The Limit of the Human Mind

[HegemonKhan]

The Limit of the Human Mind

in accordance to my response post in another thread,

here is a simple experiment that which will prove the limit of the human mind:

i challenge anyone and everyone to try to "draw" an alien (a totally new, different, and completely "unseen" entity-being-lifeform to the human species. a true ALIEN).

as you will find out it is impossible to "draw" an alien. your "alien" will turn out to merely be a collection of different aspects of NON-alien parts. you'll simple take a bunch of parts from terestrial (EARTH) lifeforms and combine them to make your "alien". this is NOT an ALIEN new species. it is impossible for humans to mentally conceive what exactly is an alien. it is beyond the human's mind and even the human's world. it's probably impossible to ever encounter an alien in the real world some where in our universe or even multiversi or alternate dimensions/realities, not because they can't exist, but because our human mind can't perceive them even if a real live alien was actually standing directly in front of u.

my theory anyways

go ahead and try my experiment if u don't beleive me. sit down, get a piece of paper, get a pencil, and try to draw an alien. u can't. the simple truth as u will discover.

however, u CAN disagree with my explanation or theory of this being why no alien or "other intelligent beings" have yet not been discovered and i'll even bet never will be.

 

[Ash Housewares]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

. it's probably impossible to ever encounter an alien in the real world some where in our universe or even multiversi or alternate dimensions/realities, not because they can't exist, but because our human mind can't perceive them even if a real live alien was actually standing directly in front of u.

were you born with an innate knowledge of all terrestrial objects or did you encounter them in the course of your life?

I'm guessing when you saw something new it wasn't vanished as some crackpot imperceptibility or you would know nothing more than what you knew in the womb, and since you're reading this, I'm guessing your brain has the ability to interpret new data or you'd be the drooling illiterate infant you emerged as

now draw a picture of your future wife, if you haven't yet met her, this could prove challenging, but when you do meet her she isn't going to be invisible despite your lack of foreknowledge

 

[Johnny]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

Consider yourself debunked, tosser

 

[Calcipher]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

I can visualize four dimensions.

 

[s4nder]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

Please draw a picture of it. Our advanced maths teacher told us some people are able to visualize more than three dimensional space but I seem to be among the less capable .

 

[Rashiminos]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

I don't have to imagine.

 

[s4nder]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

If you're referring to time being the fourth dimension, well, there are more dimensions than that so let's just start imagining five dimensional space then.

 

[Arokthis]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

I can visualize four dimensions.

Ditto.

Please draw a picture of it.

To do so with any intelligibility, I would need a way to truly draw in 3 dimensions, not just appear to. Just trying to show a third dimension on a sheet of paper is hard enough. How do you propose to show a fourth or fifth?

If you're referring to time being the fourth dimension, well, there are more dimensions than that so let's just start imagining five dimensional space then.

Actually, I have a 5 dimensional version of a Rubik's cube in my head that I've been trying to solve for several years now.

 

[s4nder]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

Just trying to show a third dimension on a sheet of paper is hard enough. How do you propose to show a fourth or fifth?

I understand that it's impossible to project four dimensions on just two, I was trying to follow the theme of the thread, drawing .

As for the rubic's cube, it was on the news recently that a man had taken 26 years of a few hours a night to solve it. And yet some people can do it in less than a minute blindfolded.

 

[phool]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

If you can be bothered to learn a few long, but essentially basic, formulaic algorithms, there's nothing to them. Otherwise, well, you'd probably be better off starting from scratch and reinventing the algorithms than tackling the cube without a clear understanding of what's involved.

The easiest way to represent a '4th dimension' on paper is I suppose to draw a series '3d' graphs which change according to a 4th variable. Collating those into a single image is the difficulty, perhaps comparison to the equivalent of 3 dimensions represented on a series of graphs with 2 axes, width x and length y, would help, for a puddle diminishing wrt t - a series of diminishing circles which can be equivalently drawn on a single 3 dimensional graph with the appearence of a cone.

your "alien" will turn out to merely be a collection of different aspects of NON-alien parts.

Well certainly we can draw a comparison between anything, identifying known elements in an unknown is a basic survival mechanism any mammal is capable of. Your reasoning is circular however; you've decided on an arbitrary and non standard definition of alien then based an argument around it. God may have been a better choice.

 

[SaroDarksbane]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

here is a simple experiment that which will prove the limit of the human mind:

Pffft, there's an easier way:

Try to imagine a new color never before seen.

 

[Johnny]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

Try to imagine a new color never before seen.

