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Imagine a box. This box encloses a volume. But we can't see this volume, therefore it does not exist.

Imagine a box. This box encloses a volume. But we can't see this volume, therefore it does not exist.

(post is archived)

[–] • 3 pts

The question of the persistence of things of which we have no direct sense-data goes back a long, long time.

Seriously, this question is where Ockham's Razor came from.

[–] • 1 pt

See? This person gets it.

[–] • 0 pt

What's fun is that you can invoke Humean relations to try to save persistence of identity over time, and preserve unseen entities.

Imagine a pair of cubes in a void, each with sense-data of the other. So long as no other objects exist in the void, the cubes will retain their sense-data of each other, and thus the identity of each is preserved over time by virtue of being sensed by the other.

Now imagine a wall between the two, but the wall has no sensory organs and cannot perceive or comprehend sense-data. Each of the cubes has a relation to the wall (as each cube has sense-data of the wall), with the wall having a relation to each cube (is perceived by each cube).

This gets a bit hairy... if an object has no relation to any other, it exists in void. If an object is not in void, it must have a relation to at least one other object. Neither cube is in void; each cube can only have a relation to one other object, the wall. But because the wall has a relation to each cube, each cube can "know" that the other cube has persistent identity over time because the object they can perceive (the wall) maintains the relation to the unseen cube, and remains in each cube's sense-data.

This (admittedly very rough sketch) argument is how you can demonstrate that if you have a chair in a room, leave the room, and come back, the chair you are perceiving is the same chair you put there (ignoring other potential factors).

[–] • 3 pts

see you fucked up and made schrodinger's box, inside space both exists and does not exist

[–] • 3 pts

Careful, hans will think you are molesting a cat now.

[–] • 1 pt

don't molest me :(

[–] • 1 pt

Thought experiment cats do not feel pain, for they are but figments of imagination.

[–] • 2 pts

I don't get it.

[–] • 2 pts

Did the box have a beginning or do it and it's contents go back infinitely in time?

[–] • 1 pt

Perhaps, but that would be the topic for another post.

[–] • 1 pt

Well that's what I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. If the matter inside of the box was created, it violates the law of conservation of mass, meaning the conditions that were present during the creation of the contents of the box are different from what they are currently, making them impossible to observe and thus impossible to prove or disprove. On the other hand, if the contents of the box always existed, then why? Why would contents exist in the box? And if the insides of the box are part of an eternal continuum in time that goes back infinitely, surely they must have reached a state of equilibrium by now. What about the laws governing entropy of matter?

[–] • 1 pt

I have a hard time with Schrodigers uncertainty as well. Makes my thoughts chase one another in a circle. But there are other things to spend mental energy on, this is like an old scar you pick at now and then.

[–] • 0 pt

Put a cat in your box and don't show it to me. Your cat disappeared! The only things that exist are things I've seen and know about!