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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5380739 No.5380739 [Reply] [Original]

I've been wondering...
Is it really reasonable to think that humans have all the sensory faculties to detect most objects in the universe, or more fundamentally, to even understand what the universe is?

Scientists so far have indirectly measured that over 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is completely outside of the realm of human knowledge.

For example, some animals do not have vision at all, so their perception of the world is fundamentally different to ours. Perhaps the way we perceive the universe is extremely narrow and not nearly enough to explain it.
Another point, our brains, they were developed over millions of years of evolution and hence are based on traits that proved beneficial for survival. Perhaps our very logic, our way of thinking is contrary to the kind of logic necessary to understand the universe?

>> No.5380755

bump

>> No.5380758

See:
Quantum logic

>> No.5380794

well, you cannot detect radio waves with your body, or can you ? Yet we figured out ways to detect them and make sense of them, same will happen with dark matter etc. Next question ?

>> No.5380834

I wonder this too sometimes, but it seems like it's a question that's basically unanswerable until we meet some aliens with different faculties (and who we can still somehow communicate with).

There was an SF novel a while back in which humans (or maybe Earth life generally) were unique in that we collapsed quantum wavefunctions by observing them: all the other intelligent races could simply observe the wavefunctions. I think earth ended up getting walled off from the rest of the galaxy so we'd stop collapsing their shit every time we built a better telescope.

>> No.5380840

>>5380794
By sensory faculties I omitted radio waves (as well as all the others) because they are trivial, they are part of the EM spectrum which we can easily detect with instruments that expand on what our eyes perceive.

How about detecting something completely outside of the EM spectrum?

>> No.5380851

>>5380834
That's a very interesting concept though I am not well versed enough in quantum mechanics to understand why the act of observation can change matter or energy from corpuscular to ethereal or vice versa.

>> No.5380885

Being able to see something, and being able to think logically are two very different things. Just because something isn't in my consciousness now, doesn't mean I can't think rationally of it when it does enter my consciousness.

>> No.5380900

>>5380885
Wrong retard.
Your logic is the result of a million years of evolution, it has no basis in reality.

>> No.5380916

>>5380840
Like most of the sub-atomic particles?

>> No.5380958

>>5380900

The same goes for your question then.

>> No.5380969

Yes. This is why we have a predisposition to chunk matter into singular units like atoms instead of multidimensional membranes.

>tfw your species is mentally handicapped

>> No.5381552

>>5380969
strung thurry reel

>> No.5381809

>Perhaps our very logic, our way of thinking is contrary to the kind of logic necessary to understand the universe?

Spot on.

>> No.5382620

its not fair.

>> No.5382755

Has anyone read "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem? I believe it is about the limit of human understanding.

>> No.5382793

>Is it really reasonable to think that humans have all the sensory faculties to detect most objects in the universe
Obviously not, see pic, but this doesn't mean we can't create things that can perceive data we can't and then translate it for us.

>to even understand what the universe is?
Unless you have revelatory information as to what the universe "is," why would you contend that our description of it ISN'T the way it is? Our current model of the universe allows us to manipulate it in a way that gives us a more beneficial position. This wouldn't work if our model was flawed.

>> No.5382796
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5382796

>>5382793
Forgot pic.

>> No.5382800

>>5380840
>How about detecting something completely outside of the EM spectrum?
Like gravity and atomic forces? Yes we can.