We can communicate with animals. We're a kind of animal ourselves. — EugeneW

Not at all. Language is a very complex matter. We can communicate but probably we cannot understand them. That's the issue

Not at all. Language is a very complex matter. We can communicate but probably we cannot understand them. That's the issue — javi2541997

I understand my dog. She can even act! She was jealous when I paid attention to another dog. She acted as if her back leg was hurting suddenly. I understood.

Well, call the Nobel committee asap. :clap: :sparkle:

I did...

I think you are misunderstanding stimulus with language. She is acting with pure primary interests. It is so complex for her to analyze what is the meaning of "being jealous"

She doesn't analyze it. She just is.

Our previous dog even waited with dying... when we placed our hands on her chest, I could feel her heart stop.

She doesn't analyze it. She just is. — EugeneW

I'm with you on this. Wittgenstein said that if a lion could talk we would not understand him. I disagree. If the lion said "I'm hungry and you look good to eat", I would get the idea.

When the cat scratches at the cupboard door it's because she believes her food is in there. To think she doesn't have beliefs because she doesn't have language I would have to have a pre-existing theory about beliefs that would stop me thinking that. But why should I?

[What has that got to do with the start of everything? I just saw the thread title]

But it is more complex than it. We just give it a significance. Our dogs act and interact with us but there is a gap between what we think and what they feel. This is why we have to train and educate our dogs. To try to behave "correctly" according to our circumstances.

When the cat scratches at the cupboard door it's because she believes her food is in there. To think she doesn't have beliefs because she doesn't have language I would have to have a pre-existing theory about beliefs that would stop me thinking that. But why should I? — Cuthbert

Exactly. In a loose sense. If our dog jumps me and heads to where her leash hangs I understand what she tells me. Right now she makes a kind of weeping sound in fact. Wants my attention. I look at her, she looks back with asking eyes. How difficult can it be?

Just don't say any word beginning with the letter 'w' until you are ready to leave.

But it is more complex than it. We just give it a significance. Our dogs act and interact with us but there is a gap between what we think and what they feel. This is why we have to train and educate our dogs. — javi2541997

She just has to learn not to pee in our bed. Damn her!

Just don't say any word beginning with the letter 'w' until you are ready to leave. — Cuthbert

Ha! What we want?.... Oops...

Oddly enough, the issue was discussed from the opposite angle in another thread about 'hinge propositions'. There is a view that 'hinge propositions' are part of our 'animal' nature, an almost pre-verbal behavioural response rather underlies our core beliefs.

"Of course, their being ineffable does not prevent our hinges from showing themselves in what we say, but here too, certainty is animal. My hinge certainty that 'I have a body' is much the same as a lion's instinctive certainty of having a body."
— Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, p8

https://www.academia.edu/25773618/The_Animal_in_Epistemology_Wittgensteins_Enactivist_Solution_to_the_Problem_of_Regress


https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/652559

Sorry, still off-topic.

It needs no evidential justification that my dog understands "are we going for a walk?" (In my native language). If I say so, her head rotates a bit. She knows what I mean. She understands the words. She reacts. Stands up nervously, comes to lick my face. Other words don't have that effect. No matter how I say them. That's the evidence, if one likes evidence.

Let's say we discovered the true origin story of our Universe. What would a lifeform like us do with that information? Try to replicate the process? Is that what our Universe is, an attempt to replicate the origin process discovered by lifeforms in another Universe? and on it goes. I am not sure that the origin process matters as much as what each of us decides to do with our life.

I try to consider the Universe before any lifeform that was capable of asking a question, existed.
This was the state for the vast majority of the proposed 14 billion years of time passed so far.
To me, it's a little like sleeping or being knocked unconscious or being in a coma etc. If I don't dream, then I become unaware of the passage of time. This stoppage of time is of course only relative to my conscience. So under my personal reference frame, the Universe came into existence when I was born and will end when I die, perhaps for me, that's where the significance of this Universe does and should begin and end. Personal oblivion before and after my life is nothing to fear.

I see the proposed 14 billion years of the Universe as a 'Universal time frame,' not a relative time frame.
It's 'the past' of the Universe. We can only experience the 'reality' of the sun as it was minutes ago, not as it is 'now.' To experience it, as it is now, we have to 'remove the distance between us,' physically. It's the same with people. We communicate on this website and this simulate's the removal of distance and allows us to know each other a little more but not as much as if we interacted in person, face to face, no distance between us, on a regular basis.

I don't think the suggestion that until 'thinking' life arrived, the Universe was in 'sleep mode,' but still mechanistically changed, is a deeply meaningful analogy but I do think there is some value in it.
I am content to say, for sure, since it began, the Universe demonstrates an ability to change over time.
The main driver is vast (probably not infinite) variety in vast numbers of combinations.
I am currently more attracted to the pan/cosmopsychist explanation of the 'fine tuning' problem than I am to the multiverse/Mtheory solution. As an atheist, I have no interest in the god fable.
I am attracted to Phillip Goff's 'cosmopsychism.' I like his description of:

"If we combine holism with panpsychism, we get cosmopsychism: the view that the Universe is conscious, and that the consciousness of humans and animals is derived not from the consciousness of fundamental particles, but from the consciousness of the Universe itself. This is the view I ultimately defend in my book Consciousness and Fundamental Reality."

