Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: yovav on 17/04/2022 03:57:53

Title: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 17/04/2022 03:57:53
For example, let's take the water. In a situation where the temperature is between zero and one hundred we have  water (I can feel them cold or hot flowing or non-flowing), below zero they become ice (I can feel it as hot or cold, hard or softer), and when heated they disappear and become For gas that we do not have the ability to perceive in the five senses.

is it  possible to say what the water itself is regardless of how our senses perceive it?
Or can it actually be said that we have no attainment in essence?
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Kryptid on 17/04/2022 14:23:21
is it  possible to say what the water itself is regardless of how our senses perceive it?

Well, water is water, regardless of its phase.

Or can it actually be said that we have no attainment in essence?

I think there may be a language barrier here, but I'm not sure what you mean by "attainment in essence".
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 17/04/2022 17:19:48
Water is H2O. Like most other substances it exists in at least three phases, and the interaction of squidgy stuff like humans with solids, liquids and gases is dependent on their thermal and mechanical properties. That's science, and it's useful and important. Philosophy is just a waste of life.   
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: sweetcandysp2 on 18/04/2022 04:21:18
For example, let's take the water. In a situation where the temperature is between zero and one hundred we have  water (I can feel them cold or hot flowing or non-flowing), below zero they become ice (I can feel it as hot or cold, hard or softer), and when heated they disappear and become For gas that we do not have the ability to perceive in the five senses.

is it  possible to say what the water itself is regardless of how our senses perceive it?
Or can it actually be said that we have no attainment in essence?
i don't know exactly what do you mean? :D
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 18/04/2022 06:30:15
Well, water is water, regardless of its phase.
I will try to explain. Suppose you and another creature look at a table.
You see the table is brown. You touch him and he is hard and cold.
The other creature has no sense of sight or touch. Or experience the table through the smell and electrical pulses.
If they both explain to someone else what the table is they will describe two completely different things.
It follows that the table is nothing but a result of the same receptors that receive it.
What is it in itself? What is it regardless of who catches it? This question concerns the essence. That I claim we have no perception of it.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 18/04/2022 06:35:19
Water is H2O. Like most other substances it exists in at least three phases, and the interaction of squidgy stuff like humans with solids, liquids and gases is dependent on their thermal and mechanical properties. That's science, and it's useful and important. Philosophy is just a waste of life.   
I completely agree that philosophy is a waste of time. And precisely in order not to become philosophers we must delve deeper into understanding the perception of reality.
The same water that is made of oxygen and hydrogen, the same water that is felt cold, hot, once ice and once gases.
I argue that they are a total admiration of the way my senses perceive water.
I understand it's hard to absorb but your world is not the other's world. Certainly not of other creatures with other senses.
The same water, like other substances, is the result of two things:
1. Our senses
2. Something external that I can say nothing about until the moment it comes to my senses.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 18/04/2022 06:40:11
i don't know exactly what do you mean?
Did the ultraviolet and infrared exist before we discovered them?
And now that we've found a device that has revealed something to us, do we know what they are or how those devices we built give us an interpretation of a particular phenomenon?
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Petrochemicals on 18/04/2022 07:47:17
For gas that we do not have the ability to perceive in the five senses.


Steam you can sense, you can burn yourself on a kettle, just as any gas with a high enough pressure and temperature
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 18/04/2022 09:44:59
Steam you can sense, you can burn yourself on a kettle, just as any gas with a high enough pressure and temperature
Okay, and once it's gone, PPOOF, you can no longer feel it...
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 18/04/2022 10:01:29
The same water, like other substances, is the result of two things:
1. Our senses
2. Something external that I can say nothing about until the moment it comes to my senses.

That's where you dive off into philosophy and risk drowning in your own pointlessness! 

Science begins with the axiom that water is water, and it interacts with different things differently. Thus we can distinguish between a polyethylene and a polyethylene terephthalate insulator, as I once had to do, by whether it floats in water.

The idea of keeping one element constant (e.g. water, or an elephant) is rather fundamental to scientific experiment. Pretending that reality depends on the observer is madness. 
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Petrochemicals on 18/04/2022 10:25:01
Steam you can sense, you can burn yourself on a kettle, just as any gas with a high enough pressure and temperature
Okay, and once it's gone, PPOOF, you can no longer feel it...
Because its not there? Pretty much like anything else.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Origin on 18/04/2022 12:59:26
You see the table is brown. You touch him and he is hard and cold.
The other creature has no sense of sight or touch. Or experience the table through the smell and electrical pulses.
If they both explain to someone else what the table is they will describe two completely different things.
It follows that the table is nothing but a result of the same receptors that receive it.
What is it in itself? What is it regardless of who catches it? This question concerns the essence. That I claim we have no perception of it.
First you say we perceive the table and then you conclude that we can't perceive table.  I think your conclusion should have been we have a limited perception of the table.  I think this trivially obvious.  We can only perceive a limited frequency of the photons coming from the table, we cannot sense the protons, neutrons or electrons in the table.  We can't sense the strong force or weak force in the atoms.  It goes on and on what we can't sense in the world around us.  Like I said, this is trivially obvious.

Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 18/04/2022 16:47:37
The problem with the philosophical nonconcept of essence is a lack of definition. Is the essence of a table
wood
color
quadrupedia
mass
height
workmanship
utility
or any other quality that distinguishes it from a fish?

Until you have defined "essence", you can't claim not to be able to sense or understand it. Oddly, a good patent agent probably gets closer to defining the essence of things than most people, since for the purposes  of generality in a patent application a table is "a suitably rigid horizontal surface supported by a multiplicity of vertical and/or diagonal struts" 
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 19/04/2022 13:44:18
That's where you dive off into philosophy and risk drowning in your own pointlessness! 
No!
This is where I set the boundaries of science.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 19/04/2022 13:46:09
Depends on how you define 'exists', but that's a philosophical distinction, and you have no interest in philosophy.
True, I tend to agree.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 19/04/2022 13:49:04
The thing you want is not called 'essence', but rather the 'thing in itself', or 'ding an sich'
You can call him by any name. The main thing is that you managed to understand my claim. In any case it has nothing to do with philosophy but rather to strengthen the definition of science.
 
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 19/04/2022 13:52:07
Until you have defined "essence", you can't claim not to be able to sense or understand it.
I will try to define the essence: the form in which the same element / substance / body etc. exists regardless of the same senses that perceive it.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/04/2022 19:13:59
As far as I can tell, the essence of a table is its purpose- you can put stuff on it.
There is no way to deduce that from the material it is made from, or its size or whatever.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 19/04/2022 19:46:11
I think that the essence of A  is whatever distinguishes it from B.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 20/04/2022 10:23:00
I think that the essence of A  is whatever distinguishes it from B.
Again my intention in essence: the initial state of some object, regardless of the form we perceive it in our senses.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 20/04/2022 10:23:44
I think that the essence of A  is whatever distinguishes it from B.
Again, my intention in essence: the initial state of some object, regardless of the form we perceive it in our senses.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Bored chemist on 20/04/2022 13:16:17
I think that the essence of A  is whatever distinguishes it from B.
Again my intention in essence: the initial state of some object, regardless of the form we perceive it in our senses.
You seem to have scrambled that.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 20/04/2022 14:11:57
The initial state of a table is a tree. Or a seed of a tree.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Bored chemist on 20/04/2022 15:35:38
The initial state of a table is a tree. Or a seed of a tree.
Or the seed that became the tree that became the seed that became the tree that became the table.

I think the OP is talking nonsense, what do you think?
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 20/04/2022 15:37:21
You seem to have scrambled that.
I would love to receive an explanation from you: Where is the mistake?
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 20/04/2022 15:38:32
The initial state of a table is a tree. Or a seed of a tree.
The fact that I am unable to convey my message only shows how important it is to make that distinction.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: yovav on 20/04/2022 15:42:12
Or the seed that became the tree that became the seed that became the tree that became the table.

I think the OP is talking nonsense, what do you think?
If you fail to get to the root of the matter does that make it nonsense?
I'm serious now, I can say you're so and so. But try to pay attention to what I am trying to explain.
Each object is perceived by the five senses. Can I say about him that he is in himself so and so? The answer is no. I can only say about it through the way my same senses experience the object.
So far you agree?
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 20/04/2022 16:01:19
Each object is perceived by the five senses.
We have no sensory perception of a proton, and although we perceive light, the photon is merely a mathematical model with most of the characteristics of photons that we can't see.
I think the OP is talking nonsense, what do you think?
I think the OP is talking ancient Greek philosophy. However Wikipedia states
Quote
Essence (Latin: essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity.
which is a complicated and unscientific  way of saying what I wrote in #19 above.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Origin on 20/04/2022 16:12:31
Again, my intention in essence: the initial state of some object, regardless of the form we perceive it in our senses.
I think we have a pretty good idea what the essence of an object is.
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: alancalverd on 20/04/2022 16:31:34
I think that the essence of A  is whatever distinguishes it from B.
I might add "in context". In most cases a table is distinguishable from a chair unless the context demands firewood. Or in the freight forwarding industry, everything has the same essence: 167 kg per cubic meter. 
Title: Re: Do we have the ability to grasp the essence?
Post by: Bored chemist on 20/04/2022 19:57:13
You seem to have scrambled that.
I would love to receive an explanation from you: Where is the mistake?
You have attributed a quote to me, but I didn't say it.
The fact that I am unable to convey my message only shows how important it is to make that distinction.
As far as I can tell, the fact that you can't communicate your message either shows that you are bad at communication, or that you don't really know what your message is.
Each object is perceived by the five senses.
Most objects in the universe are not perceived by anyone.

Can I say about him that he is in himself so and so?
It may be a linguistics thing, but that does not make sense.

So far you agree?
You said one thing which is plainly false.
Of course I do not agree.