Re: My week with Linux: I'm dumping Windows for Ubuntu to see how it goes

On Mon, 19 May 2025 16:59:06 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote:

 
It's certainly humbling to consider that our evolved wetware, honed for
navigating the macroscopic savanna, might be fundamentally ill-equipped to
grasp the true nature of reality at its most fundamental level. We're
simply monkey brained hominids after all. We evolved to survive. Not to
comprehend the weirdness of the universe.
 

Human beings are tool-making creatures.  We certainly had not evolved
the strength or the agility to kill wild beasts for our food, but we
sure as fuck could develop the tools, namely spears, arrows, clubs, etc.
that could do the job.

Tools are an extension of our physical being that enable us to transcend
our physical limitations.

And our mental/intellectual limitations are extended through mathematics.

 
So, while we may not comprehend ultimate reality, the fact that quantum
mechanics allows us to make predictions with such astonishing accuracy
suggests that we've at least stumbled upon some remarkably reliable rules
of the game, even if the rulebook remains written in a language our brains
can't fully parse.
 

That is still open.  To further quantum theory we need to probe deeper
into the heart of matter and that will require more advanced technology.
Our society currently does not have the technical means, nor the collective
will, to reach that end and may never will.

 
The fact that Gravity isn't a force means we need to understand what
gravity is, which, in Einstein's mind, was due to the curvature of
spacetime, a concept that feels as intuitive to our "monkey-brained
hominids" as, well, quantum superposition.
 

Einstein was able to discover his final solution only through mathematics,
in particular the mathematics of differential geometry (DG).  If DG
had not been developed by Einstein's time then no progress could have
been made.  Again, this illustrates the idea that mathematics is a tool
to transcend our intellectual limitations.

Tools allow us feeble "monkey-brained" individuals to express great strength,
speed, etc., and the tools of mathematics allow us to express great insight
into higher-dimensional and "curved" spaces.

Mathematics will continue to develop and possibly extend our mental
vistas even higher.

But if mathematics will ever be enough to disclose ultimate reality
is a question for generations of the distant future -- if we can persist
that long as a species.





--
Systemd: solving all the problems that you never knew you had.