Is there any concept that is absolutely beyond the capabilities of the human imagination?
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Mariah (
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March 26th, 2010
Your gut reaction may be to say no, but consider this: lately I’ve been trying to picture what the world would look like if there were four spatial dimensions instead of three, and I simply can’t. Is this just a lack of imagination on my part? Is there anything else that is simply beyond our imaginations’ abilities?
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I am sure there is but I would not know how to describe what they might be.
I really doubt that we are the most intelligent life forms in the universe.
I’ve always wondered what it would like if we could see another color beyond what we currently see. What would it look like? Would it be so different and abstract that our minds would explode when we saw it? I don’t think there is any way to answer it. It simply is not something the mind can fathom.
@DominicX THIS. Similarly, I sometimes try to imagine what having another sense could possibly be like. Also, I read an article in… I think it was Scientific American, in which they described an experiment in which a person stared, with one eye looking at solid red and the other eye looking at solid green (there was more to it than that; I can’t remember), until they saw what they described as “reddish green.” Can’t picture it? Neither could I. So weird.
None that we’ll ever imagine.
Our tiny human brains are not equipped for that. I think we’ll evolve into a race of people with greater brain capacity and complexity that will allow for greater sensory perception.
As long as our species lives, we’ll be learning and advancing.
The nature of the divine. Why do you think I am an Agnostic?
There are four spatial dimensions – we just perceive the fourth as time.
There is no concept that we can’t conceive – the question is tautological.
@DominicX
I’ve also wondered about that.
I guess there are working variable light wave generators.
If there are, then conceivably you could slowly change the wavelength from one end of the visible spectrum to the other, and that way perhaps see a color that you’ve never seen before.
Not really. As for your mental dilemma, I’m sure that after quite a bit of time and dedication, slowly imagining small objects in 4D and expanding from there, you could eventually imagine the world completely in 4D.
Everything is a product of human imagination. We cannot conceive of what we cannot conceive, so how could we ever truly know if there is anything beyond it. Our language cannot even approach the idea.
I think the problem isn’t a lack of imagination… but more that you’re trying to picture the world in a way that your perceptions can’t provide for you. We humans sadly see only in 2D, with perceived depth.
@cbloom8 I can’t even imagine what a four dimensional object would look like… It helps to start by thinking about how a two dimensional creature drawn on a sheet of paper can’t look up and out of the page, but trying to put myself in the shoes of that two dimensional creature and finding my way out of the page is another dilemma entirely.
@Mariah You’d need to see it in 3D – you can draw a representation of a 2D object in 1D, and 3D object in 2D, and a 4D object in 3D.
but it would be just a representation.
God.
Also, the size of the universe maybe?
Of course.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Act 1. Scene V
Yes. I agree with others who have said “God.” Any God that we could conceive of couldn’t possibly live up to the notion we mean when we speak of a God. To be God, God would have to be something that a human mind can’t contain. God could not just be like a big human being.
This is one of the reasons that I say it doesn’t matter if there’s a God there or not. I don’t believe there is, but even if there is, it can’t change anything I do.
However, there have been plenty of people over the millennia who don’t hesitate to talk about “knowledge” of God and who think they can tell us not only what God is but what God wants and the meaning of what God does. I refrain from calling them all charlatans because they have included great minds such as those of Kant and Kierkegaard, but I honestly don’t think they could have known any more about God (if God there be) than a snail in my garden could.
Now, gods, with a small g, are different. We can know about those because they are our creations. We can know about them as much as we can know about human mythology, culture, and history because that’s where they are to be found.
Yes, there are limits. Our brains can only compose pictures and thoughts out of copies and combinations given to us by other, physical or mental things.
Infinity. When you really think about, you can’t stand it.
I do not believe that the human mind can truly grasp the concept of infinite space or infinite time. Those concepts can be described to a certain extent, but that is not the same thing as truly understanding or visualizing them.
