"everything is connected"?

[Ex-User (11125)]

what do you think of the statement "everything is connected"? do you agree with it? and why?

 

[Lazy Vulpes]

I think it's kind of vague and redundant to say. There's a cause for every action. It's how reality fundamentally works. So yes, everything is connected, it's just a matter of how many steps down the chain that things relate to each other.

 

[Cognisant]

I was once reading a book called "How to be an Existentialist" and at one point it got me thinking about how everything I see is really just a cloud of atoms, I only perceive things as solid individual things set apart from their environment as a matter of practicality.
Relevant: Ship of Theseus

This gave me an insight into perception and the way our minds form concepts.

We identify things by the stimuli we associate with them and the identity of the thing as a thing apart from everything else is a contrivance we use to organize these associations.

A "thing" is shorthand for an associative reasoning system, kind of like a heuristic, every pen like thing you see you automatically assume is a pen which saves a lot of memory space and processing because you don't need to remember and identify every single different pen you see.

Our brains are designed to forgo accuracy for speed, at least in terms of the amount of data we can process as opposed to the lighting fast if relatively simple processing performed by a computer.

 

[Architect]

I hate it. It's a meaningless statement that humanities dropouts use to add gravitas to some point they're making. Usually in two contexts, either everything is connected because of quantum mechanics, or through synchronicity. Both ideas are completely false. Nothing in QM implies everything is connected, nor in Jung's synchronicity work. We can trace the roots of this evilness to a collaboration between Jung and Wolfgang Pauli.

Being an ex physicist and a student of psychology I often get this nonsense. "I just thought of so-and-so and then they called, how do you explain that?" I'll try and point out the thousands of times they thought of somebody and didn't get a call but invariably they don't want to hear it "yes but how do you explain it??"

 

[John_Mann]

God and the devil are in the same book too. So what?

 

[StevenM]

"I just thought of so-and-so and then they called, how do you explain that?"

Theory of large numbers. Coincidences must happen eventually.

They still don't get it though.

 

[Architect]

Theory of large numbers. Coincidences must happen eventually.

They still don't get it though.

Yeah, fundamentally the human brain is just plain bad at statistics. There are examples, like the Monty Hall problem, that math profs get wrong. Engineers too, we use math all the time and have got a lot of education, and when that one made the rounds it was about half and half.

The other thing is that our brains are pattern seeking engines. It's how we recognize letters, words and sentences for example. We also therefore have a tendency to see patterns and causality where it doesn't exist.

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

Being an ex physicist and a student of psychology I often get this nonsense. "I just thought of so-and-so and then they called, how do you explain that?" I'll try and point out the thousands of times they thought of somebody and didn't get a call but invariably they don't want to hear it "yes but how do you explain it??"

yeah that's annoying but I'm more interested in your second post about pattern seeking, I mean on a grander level than "wow we thought about eachother at the same time". For example when I think about food cycles, water cycles, fractals etc intuitively I feel like there is a connection between all things...i haven't formed an opinion on this tho, still wondering.

Nothing in QM implies everything is connected,

I remember watching a brian cox video years ago where he tried to show how everything is connected using quantum mechanics and then found out later that it was all false BS...i was seriously disappointed and also kinda sad

 

[nanook]

i find the statement at least mildly annoying, even though i have a high tolerance for the intuitive metaphors that belong to the language of new age/pluralism.

everything is connected with something in it's direct neighbourhood and many things are integrated into holons, like cells are integrated into body.

there are probably undiscovered holons, like morphogenetic fields. i'm not a fan of the guy, rupert sheldrake, who may have coined the term morphic resonance and has popularized the conventional concept of morphogenetic fields by stating that they are everywhere. but this particular concept of him makes a lot of sense to me.

but saying that "everything is connected with everything" sounds like the expression of a borderline psychosis. it sounds like "everybody is my mom and dad and my lover"

apparently it's true that our brain and intelligence connects or associates unrelated things that have similar patterns, because that's a practical thing to do.

everything you think about is at once a representation of real thing and a symbol of your psychology. like starving kids in africa. you are compelled to save them, because you abandon your own inner child, if you don't. you can rationally insist that the psychological symbol ought to be differentiated from the objective symbol, but your brain may simply not allow it.

