What Is Actually Impossible?

[Pedersen]

I said it in another thread, so I'll repeat it here: I do not believe in the impossible. I genuinely don't.

If there is something that can be done, then there is a way to do it. That way might not be practical, it might not be feasible, it might even be currently unknown, but I do not believe in the impossible.

I concede certain items by default: It is not possible for the statement "1=0" to be true without redefining one and zero. It is not possible to have the temperature of something go below absolute zero, due to the way absolute zero is defined. It is also not possible for an object that has mass to move faster than the speed of light.

That last one bears repeating and examination: It is not possible for an object that has mass to move faster than the speed of light (read theory of relativity information if you doubt that). However, it is still possible to go from point a to point b faster than the speed of light, we just don't have the mechanics yet.

How? Well.... Consider if you were able to fold space like a napkin. You could bring the furthest points of space so close that you could literally walk to them as easily as walking across the room, then undo the fold. You have now moved between two points that can be light years apart in a matter of seconds, and have therefore apparently gone faster than the speed of light.

How does this work out of theory? I have no idea. But I know that scientists are working on it. So, once the actual mechanics are figured out, it stops being a theory, and starts being reality. Might not see it in my lifetime. But that doesn't make it any less possible.

So, I ask everybody here, what is genuinely impossible to accomplish?

[Rapscallion]

A theory is a reality. The term hypothesis is probably more to your need - it refers to something that isn't proven, but heavily suspected (give or take). A theory, such as the one of gravity, is an idea that has stood the test of time and many experiments.

Rapscallion

[tendomentis]

Nice, now there is a thread where this can really be fleshed out.

I've been studying Buddhist koans for the last few months....fascinating stuff really, but it really has challened me to think outside the box on some things I didn't question before.

You run into a problem of definition with impossible. Some things are logically impossible, and some things are physically impossible.

For example, it is impossible to believe in something that has not been conceived of. Logically, if no one (including yourself) has ever conceived of an idea, that idea cannot be believed in.

You also cannot murder someone who never existed, or climb a tree that never grew from its seed, or swim in an ocean that has evaporated, or be shot with a bullet that was never created, or eat a meal that was never prepared, or open a gate that was never built, or raise a family when you died at birth, etc....

A flower cannot be both dead and alive at the same time (physical impossibility). You can redefine "dead" and "alive", but then you haven't solved the physical impossibility, merely used semantics to side-step the impossibility (the impossibility still exists though).

Even the oldies-but-goldies like "man cannot fly" are still impossible. Technically, we can't fly as we lack the natural ability to do so, but we can build machines that can and we can anchor ourselves to those machines while they fly, but we still haven't undone the fact that man cannot fly. If the flying machine breaks while in flight, the human riding it does not fly, he or she just falls with style. We could even at some forseeable point in the future re-engineer our own genome so we can take to the air, but the resulting creatures would probably not be defined as "human", so again it comes down to redefining to side-step an impossibility.

Contemplating impossibles is very healthy for the mind. It's good exercise.

BTW Pedersen, I truly AM sorry if I accidentally hijacked the other thread. Having this topic analyzed in a thread of its own is definately a good idea.

[Pedersen]

A theory is a reality. The term hypothesis is probably more to your need

You are correct. I was playing looser with terms in this thread than I was in the morality thread, and using the layman's idea of what a theory is (something that may or may not be true, and no one knows for sure).

I've been studying Buddhist koans for the last few months....fascinating stuff really, but it really has challened me to think outside the box on some things I didn't question before.

Any decent sites online where I can read a few of them? I do like having to think, believe it or not.

You run into a problem of definition with impossible. Some things are logically impossible, and some things are physically impossible.

And I have to concede to the logically impossible. Those are the very definition of impossible. But, what is physically impossible? For me, the canonical example of physically impossible is that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. And I can find a way to side step that barrier. I don't actually move faster, but I can appear to.

Well, once the mechanics are figured out by some physicist who is much much smarter than I am, anyway

A flower cannot be both dead and alive at the same time (physical impossibility). You can redefine "dead" and "alive", but then you haven't solved the physical impossibility, merely used semantics to side-step the impossibility (the impossibility still exists though).

Well, actually, the boundary between alive and dead is a lot more fuzzy than we would like to admit. For instance, consider the flower. Is the flower simply the sum of its parts, and when one part is dead, the flower is dead?

