Why humans cannot see the universe.

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
1

The human specie is not evolved enough to ‘see’ the universe.

And by see, I mean recognize. The problem is a lack of intellectual and mental evolution. Most human animals perceive the world in 3-spatial dimensions and apprehend the universe as a whole through geometry, space, and depth. But Newtonian physics and Einstein general relativity present more aspects to the known and unknown universe, namely, time. Gravity, space, and time have a strict and distinct variable relationship with each other. The combination of gravity, space, and time, provides the experience of acceleration and velocity.

It is only through acceleration that any possible “shape” of the universe can become known.

The universe is not a 3-dimensional shape. Therefore, simple relations of geometry, space, and depth cannot adequately provide even a brief analysis of what the universe is, how it is, or why it is. Humans therefore, cannot comprehend the universe to any significant ability.

An ant navigating through its dirt ant colony is similar to a human navigating through space and time. The relationships are analogous. For an ant to postulate human knowledge of the universe is as inadequate as humans professing and possessing knowledge of the universe themselves. Human knowledge is miniscule.

The 3-dimensional “shape” of the universe can only become apprehended by the application of time and acceleration to geometry. Shapes are not fixed and stagnant, but relational to inherent energies within… energies which expand and shrink, grow and retract. The causes and affects of these energies are the bending of space and time. Humans call this “gravity”, but there is more to it. Gravity is a relational balance between energies. Energy and geometric shape must have a working relationship, constant and comparable variables, in order to understand how objects can exist within the universe and affect spacetime.

Spacetime further becomes complicated by acceleration, the speed of exponential expansion and shrinkage of spacetime. In other words, if an object grows and shrinks in mass or volume, while traveling in spacetime, then its direct effect on any spacial environment is unrecognizable in 3-dimensions.

Therefore, the human mind cannot perceive the universe with such a simple application of these physical concepts.

2

How would you know when you’ve reached an adequate understanding of the universe, how it is, or why it is?

3

You have to accept the current physical limits as they are laid down by Newton and Einstein. Then you try to bend and break the rules. Laws are made to become broken, even physical laws. Even logic.

Try to understand the inspirations compelling history’s greatest intellectual men to spell out their laws as they did, try to understand what physics is. You really have to empathize with the mindset of physicists, engineers, architects, mathematicians, etc.

Finally, you have to believe beyond science, and believe in irrationality. There is always more to known than what is known. Knowledge is always limited, always expanding, and always evolving. If this is false, then what’s true?

4

What stands out to me is how our ultimate understanding of a thing hinges not only on the scope of our knowledge but also on the way we come to appreciate that knowledge.

As I see it, the adequacy of understanding depends on what you want to achieve with it.

5

What are we seeing if not the universe?

6

You’re seeing the world through rose colored glasses, a lens. This lens is your abstract representation of sense data. Given the highest human knowledge of science and physics, namely, Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian relativity, you perceive sense data through a set of presumptions which almost all view as irrefutable and incapable to become challenged. They cannot become surpassed, ever. These are universal laws.

But the problem is obvious to the adept philosopher, like us here on ilp forum.

The problem is the human perspective. How vain is the human animal, to believe, that us, on this planet, alone, view the entire universe or even a modicrum of perspective, comparatively? Compared to what? Human knowledge has no standard, except, humanity itself.

If you challenge humanity, if you challenge perspectivism, then you can begin to undermine the premises of these so called “universal” laws.

It is not so much that man can apprehend universal law, even if it were possible, or describe and explain such phenomena. Instead it is more a matter of what humans are willing to believe in, disbelieve in, and take as impossible. If people accept the impossibility of refuting physical, universal laws, then this is the precedent.

We are defining the impossible, by accepting a universal law. Maybe this is necessary for humans to do, and all life and organisms to do, with respect to adhering and adapting to natural laws. But that doesn’t mean there exist irrefutable laws. Philosophy is most fit to recognize, distinguish, and challenge such “irrefutable” laws.

Because philosophy navigates the world through doubt, skepticism, cynicism, and nihilism, through the destruction and deconstruction of all possible laws to begin with.

7

Philosophy is the greatest lawbreaker.

8

OP seems purely spekulative and grabbed out of thin air, i need something more substancial than mere random thinking.

9

I don’t believe in randomness, and you shouldn’t either.

10

It doesn’t matter if you call your thinking strict thinking, logical thinking or whatever, it’s still seems grabbed out of thin air, unsubstanciated by any means.

11

It seems like your sense that this would be vanity is based on a model of the universe developed by human beings, including Newton and Einstein. From whose persepctive is it being judged vanity?

I mean, I may not disagree with your conclusions, though I am not quite sure what they are yet and lenses, sure, we have them.

12

Does the universe follow undisputable (even if unknown to humanity) laws or doesn’t it. If you think it does then your OP is at least consistent, but you seem to implying in your subsequent posts that it doesn’t.

13

Temporarily accepting the notion of bending space; why would the bending of space cause masses to attract (gravity)?

14

Maybe it’s when the gravity wave bends space the distance to planets and such will be a tiny bit shorter and have a minimal higher effect of gravitation or other effects from magnetars and what not, to be stronger.

15

So you are saying that because objects are in a gravity field, they are closer together than if they were not in the field. And then because they are closer together, they are more attracted.

So gravity bends the space, making them closer, and causes attraction.
Back to my question; “why would [them being closer] cause them to attract [more]?”

16

Don’t know if you have played with magnets? If you go 100 meters away with a magnet from an iron object, there is no attraction.
If you hold the magnet just 1 finger width away from the iron object, you will feel the pull.

Very simple.

So if a gravity wave causes objects to go closer together, there will be a greater pull.

17

I think that you are missing the point.

Gravity, by definition, causes the attraction itself.
But if gravity is merely bending space the question arises as to why a bent space would cause an attraction.

In effect, what is being said by “gravity bends space” is that there is merely bent space and no gravity or that there is gravity but it is the same thing as bent space.

In the long run it is saying that masses don’t actually attract (move), instead the space between them merely gets shorter. But that doesn’t actually make sense because once they begin attracting, they gain momentum and keep moving even beyond what had been attracting them, assuming they didn’t run into it.

18

SIGH!!!

19

Saint James is right to ask that.

Humans believe that things only fall “down”. That’s not true objectively. It’s true on Earth, generally, yes. Things “fall” toward Earth. But out in space, nothing falls. Or, things fall left, up, right, down, forward, backward. Things fall every direction, in space. So this applies to all objects and gravity.

Falling in space is the same as the “downward” motion in spacetime, where physical reality is bent and curved. Gravity is merely the act of “falling” toward a concentration of mass.

The problem is, falling is not always down. Sometimes you fall upward, left, right, across, forward, backward.

The curvatures in spacetime dictate the direction of gravity. It’s not the other way around. It’s not gravity bending space time, necessarily, inasmuch it is curvatures in spacetime that indicate where gravity is, and why it is there. In fact, this is the only reason we can even discuss the existence of blackholes and other spatial anomalies.

There is something there, but human perception cannot recognize it.

We’re looking at gravity backward. The curvatures of spacetime should be investigated, not necessarily the massive objects of gravity.

20

That at least approaches my question.

But now is gravity causing the curvature?
Or is the curvature causing the gravity (the attraction)?

If the gravity is not causing the curvature, then what would be?
And still, what would be causing the attraction, curvature or not?