And yet the result of physics are only unfalsified explanations, not proven truths.

This means that this discussion is not meant to be a philosophical discussion. If this is not a philosophical discussion, what kind of discussion is it? In other words: what are you talking about? — Angelo Cannata

The discussion seems very clear. He is asking us:-

Even with the knowledge that we humans can achieve about the external world via science, the things that we can actually be sure about universe isn't much at all. And I want to know what are some of these things that others take for granted about universe/cosmos. — dimosthenis9

:up: Everyone seems to be rifling though Plato's cabinet...

Exactly. It was the main reason for starting that thread in fact, cause I was considering of the things that actually we can be sure about the universe, even following the most guaranteed humanity path for knowledge, science. And I couldn't find any except the 2 things that I mentioned.
It was kind of a scary thought when I first realize it I have to admit. That the things that we can actually be sure about aren't that many at all.

Three dimensional space is an infinite expanse.
Time is infinite in the past and into the future.

Time is infinite in the past and into the future. — god must be atheist

Hmm.Why are you so sure time exists indeed as to be also infinite? It's a damn huge mystery yet for science what actually time is.
I don't say that your statement is wrong (cause I don't know either) but I just wanna know what is that makes you hold that belief as your absolute truth.

For example. Mine are : 1.Everything is united.
2.Everything is in motion. — dimosthenis9

I am sorry. Everything is not proven to exist. Nothing is proven to exist, except the mind that thinks.

things that actually we can be sure about the universe...And I couldn't find any except the 2 things that I mentioned. — dimosthenis9

And unfortunately those two which we can be sure of that you chose nobody can be sure of. Sorry.

Hmm.Why are you so sure time exists indeed as to be also infinite? It's a damn huge mystery yet for science what actually time is.
I don't say that your statement is wrong (cause I don't know either) but I just wanna know what is that makes you hold that belief as your absolute truth. — dimosthenis9

Fair question. The proof exists as you can't name any time in the past that had not been preceeded by five minutes, and can't name any time in the future that won't be followed by five minutes.

I am sorry. Everything is not proven to exist. Nothing is proven to exist, except the mind that thinks. — god must be atheist

Well I m not into this line of thinking. Solipsism isn't my taste.

as you can't name any time in the past that had not been preceeded by five minutes, and can't name any time in the future that won't be followed by five minutes. — god must be atheist

Sorry I m not sure I got that.

Well I m not into this line of thinking. Solipsism isn't my taste. — dimosthenis9

This is not solipsism, my dear friend. This is philosophy. You are into fairy tales and fantasies. "What if", and "I see it, so it must exist." Some call that philosophy, true, but I don't.

I am not saying that everything does not exist. I am saying we can't be sure about that. Big difference.

I am stepping out. I don't care to argue about this.

Sorry I m not sure I got that. — dimosthenis9

I would have bet ahead of time that you don't.

I am not saying that everything does not exist. I am saying we can't be sure about that. Big difference. — god must be atheist

And I say that we can be sure. Whatever you want to call it Solipsism or any other philosophical theory name I don't agree. I believe that except my mind other minds and things exist too. I respect your view but I don't agree. Simply.


.

I am stepping out. I don't care to argue about this — god must be atheist

Respected.

I would have bet ahead of time that you don't. — god must be atheist

Yeah sure you would.

Well no, we can't really know exactly how the external world is.Only what senses tell us. And neither what is really true about the universe and what its actual form is. — dimosthenis9

If we're part of the universe, there is no "external world." There's just the world, and we're part of the world. If you seek absolute truths which aren't "human-ish" then you will have to find another world. We interact with the rest of the world as we must given our capacities and our place in it, and if that means there is no "absolute truth" so be it (so IS it, in fact). You put "absolute truth" beyond our reach in that case, making it insignificant. We cannot know it and have no reason to know it.

What you think as indisputable fact? — dimosthenis9

I am, but I'm not so sure about you.
This universe is in motion but there could be others.
All is physically connected but in a limited way.
Although it looks this way, it is likely neither true nor false because the universe is relative and multi-valued.
Without artificial things simple dialectic is worthless. Why would anything have identity or a name?

If we're part of the universe, there is no "external world." There's just the world, — Ciceronianus

I don't see what changes to my question but ok let's just say world.