How about "old bookcover brown"

Or "masucline navy blue".

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

instead of color let's do radiation (energy):

who knows what infra-red looks like ? or ultra violet ? or radio waves ? or micro waves ? or gamma rays ? or background radiation ?

what "colors" are all these forms of energy ?

we only can see the "visable light" red-violet (rainbow colors. roygbiv for anyone who took chemistry-physics. roygbiv=red orange yelow blue indigo violet. the spectrum of energy that we can see. we call this tiny section of energy "visable light". but anything to either side of it like infra-red or ultra violet or radio waves or background radiation, we can't see).

 

[Arokthis]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

As for the rubic's cube, it was on the news recently that a man had taken 26 years of a few hours a night to solve it. And yet some people can do it in less than a minute blindfolded.

That one is only 3 dimensional. Try one that's 5!

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

let me try to explain the alien thing in a different way:

alien: a type of "lifeform" that is completely different from anything we have on earth (terrestrial life forms).

for example: try to draw an alien with no head, no body, no arms, no legs, no wings, no antenni, no fur, no scales, no skin, no worm type body, no multiple body sections, no fins, no feathers, no wiskers, no tail, no ... we can't do it.

my point is that to find a true alien, instead of looking for what we consider "life" to be which to us is earth (terrestrial. NON-alien) life.

there may well be the "borg" or "klingon" or "romulan" or some kind of virus or bacteria found in outer space. but these things are simply what we already have on earth. they aren't new things. they aren't alien things.

instead we should ask questions like...

is a black hole a life form ? is the black hole the alien that we haven't been able to find. is gravity the alien that we have been yearning to find ? is light or energy or waves or forces the alien life forms we can't find ? is outer space (the universe) itself a life form ? etc...

but instead we continue to look for human-like or earth-like "life form" and thus we remain unsuccessful and alone in the the universe.
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and a quick comment about dimensions:

the first 3 dimensions (spacial dimensions=volume=length, width, height) we all understand. the problem is that when we think about the fourth dimension, space-time, we wanna turn it into a spacial dimension and try to visualize what it would look like as a spacial dimension. but in doing so we alredy made a critical mistake. the fourth dimension is NOT a spacial dimension. it's not some thing that can be classically visualized like volume or spacial dimensions can be. and thats only getting into the 4th dimension. let alone the 11 or + dimensions that we theorized to exist.

 

[mince pies]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

(rainbow colors. roygbiv for anyone who took chemistry-physics. roygbiv=red orange yelow blue indigo violet. the spectrum of energy that we can see.

Is green no longer a colour of the rainbow?

And I didn't even take Chemistry/Physics...

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

err its in roy *g* biv, i jsut forgot to type out green. missed it.

roy *G* biv= red, orange, yelow, *GREEN* (forgot to type this in previous post), blue, indigo, violet.

for those who don't know physics or chemistry, red is less harmless to us and violet is more harmful to us. red has a longer wavelength and that's why its less harmful. whereas violet has a shorter wave length and its more harmful. radio waves is the least harmful form of radiation (energy). we are very lucky the physics-chemistry is this way. otherwise we'd all be getting cancer like we do-can from ultra-violet (sunlight like when u go to a "beach". sunburned...or worse skin cancer) if the physics were reversed and longer wave length was more deadly.

infra-red has a long wave length compared to ultra-violet.

infra-red simple means/is: heat.

when its a warm day outside, you don't get cancer from the heat-temperature itself. but the much more deadly ultra-violet sunlight can-does give u cancer.

the worse heat can do to u, is if it's realy hot, u get burned. fire.

but it's not powerful enough to change and re-arrange or mutate your cells or dna which results in what we call cancer.

 

[Galabab]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

... but in doing so we alredy made a critical mistake. the fourth dimension is NOT a spacial dimension. it's not some thing that can be classically visualized like volume or spacial dimensions can be. and thats only getting into the 4th dimension. let alone the 11 or + dimensions that we theorized to exist.

Im afraid you are very wrong here.
The time dimension is a different subject, while methematicians claim that there ARE as many spacial dimensions as one would desire. Whether they exist in reality is an other question, still they remaine imaginable.

http://www.mathematik.com/4DCube/4DCubePovray.html

@those-people-who-claim-to-be-able-to-amagine-the-4th-dimesnion:
Can you explain it? Id like to understand it too.

