If Glass Is Invisible, How Do I Know It's There?

[Iam Joy]

If I'm surrounded by perfectly clear glass, but I can't touch it and there's no way to put a mark on it to make it visible; how do I know the glass is there?

 

I was pondering this today looking at my window.

 

Maybe it's because I can feel there is no wind or rain coming through it - but if I've never been beyond the glass to experience wind or rain, then how do I know that the glass is shielding me from those things?

 

It's a metaphysical conundrum that I've not been able to answer yet.

 

EDIT:

In response to the requests for more information on this puzzle...

 

It is about our perception, or lack of perception and how we deal with that (possibly about God, but it also relates to other states). I asked this elsewhere and was told that the glass was "imaginary" - the glass is real, but it can't be seen - I have a very clean clear window, so how do I know the window is there, because it looks invisible to me (that's how this query began in my thinking). I was also told that it means the glass is not important so ignore it - but can that be correct? Should we simply ignore it, or should we wonder about it?

 

Perhaps I am on a spaceship, or someplace where the glass is critical to my survival, yet I don't that, because I've never been beyond the glass to discover what it is protecting me from.

 

Perhaps it is a matter of faith for me to believe the glass is there, because I have some sense that it is there - but I can't prove it? How can I know it is there for sure? These questions are part of the mystery of our lives that we have always asked as human beings.

 

To put it another way... What if there is something in space or in the quantum universe that is effecting our existence, yet we can't see it? Dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, etc. Maybe this is what Thomas Gold pondered before he wrote about the magneosphere around the Earth.

 

How can we know something is there that is beyond our human perceptions? And is it true we should just forget about it and ignore it? I suppose that we have to judge it by its effects (maybe). But what if we don't/can't know just what its effects are; even if they are vital to our existence?

 

By the way - By saying I can't touch it I mean that it is unreachable for me to touch.

Edited September 25, 2012 by IamJoy

[CraigD]

A few answers come quickly to mind.

 

Glass has a higher refractive index than air, so assuming it's not extraordinarily thin, and the view beyond your glass enclosure has some well-defined shapes (as opposed, say, to an shifting, undifferentiated sand or water as far as the eye can see), you'd be able to notice the distortion of those shapes due to refraction.

 

Glass is acoustically hard, so, even if the outside world was very quiet, or you don't know to expect outside sounds (say, you've lived as long as you can remember in your enclosure), you'd be able to sense, at least vaguely, that you were inside some sort of enclosure from echos, assuming you can hear and make sounds.

 

If you have, say, a tennis ball, you can bounce it off the glass. (this may be breaking the rules of this puzzle, but you only said you couldn't touch or mark the glass, so maybe it isn't)

[belovelife]

do you have a flashlight?

[Eclogite]

Is the clear glass a metaphor for something else?

[blamski]

as you spend time inside this clear glass cube you will notice one persistent phenomena - that sometimes things move towards you and then suddenly stop. these things could be rain, windblown leaves or twigs, birds, insects, snowflakes, dust and airborne pollution etc etc. either of the following two things will happen first;

 

1 - you will develop a theory that explains why these things suddenly stop, and sometimes remain where they stopped, on their trajectory towards you. whether this theory explicitly explains 'glass' is hard to know, but you will be aware that some kind of solid field exists around you.

2 - the build up of squashed insects, dust, mould, algae and general grime will gradually turn large parts of this substrate opaque. again you will theorise that something solid and transparent exists around you that provides a support for this material.

 

the level at which you intellectualise these phenomena will largely depend on whether you have ever been aware of the thing we call 'glass'.

[Eclogite]

So, the clear glass is a metaphor for something else. Willl you tell us what the something else is please.

[Guest MacPhee]

as you spend time inside this clear glass cube you will notice one persistent phenomena - that sometimes things move towards you and then suddenly stop. these things could be rain, windblown leaves or twigs, birds, insects, snowflakes, dust and airborne pollution etc etc. either of the following two things will happen first;

 

1 - you will develop a theory that explains why these things suddenly stop, and sometimes remain where they stopped, on their trajectory towards you. whether this theory explicitly explains 'glass' is hard to know, but you will be aware that some kind of solid field exists around you.

2 - the build up of squashed insects, dust, mould, algae and general grime will gradually turn large parts of this substrate opaque. again you will theorise that something solid and transparent exists around you that provides a support for this material.

