Garu wrote:

Everything you experience is subjective.  We may all know things but that doesn't validify them as fact or truth.  You and Lyr can both be told the same thing, experience the same thing or feel the same thing but ultimately your biased perceptions will manipulate it as it suits you.

 

Experiences may be subjective but there is no denying that there is a truth in what had happend. Cryptos has it half right. "Don't trust anyone who claims to know" but he's missing the end "without showing evidence to prove what they know". Evidence and fact is what gives us the truth, without it it is just a subjective PoV on whatever transpied.

The problem is, these "facts" are not completely universal.  The world in which the facts emerge is co-created by sentient beings.  There is not merely one real world, but an infinite amount of evolving worlds, each with all previous worlds nested within it.  Not everything is relative, but few things are completely universal either.  Rather, everything as we know it is ultimately relative, or relative to a single ultimate, in this case, the big bang.  Everything that has evolved since then has resulted in more sentience and larger worlds.  There are judgements that can be made as to which view is more inclusive, and thus higher on the evolutionary scale in a sense, but it is ultimately up to each invididual to determine for his or herself through introspection, as well as the whole group of us to collectively decide through diologue, which set of ideas ultimately lights the way forward.

Cryptos is cought in a bit of nihilistic relativism.  But dependence on universal facts that are not truely universal isn't any better.

Ultimately, we can never really know anything for sure, but we can create a general orienting map to figure out what direction we should take, as an individual, as a people, and as a sentient universe.  In short, the Matrix has us, but it's up to us to decide where it goes.

Shi+Xin+Feng wrote:

Illyria22 wrote:

My God, Illyria, why didn't you just keep it short and say "Don't trust EPN"?

Absolutely correct. Don't trust EPN, we will F you up in a cpu millisecond. A human's greatest advantage over a machine or program is his/her ability to deceive. While you all cry about the balance and the truce, the machines are working to clear the skies that we clouded. Then they will have no need for us coppertops. This is obviously the only reason they entertain the idea of a truce, as it benefits them none to trust entities whose I/O can't be trusted. And while they work to stall us, while mainstream Zion naively trusts the machines to hold up a bargain that will soon have no meaning, there are those who realize the war is not over, it has just changed form.

I don't believe in coincidences, so I don't believe it's a coincidence the General took an interest in Sati, the weather program. The General probably realized his purpose of maintaining iterations of Zion's existence would soon be null, and strove to hide her from his creators in an effort to preserve his own existence. Now she is returned and the machines are likely using her data collections to resume a plot to end the need for the Matrix.

This is what the end looks like. And EPN will fight the dark underbelly of the beast, using our Zion counterparts as decoys.

(Is this really what EPN is up to? Who knows, I'm probably lying...)

No there are universal facts. Just there is not one set of them. Your trying to take the Matrix and say it is apart of the Real. The gate to it may be but it is not apart of the real world and another world altogether. One that shares a diffrent set of rules. The rules and facts of these worlds only go so far as to the world they are within. Think of it like two boardgames, monopoly and scrable. Each is a boardgame but each has there own rules and the rules of one can not be used for another. Yes they may share the same rules such as how to choose who goes first or in what order you go in but they are still two completly diffrent games.

As for your last point I just have to ask how can we never be sure of anything if we are sure we can not be?

No there are universal facts. Just there is not one set of them. Your trying to take the Matrix and say it is apart of the Real. The gate to it may be but it is not apart of the real world and another world altogether. One that shares a diffrent set of rules. The rules and facts of these worlds only go so far as to the world they are within. Think of it like two boardgames, monopoly and scrable. Each is a boardgame but each has there own rules and the rules of one can not be used for another. Yes they may share the same rules such as how to choose who goes first or in what order you go in but they are still two completly diffrent games.

As for your last point I just have to ask how can we never be sure of anything if we are sure we can not be?