If you seek absolute truths which aren't "human-ish" then you will have to find another world. — Ciceronianus

Thanks I think I like it here. I will stay. I just seek for the limits of the truth that human knowledge can reach. How dip can dig into the absolute truth. Is it clear?

and if that means there is no "absolute truth" so be it (so IS it, in fact). — Ciceronianus

How can that mean that there isn't absolute truth? Sure there is. It's another thing if we can ever reach it.

We cannot know it and have no reason to know it. — Ciceronianus

Not if you are curious.

This universe is in motion but there could be others. — magritte

Which would be totally stable? And not connected in some way with the others too?

All is physically connected but in a limited way. — magritte

What you mean with limited way?

Without artificial things simple dialectic is worthless. — magritte

True.

Why would anything have identity or a name? — magritte

What you mean by that?

I'm a little confused by the question because to me, the only truths we can know most absolutely are those immediate to our human experience. For example, the most fundamental truth I can tell is that "I exist", and not in a cogito way, but because of my sense experience. Whether or not the stimulus I perceive is what it really is, the very fact that I feel something is what brings me into existence. Not only that, but I can know that the stimulus I perceive also exists, again, even if it's not the "true nature" of the stimulus, like a mirage. The last observation I'll add to this line of thought is that there is a relationship between me and the stimulus, and that "things are related" is another fundamental truth that I build my philosophy off of.

This is different from what you seem to be proposing, that our scientific knowledge of things external to our experience should form our most basic beliefs, but it's strange to me because there's so much to presuppose before admitting scientific facts. However, I do also agree that, if we take for granted our general experience and knowledge and such, we can construct truths that seem fundamental to the universe, beyond ourselves. Here are mine:

1. There is a reality (as shown by the reasoning above).
2. Reality is composed of relationships. That is to say, things exist in relation to other things, but the "things" are not fundamental necessarily, only the relations.
3. As such, there cannot be one thing.
4. I exist in a reality, hence other things exist too. I know this because the experiences I feel are the relationship that unite me with other things.
5. And more pragmatically, I feel emotion, most fundamentally the axis of good vs bad, things I desire vs things I avoid.

I am unsure of anything else I feel I know as absolutely. But there are many things I believe that, in conjunction with these truths, build the basis for a lot of my philosophy.

Reality is composed of relationships. That is to say, things exist in relation to other things, but the "things" are not fundamental necessarily, only the relations — Jerry

It's kind similar to mine that everything is united, connected. And as extension of it I do believe also that everything is related to others.
Nice notion that relations are more fundamental than things themselves. Never actually thought it before that way.

. I exist in a reality, hence other things exist too. I know this because the experiences I feel are the relationship that unite me with other things. — Jerry

Really strong argument against those who doubt of the certainty of any other existence except our own minds. Good.

My central so-called "absolute truth" is that human consciousness is the most potent force in the known Universe.

I'm not sure anyone can do better than "I think therefore I am." I'll take a shot at something more in line with my way of thinking. This is Stephen Mitchell's translation of Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

It strikes me that what Descartes wrote in 1640 has a lot in common with what Lao Tzu wrote 2,000 years earlier.

human consciousness is the most potent force in the known Universe. — Bret Bernhoft

I don't understand what this means, it needs context, Bret. Can you demonstrate what you mean by this is a couple of sentences. What is a potent force? And how is human consciousness an example of such? And can you show us how this potent force is more potent (what does potent mean in this context?) compared to, say, nature?

It strikes me that what Descartes wrote in 1640 has a lot in common with what Lao Tzu wrote 2,000 years earlier — T Clark

Great spirits meet in the crossroads of all the great questions. Nice quote what you presented here.

3. As such, there cannot be one thing. — Jerry

I agree with Jerry here. I think variety/diversity is a "law of nature;" it is absolutely necessary that there exists more than one thing (it cannot be the case that there exists only one thing, as Jerry said). However, I do not think relations are strictly fundamental in the sense that they depend on variety while the opposite I think is not logical; this is metaphysics though, sorry (although thinking about it, I understand that there cannot be interactions between objects beyond the cosmic horizon and us EDIT: I am not sure about fields; their value is supposed to approach zero as distance approaches infinity, but do they expand with space?).

At most, IME, Descartes only "proved"
cogitatio fit, ergo cogitatio est, not that "I exist".

Absolute for me. — dimosthenis9

Which is relative...

What isn't united with something else?

The political parties of the USA are not united for the benefit of the USA. The wheels on my car are not united since they turn at different rates sometimes.
OK, neither of these examples seems to meet your definition, which seems to have to do with both objects affected by the other.

