What is the universe made of?

Most everyone here can agree that the universe is made of some sort of substance. Even if everything that you see in front of you isn't real, even if it's all some grand illusion, the fact remains that something is there. But what is that something? What is that substance that the world is composed of? Is it all physical, tangible material? Is it all thoughts and ideas perceived by the conscious? Is it a mix of both mind and matter? Is it just all a movie playing out in front of us? Will Irock ever fulfill his dream of having sex with Roph, or can he only do it in his mind?

I'm asking all of this because tomorrow in class, I have to choose a theory and fight for my idea in a debate TO THE DEATH. I've already got an idea of what I'll go for in my presentation, but I'd like to bring the discussion to RMRK to see what views you may have.


There are quite a few branches of thought. Firstly you have the people who believe that the world is made up of only one substance, and that substance is physical materials only. Thus, this branch is called materialism, in which everything, even thoughts and ideas, are just composed of atoms, electrons, molecules and etc. After all, if you've watched the Matrix at all, you might understand that the senses are but electric signals sent within the brain, and can be altered given certain circumstances. Materialists explore brain science and biological chemistry to explain how the world works, how the human conscious interacts with the world.

Oppositely, you have another group that believes the world consists only of ideas and perceptions. This branch is called idealism. From what I understand, it's essentially your will or conscious that is telling you what you see, how you feel; it sees everything for you, though nothing physically exists. For example, you see a computer screen in front of you, but its actually your mind (not to be confused with your brain) telling you a monitor is there, telling you how it feels and that you cannot pass your hand through it. How they can perceive these in this theory, however, I don't quite know yet. Some people believe that, in fact, their mind is the only thing that exists, and that everything, including you and I, is but a figment that their mind has created. Other people believe that everything has a conscious, even the smallest of atoms in your clothing, and that the world we perceive is a network of these conscious'. Others still believe that there is a god or grand master who controls what ideas our conscious' can see.

Another group believes that the world is comprised of two substances, mind and matter, material and immaterial. This branch is called dualism. The world consists of the physcial materials that take up space, but also thoughts and ideas that take up no space in the minds of everyone. If you've ever seen a picture of the the Young Woman/Old Woman illusion, you'd see a picture, but your mind would also be able to see two distinct pictures and ideas. The question though, is how does mind and matter interact? You could will your arm to move, but the truth is that its chemicals in your body that are making your arms move, not the thoughts of your mind moving it. The Mind-Brain mystery still remains to this day.


Based on some of these theories, what do you think the world is comprised of? Perhaps you even have a theory of your own to give, or can correct me of any mistakes I may have made with these existing theories.

I suppose materialism. However, I don't think that everything is made up of one substance, but rather there was an initial substance, or more than one, that then became many many different kinds of substances which I believe make the universe. Also, by 'more than one' I mean more than two as well, as not to be confused with mixing materialism and dualism.

Anyways, here's something interesting to watch if you want. It was a science channel special about the Theory of Everything (aka, String theory, which was broken and is now M-Theory).

Part I

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7SDrj4Tjvk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7SDrj4Tjvk</a>

Part II

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHzU3fgID3o" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHzU3fgID3o</a>

Part III

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVfw1XOIFGk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVfw1XOIFGk</a>

Part IV

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-mLF23JzKA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-mLF23JzKA</a>

Part V

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRBz9b6mvA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRBz9b6mvA</a>

Why this is relevant, is because it discusses the theory of the big bang, or more what you're asking for, how was the universe created.

I hate these arguments. They're awful.

I am in support of dualism. Many Wicans are, I suppose. It just makes sense to me. Any other argument is rediculous, since as Sartre says, it is the individual's perception which matters- so I guess the way to argue would be idealism, since it cannot be adequately proved OR disproved.

The universe is made of love and sunshine dust.

The universe is made of love and sunshine dust.

lol. this.

Not useful, but amusing enough to have made it worth it. :3

The proponents of Idealism are self-absorbed wankers.  The Universe doesn't exist for the benefit of a single consciousness, mortal or otherwise; unfortunately that's unprovable in the scope of the debate as framed, but it doesn't change the verifiable fact that those people are wankers.  I don't know that you could use that in your debate, unfortunately.

Dualism is an interesting approach, and if there was more evidence to back up assertions of shared consciousness or actual material effects of mental abilities by themselves, it would be more interesting.

As it stands, the only take on this debate that produces verifiable outcomes, testable theories and whatnot is Materialism.  Yee-haw.  And since it's what we're stuck with, at least outside of academic debates, that makes it easier to defend as a philosophical stance.

But ... any self-aware creature can be governed by ideas just as much as physical reality.  Winston Churchill said during WWII that "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."  You can interpret that in any number of ways, but the most obvious one is that the modern world is not confined by physical borders so much as ideological stances.

Personally, I despise these sorts of useless ontological arguments, and have great sympathy for your plight in arguing a position to any number of bored and distracted classmates.   I'd rather spend time doing something productive, but the exercise in rhetoric is probably worthwhile in itself.

Debating is an art. The correct way to debate is not to prove that you are right, but to prove that your opponent is wrong.

Right, so two opponents who debate each other correctly will ... prove that they're both wrong?

I'd argue that debate is a useful exercise to develop the sorts of critical thinking skills that are necessary to understand the world around you, but that most debates, on their own merits, aren't terribly useful outside of the exercise that the participants get out of it.