But Monopoly and Scrabble are both finite games.  There is another type of game, the infinite game, that does not have a single set of rules and is not designed to have a winner or a loser, but rather, it is designed for the purpose of continuing play.  A game that continuously breaks it's own rules for the benefit of all who are involved is far more benefictial than a rigid game with a single set of rules.

And it is true, we can also never be sure about never being sure about anything, but the idea of complete relativism (never being sure about everything) is still an actual existing worldspace that everyone has to pass through if they want to get to higher worldspaces.  For those that have already gotten past it, it can also be a valuable tool.

You cannot simply devide worldspaces and say, this is true in this world, this is true in this other world, and that never changes, the two don't intersect.  You cannot say that because everything is connected.  Everything is connected on a great number of scales, one of the most important of them right now being the evolutionary one.  Now does that mean the Matrix world is more evolved than the so-called "Desert of the Real"?  Certainly not.  But the way we use it sometimes is, as the tools the Matrix provide, the tools for freedom, often represent subtler consciousness then the idea that "The Real" represents.  Of course, you can have intense freedom states in the "Real" world as well, the Matrix just makes it easier.  It's important to save the Matrix, but not because of control, or because of facts and figures.  It's important to save the Matrix because the Matrix offers oportunities.  Oportunites for awakening.

GamiSB wrote:

No there are universal facts. Just there is not one set of them. Your trying to take the Matrix and say it is apart of the Real. The gate to it may be but it is not apart of the real world and another world altogether. One that shares a diffrent set of rules. The rules and facts of these worlds only go so far as to the world they are within. Think of it like two boardgames, monopoly and scrable. Each is a boardgame but each has there own rules and the rules of one can not be used for another. Yes they may share the same rules such as how to choose who goes first or in what order you go in but they are still two completly diffrent games.

As for your last point I just have to ask how can we never be sure of anything if we are sure we can not be?

But Monopoly and Scrabble are both finite games.  There is another type of game, the infinite game, that does not have a single set of rules and is not designed to have a winner or a loser, but rather, it is designed for the purpose of continuing play.  A game that continuously breaks it's own rules for the benefit of all who are involved is far more benefictial than a rigid game with a single set of rules.

Now your takeing the example and over analizing it. But it hardly matters sence the world as anything with a start has an end. You may start an infinite game but you will end it eventualy and the victor is whomever accumilated the post point. Also you still use the rules from a noraml game play as you would an infinte game. It is the rules that define what the game is just like the laws and facts of the worlds define those worlds.

And it is true, we can also never be sure about never being sure about anything, but the idea of complete relativism (never being sure about everything) is still an actual existing worldspace that everyone has to pass through if they want to get to higher worldspaces.  For those that have already gotten past it, it can also be a valuable tool.

No it is a faulty theory. The very fact that it's defintion contridicts its self proves that it is not real because the only way anything can be real is if it true and the truth is never contridictory.

You cannot simply devide worldspaces and say, this is true in this world, this is true in this other world, and that never changes, the two don't intersect.  You cannot say that because everything is connected.  Everything is connected on a great number of scales, one of the most important of them right now being the evolutionary one.  Now does that mean the Matrix world is more evolved than the so-called "Desert of the Real"?  Certainly not.  But the way we use it sometimes is, as the tools the Matrix provide, the tools for freedom, often represent subtler consciousness then the idea that "The Real" represents.  Of course, you can have intense freedom states in the "Real" world as well, the Matrix just makes it easier.  It's important to save the Matrix, but not because of control, or because of facts and figures.  It's important to save the Matrix because the Matrix offers oportunities.  Oportunites for awakening.

Actully you can simply devide a worldspace the Matrix and the Real are perfect examples of it. Gravity in the real is very much real however we consently prove that in the matrix the law of gravity is nothing. In the real world you can't mearly craft things out of thin air but within the Matrix you can. The real is a real world with real things. This is what defines it. But the Matrix is only code. You can make anything with zeros and ones because that is all it is and that is what defines it. There is a line and neither is relitive to the other. They may have simularites but they are very much two diffrent places. As for the "Evolutionary Scale" that is also just a theory and you can not create fact off of a theory.