 

[Amra]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

let me try to explain the alien thing in a different way:

alien: a type of "lifeform" that is completely different from anything we have on earth (terrestrial life forms).

for example: try to draw an alien with no head, no body, no arms, no legs, no wings, no antenni, no fur, no scales, no skin, no worm type body, no multiple body sections, no fins, no feathers, no wiskers, no tail, no ... we can't do it.

my point is that to find a true alien, instead of looking for what we consider "life" to be which to us is earth (terrestrial. NON-alien) life.

there may well be the "borg" or "klingon" or "romulan" or some kind of virus or bacteria found in outer space. but these things are simply what we already have on earth. they aren't new things. they aren't alien things.

Your point is silly and circular. So if we can imagine it then it's not alien? I don't think you understand the definition.

 

[LorveN]

Re: The Limit of the Human Mind

Interesting, now, where do we begin...

as you will find out it is impossible to "draw" an alien. your "alien" will turn out to merely be a collection of different aspects of NON-alien parts. you'll simple take a bunch of parts from terestrial (EARTH) lifeforms and combine them to make your "alien". this is NOT an ALIEN new species.

for example: try to draw an alien with no head, no body, no arms, no legs, no wings, no antenni, no fur, no scales, no skin, no worm type body, no multiple body sections, no fins, no feathers, no wiskers, no tail, no ... we can't do it.

So if I were to draw a chair, just a chair, would that satisfy your criteria? Or does the chair have legs, even though they are not the legs of what we consider a "living" thing. Either a chair would be a good solution, because it is NOT in any way a bunch of body parts from various animals, or there's a flaw in the rules.

The thing is, think of an item, creature, whatever, regardless of what it is. Also, let's assume you did not think of vacuum, because an alien can under no circumstance be just vacuum.
If the "alien" has something to stand on, we can always interpret it as legs. If it doesn't have legs, then it will have its mass in a more uniform shape, what we interpret as a body. If the pointy things were going upwards, then it would be antennae, scales, etc etc.
You will never get away from this fact, chairs have legs, mountains have feet, planes have bodies etc.

We can't refrain from using geometrical figures we've seen, or might have seen, before. That would be impossible, since every geometrical figure possible in three (or less) dimensions WILL fall under the category "might have seen". The only way to draw something nobody has ever seen before would be drawing it in dimensions not visible to us. I'm not sure I agree that there are 11+ dimensions, but IF there were more than those visible to us, and someone could draw something in them, it would be something noone has ever seen before.
Unfortunately, the artist would get no credit, because we can't see his work anyway...

is a black hole a life form ? is the black hole the alien that we haven't been able to find. is gravity the alien that we have been yearning to find ? is light or energy or waves or forces the alien life forms we can't find ? is outer space (the universe) itself a life form ? etc...

This is just a question of definition. If gravity is the alien, then you actually did nothing but suggest a new word for it. Nothing new here,
gravity is not the same word in every language. If you want to pretend that a natural force is a living creature, sure, but then pretty much everything, atoms, quarks, apples, everything can be defined as living. That is, also, just rewriting definitions, because it would just lead to another describing word for what we today consider living creatures.

we are very lucky the physics-chemistry is this way. otherwise we'd all be getting cancer like we do-can from ultra-violet (sunlight like when u go to a "beach". sunburned...or worse skin cancer) if the physics were reversed and longer wave length was more deadly.
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when its a warm day outside, you don't get cancer from the heat-temperature itself. but the much more deadly ultra-violet sunlight can-does give u cancer.

the worse heat can do to u, is if it's realy hot, u get burned. fire.

but it's not powerful enough to change and re-arrange or mutate your cells or dna which results in what we call cancer.

Luck has nothing to do with it, we (humans) simply wouldn't exist in the first place if our environment wasn't shielded enough from what is dangerous to us. We could have existed as something else, of course. Darwin explained that pretty good.

Not sure if I agree with the uv-is-more-deadly theory. On earth, to us, sure, but in general it isn't that certain.
The uv-light gives you cancer, alright. But imagine living on the planet venus. You wouldn't have time worrying about the uv-light because the heat would burn you up. Everything here is relative to your set of DNA.
Cockroaches are not hurt by the radioactive radiation from nuclear bombs, but they might have other weaknesses. Also, I'm pretty sure somewhere there's a creature not vulnerable at all to uv-radiation. Saying heat is less dangerous is like saying horse milk tastes bad. For most people, it makes perfect sense, but to some it's nonsense.

Finally, heat might not mutate our cells, but on the other hand it can vaporize them. Have a mutated cell or no cell at all, both are pretty bad imo. :scratchchin: