Nothing within the universe is supposed to be able to travel faster than the speed of light - it's called the cosmic speed limit. As galaxies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, physicists say that as nothing within the universe can move faster than the speed of light, it is the universe itself expanding. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Well, people say a lot of things and none of it is true (albeit, it might be the best bullshit currently available).

Oh I see I missed your point the other day and this is a good point. Yes even hard science is ultimately nonsense. — fishfry

Yes it is. Unfortunately, most people freak-out when you suggest this, but to come to terms with this idea is the most intellectually liberating thing there is. Imagine not having the pressure of trying to figure everything out, instead, just going with the flow of ideas, allowing them to come and go as do all things.

What has to happen for things to be "dire" for you? And we have been seeing for decades now.
— synthesis

Dire? There were people who lived through World War I, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, World War II, Smallpox (300 million dead), Korean War, polio epidemics, Vietnam War, Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis and other bull shit. People talk about how tough it was under certain governments, but war just sucks. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a non-combatant with war raging all around you. Our trials today are a cake walk. — James Riley

There's "dire" and then there's "world war dire."

If you look at what's happened to the majority of people in the U.S. over the past 50 years, I would call it dire. If you had three or four kids and your $20./job was outsourced to China and all you could find to replace it was a $10./hour job (as happened to millions of Americans), you would probably think it was dire.

If you could no longer afford to provide decent health care for you family nor have any chance of sending your kids to college (without incurring life-destroying debt) nor have any retirement savings, you might consider it dire.

My life is a cake-walk (and maybe yours is too) but there are a lot of people whose lives are quite difficult.

Reality suggests that older people are like vampires: ogres, selfish, interconnected, and willing to hate. Young people are generous and open to love and friendship. — gikehef947

You've got to be kidding. You went to school, right? The stuff that kids say and do to others kids in and out of school is absolutely brutal.

As anecdotal evidence (other than my entire life experience), I happen to live in a college town that also has a nice mix of young families and older folks. I am out all the time doing yard work and whatnot and have always been a friendly person so I say hello to just about everybody who comes by my house (I live on a street that a lot of people walk). BY FAR, the most friendly people are the older people, followed by moms and dads with younger kids. The college-age kids are 50/50, the high school kids are 25 nice/75 ignore, and the younger kids are oblivious as they obviously have been taught any manners what-so-ever..

I think that’s true of my favorite pop composers. But the issue isn’t just how much more you know now that 30 years ago, it’s how much younger generations have leapfrogged over your knowledge. — Joshs

Younger people ALWAYS believe they are living through the most prescient times in the history of mankind, but consider the following...

Look at the breakthroughs that took place in the 19th century and compare them to (y)our own times. Imagine how the triumvirate of electricity (the greatest discovery since fire), the locomotive/automobile, and the telegraph/telephone changed life in that time period. All three discoveries were life-altering.

In the modern period (say the last 75 years), we have radio/television, computers, and perhaps medical science (antibiotics, etc.), but none of these can compare in the least with what happened in the 19th century.

And exactly what do you believe you know that we don't (how to maximally exploit your iphone)?

Everything of significant value in my life came from sitting in a quiet room and generating ideas out of all variety of experience, both direct and indirect. All ‘direct’ means to me is a set of ideas I generate that link to what I learned from others but goes beyond it. — Joshs

I don't discount the value of introspection, but actual doing is the way. How do you believe your ideas of what is real can compete with what is actually real?

At first I wasn't sure if you were being ironic. Donald Trump said "MAGA loves the black people," and "I have a great relationship with the blacks." — T Clark

What does he have to do with me?

We certainly have problems. I don't think things are as dire as you do. I'd say "we'll see," but I won't be around for that. My children will see. — T Clark

What has to happen for things to be "dire" for you? And we have been seeing for decades now.

I think the real issue is that the US has really serious socio-economic problems as the middle class isn't growing, and people aren't happy about the corruption both on the left and right. And things obviously are going to get far worse with the selected monetary & fiscal policy. So it's good for the elite to give room for in the end rather silly wokeness and have it divide people in new ways. When the lower classes are deeply divided and hate each other, it's better for the ruling elite. Worst thing would be that someone came and united the medium to low income Americans! — ssu

Hard to argue with any of that.

