Fweethawt Posted June 9, 2006 Share Posted June 9, 2006 Some of this had me laughing like crazy. Relativity - Scott Adams FROM HERE We humans generally assume that reality is fixed and objective. Therefore we assume that the reason other people view reality differently is because they are ignorant and/or irrational. The problem with that view is that there are more well-informed and rational people opposing your world view – no matter what your view is – than there are on your side. For example, lots of brilliant and well-informed people support my view that God is a delusion. But if we took a poll of the brilliant and well-informed people of the world, the majority would disagree with me. They’d be worshipping Allah or Jesus or Buddha or waiting to reincarnate. Likewise, every one of the brilliant and well-informed people in any of those groups is vastly outnumbered by people that disagree. This has always bothered me. So I came up with a theory to explain it. Einstein’s great insight was assuming reality was not fixed, and that everything was relative to the observer. If the observer moves at nearly the speed of light, not only does reality appear different, it actually IS different. You would literally age at a different rate than your twin that stayed in place relative to you. We don’t notice the differences in our tiny, slow-moving life. But it’s there. The universe simply doesn’t exist as a single objective reality. It’s smeared all over the place. I have extended that thinking to people. Let’s imagine for the sake of my new theory that people are always rational within their own reality. It only seems as if they are not because we all live in our own bubble of reality, with our own rules of what makes sense. Within any given bubble, everything is perfectly rational and logical and all the dots connect. It’s only when you try to send an argument from one bubble to another that the logic breaks down. In my theory, it could be completely true for a Muslim that Allah exists in that individual’s bubble of reality, and completely true for the infidel skeptic that Allah doesn’t exist in his bubble. This is an extension of the old argument about whether people perceive the color red the same. For all practical purposes it doesn’t matter for questions of color because we’re all happy with our own perceptions and we can’t see what other people see. But for questions of God, it matters, because when you describe the reasons for your belief, and those reasons leave your bubble, they arrive as complete nonsense when they enter my bubble. And if I feel the need to point that out, you might feel the need to bore me or kill me. As with Einstein’s theory of relativity, our different views of reality aren’t relevant for most of life. We only notice the difference with a few topics. For example, in some bubbles of reality, the following reasoning makes complete sense: 1. The earth couldn’t create itself. Something had to create it. Therefore, God exists. In my bubble, and in many others, that line of thinking is indistinguishable from nonsense. It is the height of irrational and ignorant thinking. But only within my bubble and others like mine. Now to be fair, my thinking sounds equally irrational and ignorant to believers even though it makes perfect sense in my bubble. For example, I think this explanation seems sensible even if wrong. 1. The earth couldn’t create itself. Therefore the universe must have always been here, even if compressed into a singularity so that time as we know it doesn’t have meaning. When I make that argument to religious people, they look at me like I just took a wiz on the couch while announcing that I plan to marry their daughter. My reasoning makes absolutely no sense after it leaves my bubble of reality and enters theirs. Somehow it turns into nonsense on the trip. When I try to explain my reasoning, it’s like yelling English to a Chinese speaking guy and hoping the extra volume will help. When I hear people say that they know God exists because he healed their aunt’s cancer, it sounds to me exactly like “Rocks are liquid because 5 is greater than 6.” It sounds like utter nonsense when it leaves their bubble and enters mine. But I know it makes sense in their bubble. So something must be different in there. In this theory, our brains are nothing but rationalizers for a reality too complex to understand. When I see cars driving down the street, perhaps you see kangaroos. If we take a cab together, I think we’re sitting in the back seat and you think we’re in a kangaroo’s pouch. I think I’m leaving the cabbie a tip and you think I’m giving a treat to the roo. If you doubt that reality differs for all observers, try watching some of the French Open tennis tournament this week on TV. Notice how many times the players see a line call one way, only to have the umpire point to the mark in the clay and prove them wrong. Then the TV commentators turn on the Shot Spot™ technology showing that both the player and the umpire missed it by a mile. I welcome you to send your logic to my bubble, but don’t be surprised if I react like you’re a frickin’ moron. It’s nothing personal. It’s a bubble thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjacksonRIAB Posted June 9, 2006 Share Posted June 9, 2006 I remember Chef posting something like this about a monkey sphere. Wait. Michael Jackson has a monkey named "Bubbles". Good article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted June 9, 2006 Author Share Posted June 9, 2006 *edit* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Young Mother Atheist Posted June 9, 2006 Share Posted June 9, 2006 Beautiful... Actually some truth to it to. If only everyone understood this.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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