A couple better examples then: The iceberg that sank the Titanic was not affected by me, but I was affected by it.
Similarly, the fairly distant galaxy EGSY8p7 can be seen from Earth, but Earth cannot be seen by it. No light or other signal sent from Earth at any time will ever reach EGSY8p7 regardless of the time you give it to get there.

We have no idea what actually time is in fact

Not sure who 'we'; is here, but the science community has a pretty good idea about what it is, and it isn't something that moves, at least per the only classic theory of the universe (relativity) that has made any decent predictions. We don't know if the postulates of the theory are correct of course, but there has been no alternative proposed that I know of in the 20th century.

:up:

The forum is improving - no "existence exists" yet.

I wouldn't dare to commit to this one by the way:

Total entropy of closed systems (e.g. post-planck era universe) cannot decrease. Corollary: local order is a transient phase-state (i.e. aspect) of global disorder.

Have you heard of Poincaré's recurrence theorem? In short: a closed system in thermodynamic equilibrium will (if you wait long enough) randomly reach a state of lower entropy, And then increase again, so you get fluctuations in entropy. Moreover, if I may refer to one of my favourite little books "The Character of Physical Law" Feynman makes a good case for physical laws to be symmetrical and therefore in theory allowing for objects to fall upwards, time to flow in reverse and entropy to decrease.

Have you heard of Poincaré's recurrence theorem? In short: a closed system in thermodynamic equilibrium will (if you wait long enough) randomly reach a state of lower entropy, And then increase again, so you get fluctuations in entropy. Moreover, if I may refer to one of my favourite little books "The Character of Physical Law" Feynman makes a good case for physical laws to be symmetrical and therefore in theory allowing for objects to fall upwards, time to flow in reverse and entropy to decrease. — Benkei

Yes, I'm familiar with some of Poincaré's and more of Feynman's works, and while I won't quarrel with these scientific geniuses, I'll point out that these are (no doubt, highly informed) speculations at best and, as far as I know, have no experimental / applied bearing on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, physical cosmology or information science.

True. My hesistance to commit to anything absolutely true other than those true by definition is that the OP required us to be "sure" about our absolute truth. For me, certainty in a rational sense should leave no room for doubt (like a properly constructed logical argument for instance) and since we have two possibilities it might not be true, I wouldn't commit to it. That said, from a more practical point of view, I don't have any reason to doubt the veracity of the 2nd law of thermodynamics at any moment in my waking life.

The best response in my humble opinion in re the question of absolute truths is...wait for it...sabrá Mandrake which is just another way of sayin' God knows. Our brains clearly can't match up to the task at hand.

Which is relative... — noAxioms

Sure it is.

The political parties of the USA are not united for the benefit of the USA. The wheels on my car are not united since they turn at different rates sometimes.
OK, neither of these examples seems to meet your definition, which seems to have to do with both objects affected by the other.

A couple better examples then: The iceberg that sank the Titanic was not affected by me, but I was affected by it.
Similarly, the fairly distant galaxy EGSY8p7 can be seen from Earth, but Earth cannot be seen by it. No light or other signal sent from Earth at any time will ever reach EGSY8p7 regardless of the time you give it to get there. — noAxioms

Everything you mentioned here is still united with each other. I didn't say that everything is connected immediately with each other. I m not connected with Galaxy EGSY but both me and it are part of the huge universal chain. Nothing I can think of is totally isolated.

Something doesn't need to have immediate connection as to be considered united with something else.
If I tight myself with a rope and tight the other end of the rope at a tree, I might not be immediately connected with the tree but me, the rope and the tree are all still united.Same with a chain.
We are part of a united system (universe), i can't understand why you see unity as that everything immediately attached to each other. Same with your wheels,they are part of your car, they connect with the road as you speed up, with the molecules of the air etc etc.

Not sure who 'we'; is here, but the science community has a pretty good idea about what it is, and it isn't something that moves, at least per the only classic theory of the universe (relativity) that has made any decent predictions. We don't know if the postulates of the theory are correct of course, but there has been no alternative proposed that I know of in the 20th century. — noAxioms

By we, I mean humanity. Scientific community. And no we are farrr from being sure what time is and if it is stable. We have different speculations about that among scientific community and it is a great mystery. Relativity considers time as stable? Hmm.. Not sure about that. Waves of the spacetime when huge stars exploding isn't that a motion??

but there has been no alternative proposed that I know of in the 20th century. — noAxioms

Check LQG.