Physics & Philosophy shower thoughts

Freedom and Law 'With laws our freedom is restricted' This is a very common remark nowadays. But what is ironic is that without laws, there would be no freedom; laws pave the way for our choices, and act as a 'frame' by presenting us with all available options and allowing us to meet our goal. Without law, there would be nothing to choose or love. In moral laws, for example, we can choose to follow them or not, but we would not be able to choose or follow anything if it were not for the existence of the law itself.  Likewise, we use traffic lights to signal traffic, and there are traffic laws.  These laws aren't in any way restricting our freedom, but actually enable us to reach our goal without failure (in this case, cross the road without becoming a pancake). Without these laws, it would be impossible to reach aims successfully, and freedom would become redundant. Thus, morally speaking, there can be no freedom without law, and there would be no need for law if t...

How do I know what I see is there? What if my brain somehow filters what is unnecessary so that I am only focused on the essential? So I'm just seeing simplified model? I suppose this could have been an evolutionary advantage for the first humans, and maybe even now, somehow. This theory would have its pros and cons, but as weird and intriguing as any theory can be, if it is wrong, it's wrong, and you can find many blogs refuting this idea with the following: 1) The irony of the unreal If what I'm able to see and perceive isn't reality, then what is 'reality'? The fact humans can make up the word 'reality' shows that we are aware of our capacity to perceive the world around us. Reality is exactly that- the truth that surrounds us. When philosophers use the words 'model' or 'reality', they have come to think about those concepts by using their intuitive sense that what surrounds us is real. In other words, we are not born with co...

Many people have told me that I don't have freedom. They weren't saying that to insult me or anything, but simply to state that, as a human person, I am not free.  The reasoning: I am a limited creature. Ever since I was born, I have been limited to the place I was born, my parents, the family I myself did not chose. My preferences and habits have been shaped by the environment in which I grew up, which again I did not chose. Therefore, my life is largely determined, and I am not free to do as I please. I can't fly like a bird or walk on water like an insect! Let's settle a few things... What I am born with There are tonnes of things that we are born with. I never chose my parents, or my siblings, or the country I was born in. Arguably, I'm not the owner of my life, since I did not chose when I was born or when I will die naturally.  However, if I were the owner of my life, and I had chosen when I came into existence, that would be a contradict...

1+1=2 Yes. And? I bet this was one of the first equations you wrote down. Without understanding it much, we would scribble it down on a piece of paper, and it would usually be followed by 1+2=3 or something of the sort. But there's much more to this seemingly simple equation than we could care to think when we were four. Firstly, what is '1'? My philosophy teacher defined it as the existence of a single quantity.  Okay, so what is 'quantity'? Quantity means 'number', since a 'number' is just a name we assign to an arithmetical quantity. So...what is 'number'?  This is the ultimate brick wall humanity hits. You see, we invented the concept of number  as a way to describe the quantities we perceive, and somehow the universe works perfectly according to this system we invented. Take 𝜋, for example. Most of us know that it is approximately 3.14, that it is irrational and (most importantly), it is the ratio between the circumference (...

This is a question all humans will ask at least once. Some people put it aside for the rest of their lives, and others make it the aim of their lives to find an answer to it. Why do I exist? Pretty good question. Many people have written articles on this before focusing on the idea that humanity will one day cease to exist, so why would a human life be worth living in the first place? These arguments would be deemed correct by a number of philosophers, such as Rene and Plato. Undeniably, we will all die. Life is not guaranteed (take a stillborn child, for instance), but death is. They insinuate, just as did Plato and Rene, that despite the natural curiosity of a human being, his actions are worthless, because a human's existence will cease at a point in time. Nevertheless, this argument can be refuted.  Aristotle believed that humans were ‘curious by nature’, as did Plato. However, when it comes to a human being infinitesimally small and insignificant because he is ju...

This question might seem ridiculous at first, but it follows a process of thought. The other day I was talking to a professor and he believed that if the universe is infinite, not only will there be another 'him', there will be infinite copies of him. The reasoning: "the probability of another 'me' existing in the universe is not zero, even if it is seemingly very low. So as the number of trials tend infinity, the probability of at least a single copy of 'me' existing again increases and increases. Eventually, we reach a number of trials/'spaces' that the probability of at least one other of me existing is so high...there will have to be another copy of me certainly. Put another way, matter can arrange itself in different ways (quantum states). But the number of different arrangements is not infinite. So after a certain amount of space, the combinations will start to repeat over again. I (as a person) and my entire life (as a sequence of events) ...

This blog has a beginning, like all other things: life, intelligence, thoughts, questions. Or maybe not like all things...we'll see this in future posts. The purpose of this blog will be to offer aspiring physicists and philosophers a platform on which they can question, challenge and offer their own ideas (or as we call them, 'shower thoughts') So let's go and question...