Does1 + 2 = understanding!

[trulogic]

This may be a philosophical question, but is it possible we aren't supposed to know the answer?

 

[trulogic]

i am a physics major at C.M.U. and am seriously questioning, what i believe, to be an incomplete set of principles.

 

[Swampcat]

<font color="yellow">"This may be a philosophical question, but is it possible we aren't supposed to know the answer?"</font><br /><br />Not sure what the point of your question is, but you seem to be implying some kind of intelligence that is determining what we should or should not know. Since no proof for such an entity exists your question is meaningless.<br /><br />BTW, this forum is probably not the right place for this thread. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>

 

[vogon13]

And survey says:<br /><br />The answer is 42!<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

{Not sure this thread is in the correct forum, btw}<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[harmonicaman]

<i>"...is it possible we aren't supposed to know the answer?"</i><br /><br />The answers may be very difficult to figure out or even impossible for us to understand; but saying that we aren't "Supposed" to know the answers seems to infer an Intelligent Design to the universe.<br /><br />I just don't buy the whole idea that there is some Grand Designer why decides what we should know and what we shouldn't!<br /><br />I do believe that there are parts of the universe that will always defy our ability to understand; things that are too small, too fast, too old, too far; etc. <br /><br />But it's OK that we can't ever know everything! This gives us room to learn and grow forever! I don't think this is part of any plan -- it's just a normal facet of the natural scheme of things!<br /><br /><i>"The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding."</i> <br /> <b>- Sir Francis Bacon </b>(1561 - 1626) <br />

 

[silylene old]

In base three, the answer would be 20. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[vogon13]

There are 10 kinds of people.<br /><br />The ones who understand base 2, and the ones who don't.<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[doubletruncation]

<font color="red">There are 10 kinds of people. ...</font><br /><br />I never heard this one before - I like it <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[rfoshaug]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>There are 10 kinds of people.<br /><br />The ones who understand base 2, and the ones who don't.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[trulogic]

Perhaps I was too broad in my statement. Let me give you an example: I can tell you all aspects, down to mathmatical precision, about a bicycle and how to ride it. I can tell you it has two wheels, a handle bar, a frame, gears, etc. I can tell you where to place your feet and how many foot lbs. per square inch it takes to give said bike momentum. I can write this all down into an equation so that any person can have an understanding as to how to ride this bike. But if anyone were to actually jump on this bike, based on pure numbers, who would actually be able to ride it? I guess my point is that, while equations, in there purist form, may give us an understanding as to how things work, they alone do not give us the knowledge needed to comprehend it's reality.

 

[trulogic]

One more thing, why is this not the proper forum for such discussion? I was under the impession that philosophy and science were different aspects of the same thing. From philosophy the question arises, from sciece the answer is sought!

 

[doubletruncation]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I can write this all down into an equation so that any person can have an understanding as to how to ride this bike. But if anyone were to actually jump on this bike, based on pure numbers, who would actually be able to ride it?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I guess I don't quite understand what the problem is. In principle, you are yourself governed (at least probabilistically) by the same equations, and in principle whether you decide to go sit on the bike and ride it, and whether having worked out all the maths you know how to ride it better, or whether you decide to go chuck the bike in the trash and buy a skateboard is all predetermined by those equations. In practice, of course, no one assumes that you would possibly have any real hope of either knowing all the necessary initial conditions, or calculating what a person is going to do given those conditions. So there is obviously going to be some disconnect between how we actually live (actually getting your foot to push the correct amount on the pedal either by intuition or by somehow knowing what x lbs per square inch feels like) and our physical description of the universe. But that doesn't mean the equations are useless or aren't applicable to the universe. Say you want to build a robot that rides the bike, by knowing how much force the robot needs to exert on the pedal you've reduced the problem to building a robot that can exert said force on a pedal, similarly you can reduce other problems like that to the problem of building a machine that exerts a specified force. At some level there will still be some disconnect between how we actually put the robot together and the equations that you use to design the thing - but certainly the equations are useful, and I think the very fact that they are useful is something that's perhaps startling about the universe and suggests some deeper importance (there's no a priori reason why our observations of t <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>