You must admit, our generation (baby boomers) have been a complete disaster.
— synthesis

I don't see it that way. I have no longing for the days when men were men and all the negroes stayed on the other side of the tracks where they belonged. I think the main thing wrong with our generation is that there are so many of us. — T Clark

Nobody has any longing for that aspect of history and certainly things have improved. 20% of AAs are doing pretty well now but it is up to the AA's community to fix their families, their schools, and the really negative parts of their culture. Then, the sky's the limit. AAs are great people.

Look at what we are handing our children and theirs...a country so beautiful, so wealthy, so full of promise, turned into a crack-addict/alcoholic passed-out in the gutter.
— synthesis

I don't see it that way either. I've never been a big fan of hell-in-a-handbasket philosophizing. — T Clark

Compare 1960 with today. This country has become an economic basket-case over the past 60 years (trading equity for debt), it's institutions are horribly dys-functional and corrupt, and the culture is downright dystopian.

I am glad you are happy with it, though. I am also doing quite well (personally), but that's not that difficult to accomplish if you are a hard worker and persistent.

That was the theme of ‘The Big Chill’. But the premise was kind of silly, because they were all just followers of fashion to begin with. One could argue that BLM protesters are in their own way followers of fashion. — Joshs

Baby boomers just wanted to (in theory) live purer, more balanced lives, whereas BLM is a political movement (which is always a power/money grab). God only knows what the white liberal protesters are up to or what the etiology of their self-loathing is.

I’ve always found it interesting that the movers and shakers of the social revolution of the ‘60’s were not baby boomers( Jane Fonda, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Tiom Hayden, Paul Krassner, Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman) Even John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Jimmu Hendrix technically weren’t baby boomers. — Joshs

You might think that in light of what's going on in this country that there would be more than just a couple of people with enough courage to stand-up and speak the truth. An entire generation sold-out to McMansions, European luxury sedans/SUVs, and whatever else people find it necessary to rip-out off the common man. Pathetic.

Otoh, it is a truism in mathematics and physics that if you havent produced anything groundbreaking by the time you’re 30 you never will. Pop music seems to be another arena where the most brilliant work generally seems to be done before the age of 35. I agree that politics is different, but maybe that’s a function of a mellower temperament in older age rather than more insight. Politics is precisely NOT about groundbreaking ideas but consensus building. — Joshs

The problem is corruption. I am 66 and the amount I know now as compared as what I knew at thirty is incalculable (both personally and professionally). I have often told younger people that the difference between 30 and 60 is much greater then the difference between 10 and 30.

That is not to say that there aren't folks out there who never learned much of anything, but if you take those who are life-long learners, the experience you gain professionally and from having a family puts you in a place that people without this experience can not even begin to grasp.

Everything of significant value in life you gain through direct experience.

Ha! Us gerontocrats are in charge!! It will never happen. You will need the support of 2/3 of Congress and the legislatures of 38 states, all filled with old guys like me. — T Clark

You must admit, our generation (baby boomers) have been a complete disaster. Starting out as the philosophical idealists and ending up completely corrupt, obese, the worst parents ever, uber-materialists, with barely a morsel of dignity or a whiff of honor to be found among 75M FRAUDS.

Look at what we are handing our children and theirs...a country so beautiful, so wealthy, so full of promise, turned into a crack-addict/alcoholic passed-out in the gutter.

Definitely don't quit your day job!

You might wish to consider the following...

There are three ways to learn. Real learning is through direct experience. Next is learning from somebody who has direct experience. The third and least effective method is indirect learning (e.g., reading).

Reality suggests that the folks with the most direct experience are older and that is why older people are generally chosen for positions of the greatest responsibility. Younger people, OTOH, have a tendency to be complete doofuses (take AOC, for example) because they interpolate from indirect learning (which is almost always wrong).

I feel bad about being so harsh in my response. That's why I decided to stop. — T Clark

I don't take what anybody says personally. I am just here to chat with interesting folks, particularly ones that have VERY different opinions from me.

I do appreciate your consideration, though!

You and I are not going to agree on this. I can't think of any more responses beyond what I've already written. — T Clark

What's the point of discussing something with somebody you agree with?

Well, by all means, get back to me when you think of something to say.

It's a strongly-worded statement of disagreement. — T Clark

You don't believe there is self-censorship going-on now? Or that it was the worst part of The Cultural Revolution (being a precursor to what would follow)?

I would accuse you of a lack of perspective, but that does not seem nearly strong enough a statement. You've moved beyond that and are crossing the border into obscenity. — T Clark

What does that mean?

Equating individualism with avarice is a common argument. However avarice is a vice of individuals, not of individualism. Individualism encompasses the charitable as much as it does the self-interested, but we wouldn’t say individualism is charitable. — NOS4A2

Well stated.

The response to Covid was a collectivist project if I’ve ever seen one. Entire industries were at the mercy of governments; civil liberties were scattered to the wind; prison terms were used to describe our situation. As such, certain individuals benefited while others were mostly restrained from even trying, their livelihoods sacrificed on the alter of “national security”, “the common good”, which, in the mouths of those in state power, is always their own interests. — NOS4A2

I am convinced that even in the slave days, there were a certain percentage who believed they deserved their position.

Individualism (the love of freedom) is something you either get or you don't. Look how easy it has been to convince young people that it's about fear and victim-hood instead of courage and ambition to never stop growing.

Yes. Of course. I agree. The current social justice movement is just exactly like the Cultural Revolution. — T Clark

It is in the most important way...self-censorship.

The point of this thread (until it was hijacked by my friend, Magma-tron :) was that the entire woke enterprise is really bad-news (which goes against my "equal amount of good and bad in everything" idea), but I simply cannot find any redeeming value in anything woke. Even the legit things they might offer are cloaked in such moronic garb that nobody could take anything they say seriously.

Do they really believe that you can accuse an entire race of being racist? This idea can only be enforced at the tip of a bayonet. Other then the sheer idiocy of their ideas, what this has exposed is the weakness in institutional leadership in America...higher education, corporations, everywhere.

If you don't believe that money corrupts now, you never will.

First off, I am offering my solutions as responses to Synthesis's intentionally provocative posts. My language was also intentionally provocative. — T Clark

Provocative? These woke people are complete morons by any yardstick. I am just trying to figure out how anybody could believe this non-sense.

I just read in one of my medical journals (The "Diversity" Issue) how physicians (who have to be the most color-blind folks there are) have to reassess their entire lives by taking into consideration how their white privilege has led to all kinds of bad outcomes.

The fact that this kind of BS has made it into professional journals is a very sad commentary of the state of affairs in the country.

Solution # 1 To the real source

Prohibit by law that a person over 50 years of age can hold any political office. — gikehef947

Why don't we make that "over 20" so we can allow actual children run the country instead of the adult children who are doing such a stellar job.

Gee, you're the second person here in the last couple of days who made a reference to my educational status.

I must be digging the right yards!

So what, then, is the problem with individualism? — NOS4A2

Essentially, it gets in the way of groups whose express purpose is controlling individuals.

The individual v. the collective is an 80mph fast ball coming right down the center of the plate.

99.9... % of all good that is accomplished in this world is made possible via human compassion (a state only individuals can manifest). OTOH, 99.9...% of all the evil perpetrated in this world is made possible by groups (whose primary intention is always the same...power and money grab).

Is this for extra credit?

I have another idle thought ... that the next revolution in physics will be the discovery of the actual infinite in the real world. By analogy, non-Euclidean geometry was thought to be a mathematical parlor trick of no use to physicists. Then Einstein came along and non-Euclidean geometry became real to the physicists.

Physically realized actual infinity has the same status in physics today as non-Euclidean geometry had in physics in the 1840s. The future genius to make this next breakthrough hasn't been born yet. Perhaps. — fishfry

What's interesting about this is that whereas it is quite easy to see how mathematics (at its extremes) makes no sense, everything else knowable is EXACTLY the same. It's just more difficult to see.

Is that the big building where the big kids go to school? :)

My friend, just because it doesn't happen to make sense to you doesn't mean that you should not consider it.

I would bet that if we compared credentials (and experience), you just might end up on the short end. Fortunately, none of that matters in the least as even the least educated among us have attained great realization.

With a closed mind, you will always be wasting your time.

i don't understand your point, is it that nor numbers nor infinity exist? They point out to relations which do exist and are independent from physical reality. — Alexandros

Really, numbers exist independent from physical reality? If you happen to be visiting a Universe that had no objects, what does "10" mean?

