expansion. What if the biosphere just died as the Earth became too hot, never having a chance to spread to other worlds? Humans are the biosphere's most realistic chance at re-seeding elsewhere (panspermia via meteors is a huge longshot).

I see the advent of humanity on the Earth as most likely akin to an ageing plant putting everything into a final flowering, a final attempt at reproduction. While this is no comfort for the human and other victims of this radical reorganisation of life on Earth, as anyone who's been made redundant at work can testify, restructuring is never a pretty process.

I don't believe in fairy stories anymore. There is an alternative to being lost in thought, or lost in the dream. That's what this one ''me'' is choosing right now...and is what the op is pointing to.

The truth I'm talking about is that there is nothing here other than the fictional story of life talking to itself. You can play the character or not, it's up to you. I'm taking a rest at the moment, maybe I'll play along in my next life story, who knows.

Greta wrote:
Actually, humans are part of the Earth's systems and are clearly currently acting as agents of change, just as the blue-green algae did about 2.5 billion years ago. It was called the Great Oxygenation Event in which the algae managed to render extinct almost every other living thing by releasing copious amounts of oxygen - a toxin to most life at the time. From that decimation came all the life we see today.

So we humans are also agents of change. Changing into what? As things stand, the biosphere is getting old. In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible, and very likely long before that - not due to humans but the Sun's heating and expansion. What if the biosphere just died as the Earth became too hot, never having a chance to spread to other worlds? Humans are the biosphere's most realistic chance at re-seeding elsewhere (panspermia via meteors is a huge longshot).

What a lovely story.

At the end of the day there is no human to re-seed itself elsewhere . There is however life living itself everywhere and when a life form what ever shape or form it takes whether it be a planet or a whole universe, it will die like everything else dies, and will do so when it's life span is up...and every parasite feeding off the host will die along side it. Thinking humans can live outside the earths biosphere is like thinking a cat can leave planet earth and colonise another planet.

Dontaskme wrote:

Greta wrote:
Actually, humans are part of the Earth's systems and are clearly currently acting as agents of change, just as the blue-green algae did about 2.5 billion years ago. It was called the Great Oxygenation Event in which the algae managed to render extinct almost every other living thing by releasing copious amounts of oxygen - a toxin to most life at the time. From that decimation came all the life we see today.

So we humans are also agents of change. Changing into what? As things stand, the biosphere is getting old. In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible, and very likely long before that - not due to humans but the Sun's heating and expansion. What if the biosphere just died as the Earth became too hot, never having a chance to spread to other worlds? Humans are the biosphere's most realistic chance at re-seeding elsewhere (panspermia via meteors is a huge longshot).

At the end of the day there is no human to re-seed itself elsewhere.

There is however life living itself everywhere and when a life form what ever shape or form it takes whether it be a planet or a whole universe, it will die like everything else dies, and will do so when it's life span is up...and every parasite feeding off the host will die along side it. Thinking humans can live outside the earths biosphere is like thinking a cat can leave planet earth and colonise another planet.

I originally wrote a long response, explaining some of the probabilities and possibilities but decided you have no hope of understanding. I am yet to see anyone here able to cut through your desperately anthropocentric new age idealism. Based on your reply your thinking is extremely short-term and clearly based on the assumption that nothing much changes.

Good luck with your negative outlook. You'll need it.

Greta wrote:

Good luck with your negative outlook. You'll need it.

And why would I heed the advice of someone who talks about what's probably and possibly going to happen to earth... ''In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible''

And just how do you know what's going to happen in a billions years?...and are you going to be remembered for this historic statement after your life span is over? is anyone going to say hey that greta person ooh she was right you know, earth has become impossible a billion years on.

Did you read that information in some nature magazine or a scientific text book?

I don't even know what relevance this has in relation to the topic thread. I'm talking about truth here now...not in a billion years time. But then you had to go off on your intellectual rant about biospheres and whatnot....and I'm supposed to understand you. What the heck are you talking about, and are you sure you know yourself.. or do you just repeat what other people... dead or alive are saying?

Sorry if I appear too simple minded for you to understand.

Greta wrote:Based on your reply your thinking is extremely short-term and clearly based on the assumption that nothing much changes.

There is the appearance of change, but that which appears to change never changes. And that in which change appears to not change is unchanging as well.

Dontaskme wrote:And why would I heed the advice of someone who talks about what's probably and possibly going to happen to earth... ''In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible''

And just how do you know what's going to happen in a billions years?

Are you aware that the Sun is a main sequence star, and what happens to main sequence stars as they age?

Greta wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:And why would I heed the advice of someone who talks about what's probably and possibly going to happen to earth... ''In a billion years life on Earth will be impossible''

And just how do you know what's going to happen in a billions years?

Are you aware that the Sun is a main sequence star, and what happens to main sequence stars as they age?

No, I've never been up close and personal with a sun. But I have seen what happens when a human body ages.

Then you said..'' What if the biosphere just died as the Earth became too hot, never having a chance to spread to other worlds? Humans are the biosphere's most realistic chance at re-seeding elsewhere ''

Is the sun different than a human body... things die eventually, some quicker than others. How can that which is inseparable from it's own biosphere want to consider re-seeding itself elsewhere. For a human to spread it's seed to another world it would have to make sure that world has got a compatible biosphere, so I'm not sure how that's going to work....making it's own biosphere from scratch now that would be quite an achievement.

The only achievement humans are capable of is inventing technology disabling them selves in the process while their machines take over the shop, making them redundant...and fat until they die of boredom... and they call that progress.

Then when they get bored with the technology they've invented, they invent something else, until the human can no longer think for it self...amazing achievement...just wow!

I'm now going to ask the knowledge app on my phone... hello hal, how old is the universe? ... phone replies, just scanning for an answer.... it's looking in it's archive of stored illusory made-up knowledge for an answer, it's doesn't actually know anything except what's been programmed into it by some thing that thinks it's got a real handle on reality.

Dontaskme wrote:The only achievement humans are capable of is inventing technology disabling them selves in the process while their machines take over the shop, making them redundant...and fat until they die of boredom... and they call that progress.

And this thought bothers you? Don't you find it fascinating? Is any of it serious or real?

Lacewing wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:The only achievement humans are capable of is inventing technology disabling them selves in the process while their machines take over the shop, making them redundant...and fat until they die of boredom... and they call that progress.

And this thought bothers you? Don't you find it fascinating? Is any of it serious or real?

I'm just reporting my surround.

Dontaskme wrote:I'm just reporting my surround.

Do you think that reflects an ultimate truth for more than just yourself at this moment?