Ah, but facts are nothing without a map to orient them.  You need a theory in order to interpret facts, because all facts are experiental and depend on circumstance.  They depend, I will concede, upon the world that you are in.

All devisions between worlds, however, are completely arbitrary.  Everything that has a begining has an end, but that which has no begining has no end.  Infinite games are truely infinite because they are infinite with respect to the past and the future.  And yes, I was extending the metaphor quite a bit with my discussion of games, but there is a book called "Finite and Infinite Games" (I can't remember who wrote it) that illustrates my point quite nicely, so I saw that as an oportunity to explain what I am refering to.  In this case, you can simply substutite the word "game" with the word "theory" and it works just the same.  Those with a finite theory of their own existence are doomed, eventually, to die, becaue everything that begins will end.  All finite objects will eventually pass away.  It is possible however, not to identify with finite objects, to see that finite objects, such as your finite mind and ego, arise within your greater consciousness, but not identify with them.  You witness your feelings put you are not your feelings, you witness your thoughts but you are not thoughts, you witness "facts" but you are not composed of them.  In this scenario, all finite theories or games are tools that can be used to show others how to find this freedom, how to lead others out of the cave, so to speak.

That is the central metaphor behind this dreamworld we have awakened to, I think, even if the Machines do not realize it (and I highly doubt they do).

Ah, but facts are nothing without a map to orient them.  You need a theory in order to interpret facts, because all facts are experiental and depend on circumstance.  They depend, I will concede, upon the world that you are in.

I was wrong to say you can't create fact off theory. What I should have said and ment was that you can not create off theory alone, you need a flawless theory. I am glad that we can then agree that there are difrent rules for difrent worlds.

All devisions between worlds, however, are completely arbitrary.  Everything that has a begining has an end, but that which has no begining has no end.  Infinite games are truely infinite because they are infinite with respect to the past and the future.  And yes, I was extending the metaphor quite a bit with my discussion of games, but there is a book called "Finite and Infinite Games" (I can't remember who wrote it) that illustrates my point quite nicely, so I saw that as an oportunity to explain what I am refering to.  In this case, you can simply substutite the word "game" with the word "theory" and it works just the same.  Those with a finite theory of their own existence are doomed, eventually, to die, becaue everything that begins will end.  All finite objects will eventually pass away.  It is possible however, not to identify with finite objects, to see that finite objects, such as your finite mind and ego, arise within your greater consciousness, but not identify with them.  You witness your feelings put you are not your feelings, you witness your thoughts but you are not thoughts, you witness "facts" but you are not composed of them.  In this scenario, all finite theories or games are tools that can be used to show others how to find this freedom, how to lead others out of the cave, so to speak.

The divisions can not be arbitrary though becasue the divisions are the laws themselves. They are the rules in which we have to follow that define the world we are in. As I said in the real you can't make something from nothing but in the Matrix you can. That law is the devision between the Matrix and the Real. Is the world infinite? Well while we may not agree on how it came to be we all agree that it had a start and with it everything else. Nothing created can be infinite and everything we see, smell, taste, touch, and hear was created. You existence had a start thus it will have an end. The trancedence your speaking of is impossible. The finite can not become the infinite

Rules can always be broken.

Signs wrote:

Rules can always be broken.

Tell that to gravity in the real.

GamiSB wrote:

Signs wrote:

Rules can always be broken.

Tell that to gravity in the real.

Right, so, do I just email it to your HOVERcraft, or do you want me to hand-deliver the message?

Hovercrafts and airplanes aren't breaking the laws of gravity only useing it and other laws to stay afloat. Breaking a rule would be like hyperjumping. Can you do that in the real? I'd go into the scientific details but one I dont know them and two I'm sure they are boring. The point however is that in the real everything is based arond the laws of nature and your not just going to be able to magicly defy or break those laws like you could in the Matrix. Those laws of nature are the line, rules, devesions, that seperate the Matrix from the real and define what the real world is and what the Matrix is.