Infinity can very well be treated in math. Regarding what you say about position and the one of a kind I think you are mixing quantifiable and qualitative. Mathematics doesn't pretend nor avoid reality, it is reality, I hope you understand the difference between the signs we use and the entities, relations and structures it points out. — Alexandros

"We?" Who are we?

Mathematics is to reality as words are to feeling. The closest you can get to reality is through direct experience.

There is a fundamental problem with the concept of numbers. The numeral "1" represents a basic unity. an individual. The "2" represents two of those individuals together, and "3" represents three, etc. But then we want "2" and "3", each to represent a distinct unity as well. So we have to allow that "1" represents a different type of unity than "2" does, or else we'd have the contradiction of "2" representing both one and also two of the same type of unity. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't believe you even need to go there. The idea that more than one (of anything) exists is simply untrue.

The convention to use multiples is just the lazy person's way of arranging things together instead of dealing with each thing as a unique individual. Maybe it's the ultimate form of identity group-think?

What does "one of a kind" have to do with counting two apples, one red and one green? — jgill

Each object in The Universe is unique because it occupies its own space. What more do you need to know?

You have to accept the fact that mathematics sort of avoids this reality and "pretends" that 2 or 3 (or whatever number you choose) exists because it works (until it does not).
— synthesis

No I don't. Nor should you. But we each choose our paths. — jgill

You are correct, you don't. Although it is easy to see the illusions that people cling to for whatever the reasons, sometimes it harder to acknowledge the ones to create the very foundations of our society. Mathematics is a system made up over time that works sometimes for some things, but has no real existence outside of this space.

If you cannot tell me what happens as zero and infinity is approached, what kind of system is that? And (again) the entire system is based on the idea that identical objects exist (when it is clear that this is not the case).

I do think that being present can in itself be a peak experiences, but I am also thinking of how meditation can lead to transcendent states. — Jack Cummins

There are many different types of meditation, but let's say you were able to achieve near perfect awareness (is this what gives small children such joy in their play?), what more could you possible do?

which would be the myth and why? — Alexandros

Consider the following...

If you would accept the notion that each object in The Universe occupies unique coordinates and is subject to unique Universal forces, then one might conclude that each object in The Universe is "one of a kind," that is, unique in and of itself. If this is indeed the case, then what exactly does "2" mean?

You have to accept the fact that mathematics sort of avoids this reality and "pretends" that 2 or 3 (or whatever number you choose) exists because it works (until it does not). So, as we go towards 0 and infinity, are we just supposed to say, "Oh well?" Apparently.

If would appear to me that man is quite a ways off from coming anywhere close to "understanding" much of anything, so coming up with concepts like infinity might be similar to tossing a dart across the bar room (backwards and standing on your head) after your twenty-third beer and hoping for a perfect bullseye.

The question of simplicity of truth, or otherwise, arising in meditation and other practices, opens many areas for considering of experience. — Jack Cummins

If you are 100% present (or aware), how can any experience be "more peak" than that? IOW, it's not the experience that makes it peak, it is the awareness.

This is why those who have developed great awareness find "miracles" in all things.

So do philosophers have to accept the actual infinite? — spirit-salamander

If you divorce yourself from the myth that is mathematics, it's easy.

'Superconsciousness: The Quest for the Peak Experience,' in which he spoke of his lifelong searching for peak experiences. — Jack Cummins

It certainly has been an era of "peak everything."

From my perspective, peak (whatever) can only be found through absolute simplicity (which contains all things).

Solution #3 De-fund Higher Education

De-fund the higher education complex by eliminating all school loans and all tax subsidies. This would catalyze several outcomes including greatly lowering tuition for regular folks, getting rid of the vast majority of the bureaucrats in colleges and universities that do nothing constructive, and most importantly, substantially raise the quality of education by eliminating worthless subject-matter and returning to merit-based grading, admissions, and certification (via an independent organisation).

Most people see themselves as good. This is just not the case. I think we are born with both potentials but tilt towards evil. Anything too add? — Caleb Mercado

I've always subscribed to the notion that there is an equal amount of good and bad in everything...including people.

Good makes bad, bad makes good. How can it be any other way?