 

the level at which you intellectualise these phenomena will largely depend on whether you have ever been aware of the thing we call 'glass'.

 

I don't know where this is leading, but it's very interesting.

[labelwench]

If I'm surrounded by clear glass, but I can't touch it and there's no way to put a mark on it to make it visible; how do I know the glass is there?

 

I was pondering this today looking at my window.

 

Maybe it's because I can feel there is no wind or rain coming through it - but if I've never been beyond the glass to experience wind or rain, then how do I know that the glass is shielding me from those things?

 

It's a metaphysical conundrum that I've not been able to answer yet.

 

How do we know where to seek the answers to the questions that we have yet to ask?

 

The human default seems to be set to overwhelming curiosity. At some point, we contemplate expanding our existing parameters and encounter the 'glass wall' of our confinement, be it physical or psychological.

 

We must first recognize the barrier before we can model the means to move beyond it.

 

A very interesting question indeed.

[Iam Joy]

I appreciate the answer from UNDER THE ROSE very much... "How do we know where to seek the answers to the questions that we have yet to ask? The human default seems to be set to overwhelming curiosity. At some point, we contemplate expanding our existing parameters and encounter the 'glass wall' of our confinement, be it physical or psychological. We must first recognize the barrier before we can model the means to move beyond it. A very interesting question indeed."

 

I have added an edit to my query in response to the requests for more info. I hope it helps. Thanks to all for replying.

[Eclogite]

I shall try very hard - and probably fail - not to bring a negative vibe to the discussion, for I see that you are a sincere and alert person. Also you have clearly struck a favourable chord with Under the Rose and McPhee, so my view is apparently not only a minority view, but a minority of one.

 

Here is my concern, from my perspective you are doing what a cockney might describe as "stating the bleeding obvious". I am not clear why you did not say something like this:

 

There are things of which we have no concept and currently no evidence for that nevertheless may have enormous impact, direct or indirect, on our lives. In the Middle Ages Europeans had no concept of germs, yet germs killed them in their millions during the years of the Black Death. Nuclear fusion was still powering the sun and providing us with life long before we knew that was the source. Will Shakespeare nailed it "There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosphy."

 

How should we approach this ignorance? Through vigilant observation, energetic questing and sceptical analysis. What do you think?

 

That would have delivered, I believe, a crystal clear message, in minimum time. As it is I feel somewhat manipulated in having been strung along through a lengthy metaphor to arrive at a trivial conclusion. But thank you for eventually setting the record straight.

[Moontanman]

 

To put it another way... What if there is something in space or in the quantum universe that is effecting our existence, yet we can't see it? Dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, etc. Maybe this is what Thomas Gold pondered before he wrote about the magneosphere around the Earth.

 

How can we know something is there that is beyond our human perceptions? And is it true we should just forget about it and ignore it? I suppose that we have to judge it by its effects (maybe). But what if we don't/can't know just what its effects are; even if they are vital to our existence?

 

By the way - By saying I can't touch it I mean that it is unreachable for me to touch.

 

 

If indeed you can't sense this glass wall in any way what would make you think it's there? It is easy to make up things that maybe beyond our perception but if the glass wall has no perceptible effect from whence did the idea of the glass wall come? If such a wall exists but has no perceptible effects why posit it's existence to begin with? Eclogite makes a good point about things like bacteria before we knew what they were or about what powers the sun but all these things have some measurable effect, dark energy and dark matter may not be perceptible but what ever they are they do have measurable effects. I am an Empirical Rationalist , if is has an effect then it bears some investigation but imagining something that has no measurable effect and assuming it to be true is nonsensical, looking for something that has no measurable effect is nonsensical, why would you go about looking for something that cannot be perceived and has no measurable effect on reality?

[modest]

If I'm surrounded by perfectly clear glass, but I can't touch it and there's no way to put a mark on it to make it visible; how do I know the glass is there?

 

I was pondering this today looking at my window.

 

Maybe it's because I can feel there is no wind or rain coming through it - but if I've never been beyond the glass to experience wind or rain, then how do I know that the glass is shielding me from those things?

 

It's a metaphysical conundrum that I've not been able to answer yet.

 

EDIT:

In response to the requests for more information on this puzzle...