Another thing that cannot be fully grasped is the basic concept of existence. Science can only get us back to the rather vague notion of the universe starting from the Big Bang. It does not answer the question of what created the universe or if anything created the universe. Many people basically shrug that off and assign creation to a god of some sort. That is the tactic of the “Creationists” and “Intelligent Design” advocates, but it is also the bottom line position for almost all religious beliefs. However, that does not solve the conundrum. If the universe had to be created by someone or something, then why wouldn’t the god or gods have to be created by someone or something? That goes on endlessly, like a string of mutually reflecting mirrors. It is not a logical solution so it cannot fairly be said that the mind grasps it.
If we take a creating god out of the picture, what we seem to be left with is the alternative conclusion that the universe simply exists because it exists. It is really hard, probably impossible to grasp that either.
In the end, the basic concept of existence is probably a mystery which cannot ever be fully grasped, let alone solved.
()^ioKL^(&%^%)&KLKLHJHUITGF%&(+()IOKJHF^#%$&*)&+KL
A way to coexist in peace.
What about the very concept of a concept we can’t imagine?
Infinity is a good example. To a finite mind, it both has to exist and cannot be groked if it does exist.
Any extended play with infinite concepts is usually enough to shut me down for a while.
“Say you have an infinite number of marbles. Now divide that in half. You now have twice the marbles that you did before. Add the two wholes together, and you have the same number of marbles as when you started off. And the number of marbles never changes.
Try again. This time, try picturing the marbles as they move through their math.
@Jeruba
Wouldn’t it be possible, though, for God to define what parts of Himself that could be made to fit our understanding?
Very lage numbers. Try visuizing 1,000,000 marbles. In a row.
Nice to see how many of the ideas for answers to this question are mathematical. I’ve actually seen someone draw a rough representation of a million dimensional cube on a blackboard (it was very rough). We might not be able to “see” it in a visual way, but we can work with it. In fact, there are even ways to work with infinite dimensions.
I would go the other way—actual reality is always out of our reach. We conceive of models to help us understand it, but the real itself eludes us. We can only approximate it with concepts.
@finkelitis now we’re talking subjective reality. Wonder what a machine’s subjective reality would be? [Don’t think the character of Data on Star Trek 2nd generation covers it.]
My personal conundrum is the living for eternity concept. My mind cannot grasp this…. it is boggling
Nothingness. Just try and imagine absolutely nothing. This concept will always be way beyond our brain’s capabilities.
(Edit: Damn it @JeanPaulSartre already mentioned it.)
Nothingness and infinity
αω [ΑΩ]
concepts contemplated since preChristian times
Alpha and Omega directly related to contemplation of Hindu OM
Om [ॐ]
ω
α
I think there is an infinitely uncountable amount of concepts beyond human imagination.
@Nullo Actually, some infinities are bigger than others. The set of all integers, for example, is larger than the set of all even numbers, but they’re both infinite. Wrap your mind around that one!
@Mariah another unwrappable concept
@Nullo I loved your profound thought experiment with the marbles, and nearly lost my marbles thinking about it last night before merciful sleep came and gave some needed relief to an exploding brain.
Here’s what emerged from the exercise. An average marble has a rather small, but finite mass and occupies a tiny little fragment of the set of all space-time. Now if you were able to start collecting more and more marbles faster and faster, and somehow could prevent their increasing mass from collapsing into a black hole, they would eventually expand to fill all space-time; but you still don’t have an infinite number of marbles. you have a very large, but finite number.
So you let the marble accretion continue on till it fills all the unbounded nothingness beyond preexisting space-time. Only when that is done do you have an infinite number of marbles. Now, if you seek to divide them, were are you going to put the two halves. Therein lies the problem with dividing infinity. How big is half of God? How is there room for a parting line?
@Nullo You cut each individual marble in half!
@Draconess25 Ha! That gives you twice infinity of half-marbles. :-)
@ETpro…...I’m gonna kick my girlfriend’s ass now!
@Draconess25 Hope she appreciates the small role I played in making that happen. :-)
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