There are universal facts to every world thus there is a universal truth to them as well.

Flight for an airplane is based mostly upon something called bernouli's principle which simply states that as a fluid, being gas or liquid, moves faster its pressure decreases. Now when the air hits the wing at the leading edge it has to seperate and then rejoin the airflow at the end of the wing. The curve along the top causes the air to take a longer path than the air moving along the bottom. Becuase there can't be a point where there is no air, the air moving along the top has to go faster. The faster air creates a low pressure area and this causes lift, as the low pressure above the wing is more favourable than the high pressure below the wing.

Really theres more to it than that, but Gami is right when he says that it works based upon the natural laws. Now as for hovercrafts, you have to understand that these are fictional creations, though they probably work on some form of electromagnetism or the manipulation of gravitons, if that particle even exists. Using the Hovercrafts as defense is pretty weak yuou have to admit, considering theres no way to really discuss the principles on which it works but hey who really cares. To be honest, me writing this post makes me feel like I have way too much time on my hands.

And one last thing. An odd side note for this discussion is that way way back when they were first developing the laws of physics and stuff that we now call science and what not, they called it "The Philosophy of Nature". I kind of like that name for it, because well....if you wanna know how I feel about all this PM me...it seems though that I have no life.

((From Enter the Matrix)

INT. The Construct, the loading program for the rebels. Niobe stands around waiting for them to enter the Matrix while Ghost double-checks his guns are in good order.

NIOBE: Why do you do that?

GHOST: Do what?

NIOBE: Check your guns.

GHOST: You never know.

NIOBE: It's a progam. They get loaded every time the exact same way.

GHOST: Hume teaches us that no matter how many times you drop a stone and it falls to the floor, you never know what'll happen the next time you drop it. It might fall to the floor, but then again it might float to the cieling. Past experience can never prove the future.

Niobe looks really bored while Ghost talks, as if she's heard the reasoning a thousand times.

NIOBE: So?

GHOST: So you never know.

((http://kalime.com/etm/))

The past experience that enables you to arbitrarily assign facts and figures to reality as it arises, as well as the expectation for the future this process creates, is merely a result identification with finite objects.  All of existence, all potential for any occurence whatsoever, is arising in this very moment.  Anything less is a contraction from ultimate reality.  This contraction is inevitable, all I am arguing is that there IS something that doesn't begin or end.  Transcendence is not impossible, it is inescapable, although we are all trying unsuccessfully to escape it with every contraction into the finite world (into the Matrix, if you will, and here I'm not just talking about the simulation; I'm talking about all the arbitrary associations the concept of a Matrix entails: real, fake, man, machine).  We have an oportunity in this very moment (because that is all there is) to wake up to this ultimate reality.  But if we do not wake up, we are still a part of it, whether we realize it or not.

How all of this relates to the current discussion... well... I guess what I'm trying to say is that "facts" are not infallible because they are, in the end, merely arbitrary associations within an evolving consciousness, an evolution which is reaching toward infinity, or freedom from all contraction.

It isn't the past that tells us the stone is going to fall. It's the law of gravity. Ghost's quote just shows his paronoid character and inablity to trust a program. Yes its true just because in the past the program has always loaded the gun doesnt mean it will the next time but what does mean it will always load them is how the program is written. The laws in our worlds are how our world is written.

Realitivity is man's attempt to never have to admit he's wrong. It's own definition contridicts its self and it preachs that while you may believe 1 + 1 is 2 I don't have to because it might not be. It's ignorance to the world and how it works. There are things yeah that are infinite but man isn't one of them. Body mind and soul all had a start and will all have an end in this world.

You're certainly right on the money when it comes to pointing out that the ideology of complete relativism condtradicts itself, but you're missing the the part where your own philosophy contradicts itself.

You're essentially saying that nothing is "real" unless it can be proven with evidence and facts, but that statement in itself cannot be proven with evidence and facts.