If you want to, you can read his 11 page essay at:
https://aeon.co/essays/cosmopsychism-explains-why-the-universe-is-fine-tuned-for-life

When the panpsychists describe the consciousness of the Universe itself., they suggest that consciousness is made up of non-sentient quanta. We only become self-aware due to 'combination of particular quanta.'
I think that natural 'change' in the universe is trying to achieve, self-awareness through the thoughts of lifeforms such as us by means of asking and answering questions. Why this is true is another question that needs an answer. How this all started (origin process of our Universe) is also another question to be answered.

That's good enough for me, for now. It allows me to be happy in my life and not be something more difficult to live with such as pessimism or antinatalism etc. That would make me unhappy.
Sounds very simplistic but perhaps simplicity and parsimony is the way to go

I partially agree. I think the 14 billion years are one in many. I think that solves the problem of a beginning. There is no beginning, only beginnings following each other up. If all is dead and gone here (no pessimism intended here, I keep that for the foreseeable future), the universe reacts back to the source, from which a new time comes into being. Will we all meet again then? Who knows. I agree with all being endowed with consciousness. But not the universe as a whole trying to understand itself. It's us trying to understand. Are we just faces of the universe? A universal hydra? Well, I'm sure if my head is chopped off it won't grow back. Other heads pop up continuously though, but all with their own bodies. I don't think we can create a new universe. Why should we? Is the reason to life generating new life? And the reason for that new life to spring new life again? If so, then what for? To live? Why? To live! That's the meaning/reason to live. Life itself. Some people though fuck the planet up. What a mess... But what can we do?

Oh! Forgot one thing... Of course all is created by gods. There is no physical theory that is self explanatory. The finetuning problem doesn't exist in an eternal universe in which only massless partìcles interact with fixed couplings. No hierarchy problem. Gravity is weak because of a relative (to us) high speed of light.

nly a finger pointing at the CMB by which we interpretat — 180 Proof

What's a CMB?

(Nothing against you, personally, but it irks me to no end when people are too lazy to type out three words, and they assume I will understand their abbreviations, while there is total communication breakdown due to not my fault, but due to their 1. laziness and 2. assumption that everyone knows what they know. And they make me fucking work by needing to type much more than three words to get their message over to me again, and to properly express my dismay about the related events their lack of consideration causes.)

Good points. Your text is interesting. I simply want to add that we could see the Universe just as something "static". I still defend that all those characteristics are imposed by humans because we like to improve our knowledge. This is why we study de cosmology or astrology. A normal human with a minimum interest for life would at least read or study a bit related to what is going on out there.
Nevertheless, I still defend (quite pessimistic I guess) that universe is like a huge empty living room that we full it with our knowledge. But imagine humans never existed at all. Well, the Universe would not care because it would be still there.
Thus, we are the ones just walking through

Cosmic microwave background rats

Thanks, EU.

I think the 14 billion years are one in many. I think that solves the problem of a beginning. There is no beginning, only beginnings following each other up. If all is dead and gone here (no pessimism intended here, I keep that for the foreseeable future), the universe reacts back to the source, from which a new time comes into being. — EugeneW

So do you favour the oscillating Universe theory or Roger Penrose and his dissipating Universe and the creation of a new Universe within a new epoch of time?

But not the universe as a whole trying to understand itself. It's us trying to understand. — EugeneW

But we are components of the Universe, are we not?

I don't think we can create a new universe. Why should we? — EugeneW

Not yet no but nature suggests that for the sake of continued survival, it is wise to reproduce.

What a mess... But what can we do? — EugeneW

What many of us continue to try to do. What people in history have tried to do. Learn from our mistakes and do better next time. Maybe this clash with Russia will be the last of its kind if we survive it or perhaps there is another one to come with China. Maybe after that such craziness will become forever smaller and local.

Good points. Your text is interesting. I simply want to add that we could see the Universe just as something "static". — javi2541997

Hello, first time I have chatted directly with you I think. A pleasure to chat with you.
Can you explain your 'The Universe just as something static' when it has demonstrated change from the moment of its origin?

I still defend that all those characteristics are imposed by humans because we like to improve our knowledge. — javi2541997

I think the anthropocentric tendency of human thought is a valid criticism but recognition of that tendency makes us take account of it when we postulate.

This is why we study de cosmology or astrology. A normal human with a minimum interest for life would at least read or study a bit related to what is going on out there. — javi2541997

Yes I agree but education will for most people, normally result in quick rejection of nonsense such as astrology.

Nevertheless, I still defend (quite pessimistic I guess) that universe is like a huge empty living room that we full it with our knowledge — javi2541997

I don't think this is pessimistic, the universe is physically vast and if we are the only creatures capable of 'complex thinking' then it really is pretty empty of 'meaning'. What a wonder, how incredibly exciting is it to think that we and we alone give meaning and significance to something so vast. To do this by just existing and thinking and being a part of the universe gives me an overwhelming feeling of wonder. Much more so than any story of god and paradise ever has or could.

But imagine humans never existed at all. Well, the Universe would not care because it would be still there.
Thus, we are the ones just walking through — javi2541997

But the Universe may have no capacity to care, except through us. The animals might care a little and thus imbue the Universe with a little ability to care. Maybe the dinosaurs offered the same but we are a lot better at it and we can act upon such in ways that the dino's and the current animals cannot. We can do science. Enough to leave this planetary nest perhaps and ask a lot of new questions and discover new answers about the Universe.

So do you favour the oscillating Universe theory or Roger Penrose and his dissipating Universe and the creation of a new Universe within a new epoch of time? — universeness

Well, not exactly oscillatory in the sense of a big bañg-bang-big-crunch, etc. More like big-bang-big-rip kinda thing. If our universe has accelerated towards oblivion, it could be a sign for the singularity at the "origin" (of a 4d space) to start a new blast from virtuality (virtual particles). This new 3d blast can expand after us on the higher dimensional space it's in.

But we are components of the Universe, are we not? — universeness

I might hope so! But is there truly a greater whole? A cosmic Hydra?

Not yet no but nature suggests that for the sake of continued survival, it is wise to reproduce — universeness

Smolin says this happens inside black holes. Im sure you've heard that. But why should we if it all starts again after us? In a hunderd thousand trillion years after us? And if we could, you would have to pass a wormhole. If a wormhole comes to be in the first place (we'd be fucked...)

Maybe this clash with Russia will be the last of its kind if we survive it or perhaps there is another one to come with China. Maybe after that such craziness will become forever smaller and local. — universeness

Yeah. Let's hope (or pray, but I don't think that'll work) they won't nuke the fridge... Modern warfare ain't funny anymore.

Can you explain your 'The Universe just as something static' when it has demonstrated change from the moment of its origin? — universeness

I meant to the static meaning from a philosophical point of view. Probably I didn't choose the correct world. I was thinking about the universe as something rigid which stays there, doesn't caring or wondering about Earth's existence.

how incredibly exciting is it to think that we and we alone give meaning and significance to something so vast. To do this by just existing and thinking and being a part of the universe gives me an overwhelming feeling of wonder. — universeness

I am agree. I want to share with you this paper: The Dark Forest Postulates and the Fermi Paradox. I guess you would like it.

We can do science. Enough to leave this planetary nest perhaps and ask a lot of new questions and discover new answers about the Universe — universeness

Exactly, we can do science because we care and we tend to be more complex than animals. It is a paradox because while we are supposedly more intelligent than others, at the same time we suffer more about uncertainty and concerns

If our universe has accelerated towards oblivion, it could be a sign for the singularity at the "origin" (of a 4d space) to start a new blast from virtuality (virtual particles). This new 3d blast can expand after us on the higher dimensional space it's in. — EugeneW

I think this is a similar viewpoint to that of Roger Penrose but I think he also suggests that some information can pass from time epoch to time epoch and that each Universe may be very different.
He does not support the multiverse theory.

I might hope so! But is there truly a greater whole? A cosmic Hydra? — EugeneW

Well, If one accepts that the Universe is the 'whole' then no.
I don't like to use mythological beast analogies such as the Hydra in such chats as such analogies don't help my conception/perceptions in any useful way.

Smolin says this happens inside black holes. Im sure you've heard that. But why should we if it all starts again after us? In a hunderd thousand trillion years after us? And if we could, you would have to pass a wormhole. If a wormhole comes to be in the first place — EugeneW

To me, you are just demonstrating 'natural frustration' at not knowing all the answers. Patience is a virtue (so they say). I understand your frustration but don't ever let it dull your focus or affect your sanity. The Universe needs you to do your duty and ask and answer questions as rigorously as you can.

Modern warfare ain't funny anymore. — EugeneW

True, true, true. So true I said it thrice. If we go extinct then, in my opinion, the Earth and perhaps the Universe will be set back for at least many thousands of years.

I was thinking about the universe as something rigid which stays there, doesn't caring or wondering about Earth's existence. — javi2541997

Ok, but as I suggested earlier, I think we are its attempt to develop an ability to 'care.'

I am agree. I want to share with you this paper: The Dark Forest Postulates and the Fermi Paradox. I guess you would like it. — javi2541997

Thanks, I will add it to my 'text I need to read now! list,' sadly this list grows ever longer.
I am some familiarity with the Fermi paradox of vast size of the Universe and probability versus no extra terrestrial intelligent life found so far, despite SETI's efforts.

It is a paradox because while we are supposedly more intelligent than others, at the same time we suffer more about uncertainty and concerns — javi2541997

I don't think this is paradoxical, I think it's consequential. We care and so we suffer and so we care.
We would not act so fervently against suffering if we did not have it as a comparator to non-suffering. Caring is what makes us want to convert suffering into non-suffering.

You think we could create a new universe?

The Universe needs you to do your duty — universeness

Do we have a duty towards the Universe? Sounds the same like having a duty towards god...

You think we could create a new universe? — EugeneW

If, and once, we have answered all questions, as we would then be omnipotent and omniscient.
This might take a while though.