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[Zelnor]

If this entry provokes "TL;DR" in you, please skip to the row which reads "Read from here, TL;DR people."

First just an annoying IB requirement to keep France from not accepting
the IB, it's now one of my favourite subjects.

Today I did my ToK homework in the library, and I had a really weird experience. I wrote, and then I had an idea... that I couldn't express. My mind was completely empty, and I just wrote the words down.

And the homework - which was about the relationship of properties of the universe to the laws of physics (darned interesting topic) - got me thinking.

So this is a topic about the theory of knowledge.

I find it most amazing that the more you know, the more trivial it seems to become, both in comparison to rural, small knowledge and the big picture.

For example, Chemistry HL has taught me about electron, their quantum leaps and the fact that they arrange themselves into s, p, d, and f orbitals, always first in the same spin direction in each sub-orbital and then they add p, but spin in different directions.

But I still don't know how to iron a shirt or wash my socks - which seems far more vital to me.

And I still have no idea about the universe. Today I went through whatever skills and facts twelve years of high-end education have brought me - and in comparison to the universe, mankinds idea and knowledge of it is still akin to a candle in a vast, dark room - you don't smack against the furniture so much, but the far wall is still intagible to you.


And what got me thinking most was the actual homework, in conjuction with an amazing book co-written by my favourite author Terry Pratchett (disliking Pratchett is about equal to disliking Portal, in my honest opinion) and Jack Cohen. It is both a Discworld story, and an amazing scientific essay on the qualities of the human mind.

That, mixed together with Pratchetts way of writing - he himself often writes about morality and mind and, well, anything in a way that makes the big questions and topics seem laughable simple and small - got me thinking, which got me the idea.

Read from here, TL;DR people.

The homework itself is about a story, in which a child tells his parent whether he believes in ghosts. The parent, raised himself by his science teacher father, says that from science's viewpoint, they cannot exist, as they have no mass or energy and therefore only exist in people's minds.

However, take for instance the law of gravity. It has no mass or energy. So therefore it only exists in human minds.

The universe, however, is billions of years old. You know the popular fact that if the universes' history was compressed into one year, we'd be here for the last second.
So what about gravity, or the law of gravity ? Did gravity not exist before we formulated the law ?

It did, however. Gravity exists as a property of any particle, and no matter what science does, they don't know why. It gives scientists the most frustrating answer at all (which is far worse then not any answer at all, as that is a challenge) : "Because."

To make it even more complex, gravity and the law of gravity are two completely different things. Gravity is a fact, whereas the law of gravity is our understanding of it; the metaphorical candle mentioned earlier. Whether its true or not is subject to constant debate.

By this definition, theories and our laws of nature do not exists (by the view of science) as they have no mass or matter, yet they undeniably are.

And now the whopper: Minds do not exist either.

We can trace the flow of hormones, proteins, map the synaptic network and follow the electrons in the brain, yet "mind" stays unattainable. We can manipulate it with drugs and implants, so it is undeniably bound and altered by the brain, but mind doesn't have mass or energy.

Therefore, science is an idea of the universe existing within something its existence it cannot ascertain.

Also, people live their lives thinking with the idea of a mind.


... Wow, I lost myself.

Also, I wonder if I contradicted myself - we can trace the electrons in the brain, so aren't they the mass and matter of mind ?

However, the concept of consciousness goes beyond what is definable by these physical occurrences - at least for me.


So, what do you think ? Is our mind, our science, our knowledge opening a box with the crowbar that is inside ?

Or opening the idea of a box with the idea of a crowbar that's inside ?

In my homework essay, I went farther, but I am afraid I just can't replicate the idea. I also wonder if I stumbled over my own arguments somewhere there; I often make a logical leap of faith that turns out to be wrong. I would be honored if you could look at this postulate and evaluate it.


As an afterthough - the Theory of Knowledge...

If even knowledge is an idea, what is real ? What is true ?
It seems that our scientific truths and theories are like fragments of reality, of truth, condensed down and trapped like a butterfly under glass.

Amazing.

[Tails Doll]

It's something interesting to note, how real an idea is, but don't get too worked up over it. There are some things that are almost worthless to know.

[Zelnor]

I don't think so - at least the things that pass Plato's three tests for true knowledge are worth it