 

It is about our perception, or lack of perception and how we deal with that (possibly about God, but it also relates to other states). I asked this elsewhere and was told that the glass was "imaginary" - the glass is real, but it can't be seen - I have a very clean clear window, so how do I know the window is there, because it looks invisible to me (that's how this query began in my thinking). I was also told that it means the glass is not important so ignore it - but can that be correct? Should we simply ignore it, or should we wonder about it?

 

Perhaps I am on a spaceship, or someplace where the glass is critical to my survival, yet I don't that, because I've never been beyond the glass to discover what it is protecting me from.

 

Perhaps it is a matter of faith for me to believe the glass is there, because I have some sense that it is there - but I can't prove it? How can I know it is there for sure? These questions are part of the mystery of our lives that we have always asked as human beings.

 

To put it another way... What if there is something in space or in the quantum universe that is effecting our existence, yet we can't see it? Dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, etc. Maybe this is what Thomas Gold pondered before he wrote about the magneosphere around the Earth.

 

How can we know something is there that is beyond our human perceptions? And is it true we should just forget about it and ignore it? I suppose that we have to judge it by its effects (maybe). But what if we don't/can't know just what its effects are; even if they are vital to our existence?

 

By the way - By saying I can't touch it I mean that it is unreachable for me to touch.

I've seen the idea you're getting at discussed as "the parable of the Invisible Gardener". According to wikipedia it was originally published as,

 

"Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, 'It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.' The other disagrees and an argument ensues. They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer remains unconvinced, and insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The skeptic doesn't agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all."

 

-

Parable of the Invisible Gardener

 

~modest

[belovelife]

interesting edit iamjoy

 

i was pondering something similar

 

say you have a black hole/ or quasar

and there is a galaxy type dynamic going on iside there

 

then you have a galaxy

 

then, in relative pattern, ( like bhuddist monks believe )

 

there is a hight realm

 

now the higher realm is lighter in the same relative nature of a quasar and a galaxy

 

as we are part of it at the same level though

 

while a black hole is part of our universe

 

and a galaxy is part also

 

then the next level is part also

 

like a new "air"

 

i ponder it like this

 

imagine how difficult it would be to manipulate ultra dense, exotic to us, matter within a active galactic nucleus

 

now to us, manipulating matter in our level is instinctual, but the denser reality seems harder

 

conversely, the lighter level may be even easier to manipulate

 

it may not relate to your puzzle, but the bhudists seem to feel this way

Edited September 26, 2012 by belovelife

[Eclogite]

Belovelife is there a technical reason you write in very short lines separated by wide spaces? If not, please stop it.

[belovelife]

Belovelife is there a technical reason you write in very short lines separated by wide spaces? If not, please stop it.

 

 

yeah, basically they are like sentences, similar to

 

 

i have reasoning for the idea, mainly when one is reading a post, sometimes it is easier to have the topics within the post

separated by a line, this , imho, helps keep the train of thought going, and if you lose your place in the train of thought,

its easy to find it again,

 

thing is when i hit the return button, it always gives me a line, and sometimes when i am typing fast, i forget to delete

the eccess blank lines

[Iam Joy]

In reply...

 

THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed - except eclogite for a reply that contained a completely unnecessary and inappropriate tone of aggression. A good discussion contains disagreements and that's good; however, when it is written as an attack I don't find that very helpful or civilised.

 

BELOVELIFE :smile: I was very happy to read and to ponder your reply, which I found very interesting. I did not mind at all that it was written prose style as this does cause the reader to give more consideration to the meaning and not to simply rush through someone's personal philosophical thought stream. I think that eclogite's snap at you was unnecessary. It only fills up a board and gets annoying when it's possible for people to post big images - and also when they keep pasting huge amounts of text from previous posts.

 

Getting back to the 'glass'...

 

I think the only reason I know there may be 'glass' there is because of the frame and this leads me to wonder/imagine that the frame is holding something. Perhaps this is why humans have always pondered that there feels to be some missing piece in the context of their lives or existence - it feels as though something should be there, or that it must be there, though we can't perceive it; and this is why most humans have always pondered that there is a mystery to life (life in some sense). What do you think?

Edited September 28, 2012 by IamJoy

[blamski]

why does there have to be a frame? how about if you consider the question when the glass is seamlessly joined at each edge? or how about if its even a dome? i've probably seen as many empty frames as full ones in my lifetime... so could never be convinced that there has to be something within its boundaries just because it exists.