If so, that flower dies a hundred times an hour, as any individual cell dies.

Is the flower all of the individual parts? If so, then when someone says that the flower is dead, there are numerous cells which could still be alive.

If you go even further down than cells, you get individual compounds, each of which, while not alive in and of themselves, are required for life. These same compounds go through the cycle of life, literally appearing in the next generation of flowers, trees, grass, and even animals. If the flower is made up of those components, then the flower is never truly alive, and never truly dies.

So, before saying it is impossible for a plant or animal to be both alive and dead, it is very important to define alive and dead.

Even the oldies-but-goldies like "man cannot fly" are still impossible. Technically, we can't fly as we lack the natural ability to do so, but we can build machines that can and we can anchor ourselves to those machines while they fly, but we still haven't undone the fact that man cannot fly.

And, again, we come back to the definition issue. I do see your point, so I will just point out the semantic difference: Mac can not fly without external assistance.

You are correct in your statement, but sometimes specificity very much matters. Especially when trying to come up with genuinely physically impossible. After all, on another world with low enough gravity and thick enough atmosphere, man could fly without outside assistance or some form of genetic modification.

Contemplating impossibles is very healthy for the mind. It's good exercise.

I agree. At least, it keeps our imaginations moving, which is what dreams come from. And without dreams, we're little more than automatons trying to make it through the day. Personally, I like my dreams

BTW Pedersen, I truly AM sorry if I accidentally hijacked the other thread. Having this topic analyzed in a thread of its own is definately a good idea.

Hey, I just wasn't clear enough in what I was going for over in that thread. I also got more than slightly harsh about it, and I do apologize. Later tonight, I'll do the same in that thread.

They are two different things to me, very much so. And this one will hopefully be more fun

[tendomentis]

Pedersen,

The Gateless Gate is a good place to start. I have it in hard copy and I'm working my way through it. The downside is that you can't just read through each koan, they are precepts one is supposed to meditate on to understand.

Here is a URL where you can read them online. I can't vouch for the translation, but I'm guessing it's okay.

http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl

As far as gravity and flying go, even on a planet with a lower gravity, man can't fly, we would just be able to jump far, but we wouldn't be able to induce lift with our bodies as we just lack the physiology to do so. With a thick enough atmosphere, you'd more be swimming than flying (which again might just come down to a semantic difference). Birds can induce lift under their wings by flapping and rotating the wide surfaces of their wings down and back at the same time. Our arms don't have a wide enough surface (as our arms are mostly round) to induce lift when in motion, no matter how thick the atmosphere. Our arms are basically just flat enough to act as very weak rudders when skydiving at high speeds.

As far as life and death go (in relation to the flower analogy), I'm abiding by the scientific definition of life (at least as it was defined by my biology class in high school) which would be cellular respiration. So if you want to take it down from the flower to an individual cell of the flower, a cell can not be alive (respiration) and dead (lack of cell respiration) at the same time. That could be considered a physical impossibility as it pertains to an observable instance in reality as opposed to the logical impossibility of a thought experiment.

Oh, and I'm also a big fan of dreams, particularly as they relate to trans-somniatic existence, another intriguing yet little known (or understood) phenomenon experienced by extremely adept meditation practicioners

[Seshat]

How about this, tendomentis:

In a derivative logical system, that which is defined by axioms or derived from the axioms is always possible and cannot be impossible.

And It is trivial and uninteresting to use lingual definitions to create impossibilities. For example, it is impossible to move an immovable object - but this is an uninteresting impossibility because it is impossible simply because of a lingual definition.

That covers you for all the '2+2 always equals 4', 'living things are not simultaneously dead' stuff. We can sweep all of that out of the way and get our teeth stuck into real impossibilities.

Now, Raps and Pederson:

A theory is not a fact. Science is not actually in the business of facts, it's in the business of the approximation of fact. A theory is simply a hypothesis that's not yet been disproven.

Of course, when the greatest minds in a particular branch of science are unable to disprove a hypothesis/theory, it's assumed that this theory is not disprovable with our current equipment and current knowledge. But that's different from accepting the particular theory as fact.


A very interesting book, and one which tendomentis would probably love to read, is 'Impossibility: the limits of science and the science of limits', by John D. Barrow. ISBN of my edition is: 0 09 977211 6.