Also, it's a lovely way to examine someone else's reasoning and logic from afar, and thereby be horrified, startled, or depressed that such people actually run for public office and get elected.

That's why it's an art, one will do it better than the other and so one will win. You don't literally need to prove they're wrong, just more wrong than you.

derp derp, off track now, I will not speak about it anymore unless I'm on topic.

Regarding the whole consciousness thing... who is to say that I'm not alone in the world? As far as I'm concerned, my reality belongs to me alone. I don't know for sure that you 'people' are people like me (you could simply be complex components of my own consciousness... a la The Matrix). I dont actually think that you're not real... I'm pretty sure that you are a person. But it leads me onto my next thought.

We have colours right, and we have names for them. But how do I know that my yellow is the same as your yellow? How do I know that my blue is the same as your blue? How do I know that my green isnt your brown? Well, I just don't. And I dont think that an experiment exists to find out. The trouble is, if your blue was my yellow, you would still your blue yellow, because that's what you have learned. At some point in your life, somebody has pointed to that colour and said "this is yellow". How the fuck does that teacher in class, teaching colours to kids, know if they are seeing the same colour or not? He doesn't, however he is imparting the knowledge on them that this one particular colour (whatever it may be for them) is called yellow.

Alas.

Technically the Universe is 95% or so of nothingness, so yeah.

To tell you the truth the answer lay in ur first paragraph. Scientists thought our universe was made up of atoms, until sum1 came along and broke one down into quarks, so our universe was made of quarks. A few years ago another scientist broke quarks down even further and found... nothing. Everything we see, feel, smell, hear, etc. is made up of nothing. When u multiply nothing 1000 times, u still get nothing, yet here we are. So how does it work? Vibrations and perception! Our brains emit electromagnetic waves that bounce back to us and are perceived by our senses. We convert these electrical vibrations, using nerve stems and what not, into information our brains can process. So thus, our world really is what we make it. We perceive it is there, and so it is there.

So thus, our world really is what we make it. We perceive it is there, and so it is there.

So, if I was drunk for some reason and thought that the letter A was actually the letter O, even when everyone else said that it was A, does that mean it's O?

hahaha, that would be great, but no. It works on collective perception. Bc humans as a whole have trained themselves to think in one direction we only see in one direction. It's hard to explain it to sum1 who has never heard the theory b4, but u can look it up. Pretty much, if the world collectively thought unicorns were real, then they would be real, same rule applies to everything.

"Sanity is not statistical." (George Orwell, 1984).

I know I just half contradicted myself here, but this quote is just awesome. What I'm trying to say here is, just because everyone says that the letter is O, when it is clearly A, it doesn't mean that it is O. However, just because you say that the letter is A, when it is clearly O, doesn't mean that it is O either.

Back on topic: I'm a dualist. I also agree with Holk.

And did we just revive a dead topic? Oh noes!

Yeah, we totaly did, but I couldn't help it, it just got my attention. What ur saying is true, but u can't look at it like that, it's not sum1 simply stating sumthing about sumthing, it's a generalised idea or belief towards sumthing. So it wouldn't be enough for the whole world to SAY that A is O, but if everyone truely BELIEVED that A whas O then A would be O. That's simple though bc that alphebet is a human device to begin with, but if u look at it being applied to a non-human cration u can see how powerful suggestion really is. The placebo affect is the best example of this.

The universe is made up of lasers that are shot at triangles.

But you have to put the triangle in the middle of the room first so you destroy as much of your belongings as possible.

Nothing but myself exists lol solipsism

I was reading some really old books one year and then some guy was talking on the tv about dark matter and dark energy and I had to do a double take because the guy on the TV supposed to be talking about god particles and atom smashers was sounding just like these dead guys talking about aether.

That's why I switched majors to languages and cultures - it's easier to understand.

Well, the univers is a four-dimensional shape (X,Y,Z and Time)
One of my theories is that i is a four-dimensional Mobious Band (a mobious band is a one-dimmensional object, then only way to have this is a mobious band...look it up...), therefor, once you get to the end of the universe, you find yourself at the other end.

Is it real? Well, in all technicalities, we don't exist, and could never have been living, but is everything else real? If you look throughout history, and go deep enough, there are some instances in history where technology MIGHT have been better than what we have today, but it isn't definate, and if you're suggesting that something happened to us like did on the Matrix, I'm pretty sure that it didn't.

If you look around, and think of how everything works. Not everything makes sense, does it?
Thinks of your computer right now. It technically shouldn't work. It uses tons of on and off switches to process things. Why should it work like it does?

If you look around, and think of how everything works. Not everything makes sense, does it?
Thinks of your computer right now. It technically shouldn't work. It uses tons of on and off switches to process things. Why should it work like it does?

Uh...computers do make sense. o_O
Just because you don't have a good understanding of how computers work doesn't mean they aren't working the way they were intended to. Computers are complex things, but they work the way they do for a reason,  just like any other machine ever built. It isn't some magical box that you flip the switch on, and out comes all this cool stuff. @_@

I have a particular sense of universe. Think in how the time works, for us (occidental) the time works like a line, it's quantitative. For most of the orient's cultures, the time works like a cicle. Everything begins and end at the same time, what we have it's only a cicle.

Applies this concept on universe, a space that never have an end but ever reach the same place, and it's not a sphere.

This help me a lot to understand the universe.

(It's difficult to talk about abstract things in english, I don't know if you all will understand well.)