[AFPheonix]

There's a lot of stuff that is pretty much impossible at this point. Take the 1st law of thermodynamics, for example. It is impossible to create or destroy energy. It is a constant throughout the universe as far as we know.

[tendomentis]

Seshat,

You might appreciate some of the koans in The Gateless Gate and the Blue Cliff Records then, as Buddhist practicioners long in the past were able to create logical impossibilities from abstracts, and not lingual definitions (specifically because those abstract formed logical impossibilities can be translated into multiple languages and still retain their innate impossibility. That said, I should probably point out that the title of this thread is not "What is actually impossible that Seshat doesn't find trivial and uninteresting"; I think all actually impossibilities (or at least the flavors there of) should be examined, regardless is some might find them trivial and uninteresting.

AFPhoenix,

While I am inclined to agree with you regarding thermodynamics, I am also wary to pin possible or impossible labels to conditions defined by science. It was once impossible to sail "around" the world (and if you visit the Flat Earth Society forums, apparently it still is). We now know the "scientists" of the day who knew the Earth was flat were wrong, but at the time they didn't know any differently. While we can produce experiments demonstrating the repeatability of the first law of thermodynamics, that still doesn't 100% rule out that we might still not completely understand it.

For example, in three hundred years the first law of thermodynamics might be "it is impossible to create or destroy energy, unless it's 11am on the second Sunday of September in the year 1345, 14 miles west of Cincinnatti when Bob, Anne, and my great-aunt Laura are in attendance holding party balloons and singing Irish drinking songs backwards".

My point being that it can't be 100% proven until it can be confirmed under all conditions at all times, therefore any deviation from a scientific "law" generally held to be immutable can never be 100% impossible. So even though I also believe that energy can't be created or destroyed, I can't deny the possibility that my descendants might have expanded their awareness of the universe to include the instances where this might NOT be the case.

I would also submit that ANY impossibility, physical or logical, might not be an impossibility to an entity with an expanded awareness (at least in relation to our own), so "impossibilities" might simply be parameters that demonstrate the limits of human analytical prowess. I know some may argue that might be a moot point in this discussion, but I felt it was worth pointing out nevertheless.

[Seshat]

Alright. I'll clarify.

One can define something (for instance, a bogwump is hereby defined as a black avian waterfowl), and then claim that it is impossible for an object to be that something if it doesn't meet the definition.

If black is part of the definition of a bogwump, then naturally it is impossible for there to be a white bogwump. Anything which is like a bogwump in all ways except colour is obviously not a bogwump, but a bogwump-like waterfowl that happens to be white. Similarly, anything which is not a waterfowl is not a bogwump, even if it meets the definition in all other ways.

I find that the impossibility of white bogwumps is an artifact of language - and while it's interesting to discuss the limitations of language, those limitations, to me, are not part of a discussion of impossibility, but of linguistics and/or the limitations of the human mind.

However, you're quite correct. This isn't my thread to define.


As for impossibilities in fields such as mathematics, that is, in some ways, a similar thing. Mathematics is a rigorous logical system, based on certain axioms. Change those axioms, and you change the math.

Geometry, for instance, changes dramatically if you take it off a flat plane - suddenly the angles of a triangle no longer add up to 180o.

An excellent book for the discussion of math is 'Godel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid' by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

[tendomentis]

Mathematics is a tricky concept though. No matter what you call a single object (one, 1, uno, etc), if you add another single object you have more than a single object (in our math system, you would now have two). Similarly, if you have a single object, and that object is taken from you, you now have no objects (in out math, 1-1=0). Even if you use base-7, base-3, or base-10 math, if you have a certain quantiy, and remove that same quantity, you have no quantity. It is "impossible" to have a quantity other than none in this case.

It doesn't matter if you call that quantity 2, 472, algae, arrive, or Katie, if you remove that same quantity you have none. Lingual specification of that quantity doesn't change the abstract impossibility of (1-1)=(<>0).

This isn't to say that an entity that doesn't rely on basic mathemetic principles to perceive or interact with the universe(s) couldn't act in such a way that the impossibility of (1-1)=(<>0) would not limit it's actions. But that really is more of a philosophical problem as we obviouisly can't fully perceive the parameters of that thought experiment.

[protege]

So, I ask everybody here, what is genuinely impossible to accomplish?

Uh, PennDOT building a road that *doesn't* turn to shit in 6 months?