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

i find the statement at least mildly annoying, even though i have a high tolerance for the intuitive metaphors that belong to the language of new age/pluralism.

everything is connected with something in it's direct neighbourhood and many things are integrated into holons, like cells in a body.

there are probably undiscovered holons, like morphogenetic fields. i'm not a fan of the guy who may have coined or has popularized this term (rupert sheldrake), but this particular concept makes sense to me.

but saying that "everything" is connected sounds like the expression of a borderline psychosis.

yeah something about it ~feels~ right but I also can't help but feel like there's something off about it Uggggg

 

[Brontosaurie]

it can be used as a blanket statement to refute claims that ignore fundamental causal properties of reality as we know it, as it must be known in order to have a coherent model. claims of religious spiritualist dualist etc nature. in this sense it's a good thing.

it can also be applied selectively in order to give apparent support to completely unfounded or disproportionate claims. this is seen in new age and also in post-structuralist/deconstructivist sophistry of the humanities, where a concept must be "criticized" and the criticism recklessly invokes basic principles which, if treated sincerely, undermine any pursuit of knowledge whatsoever. the most common is what i call selectively applied universal skepticism, and selectively applied "interconnectivity theory" is closely related.

whether the concept will give leverage or result in a trainwreck depends on ones prior understandings of what "connected" means. a stochastic physical connection that can be reliably assumed to exist to some extent and degree among everything within this one world irrespective of our human categorization into distinct objects and events, is different from the more concrete, meaningful connection of a perceived synchronicity.

tl;dr: i like the statement overall. i find that many people operate by a worldview in which free will holds reign, and free will is refuted by understanding the interconnectivity of all. that being said, few things annoy me more than abuse of analytical statements that pertain to all of experience and reason.

 

[Analyzer]

Taken in an absolutist sense it's pretty annoying.

 

[Anktark]

Taken in an absolutist sense it's pretty annoying.

If it gets to that, point out that there is a chance greater than zero, some molecules, that were
part of a dinosaur, make up objects in the near vicinity. Which means they are probably drinking diluted dinosaur piss and calling it coffee.

 

[8151147]

It's the truth indeed

 

[Vrecknidj]

what do you think of the statement "everything is connected"? do you agree with it? and why?

How does one agree (or disagree) with a statement?

 

[Yellow]

"Everything is connected" is a red flag, which acts to mark a person with whom I should avoid any unnecessary conversation.

If this statement was not attached to unctuous philosophies, I'd say it's too vague to agree or disagree with. My hair is somehow connected to my skin, but not really, as the atoms aren't allowing them to actually touch. I guess you could say that everything is connected in the heart of the sun, but then that is only true if you draw certain lines regarding what you'll call a "thing". Less literally, there are cause and effect, but not every cause affects every effect.

 

[Brontosaurie]

"Everything is connected" is a red flag, which acts to mark a person with whom I should avoid any unnecessary conversation.

If this statement was not attached to unctuous philosophies, I'd say it's too vague to agree or disagree with. My hair is somehow connected to my skin, but not really, as the atoms aren't allowing them to actually touch. I guess you could say that everything is connected in the heart of the sun, but then that is only true if you draw certain lines regarding what you'll call a "thing". Less literally, there are cause and effect, but not every cause affects every effect.

it should be taken to mean nothing more than a rejection of ideas of metaphysical independence in mind-body dualism and such; ideas which ignore the complexity of systems. to say that everything is connected is not to say that all the things are connected to all the other things but that this reality is fundamentally one. "everything" is its own thing at least to me.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Thats basically what the term universe means. Universe is that everything is in some way connected. This is basically the theory of information. All information must be connected. Thats the meaning of information.

 

[Brontosaurie]

^ that's more succinct

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

I think, if you could find a way to get that under the nose of every single person in the world on the same morning,
I would make sure you get the fucking nobel peace prize, in the field of psychology
for achieving something that will be remembered in the history books forever...

You will be solely responsible for...



infinity day.




Now get to it lol
What do you think of that? :P

 

[Rualani]

I've always thought that the universe unfolds from the same basic principles, so the argument could be made for that phrase. I don't think it is used for it's explanatory power, but it has a rather different purpose.

I think it can be used to justify favorite correlations that don't have the evidence to become causation. It can be used to refute extreme reductionism that is too narrowly focused on isolated systems to the detriment to how the systems come together. Basically it justifies connections that aren't there, and leaves space for connections that can't be seen yet. I think that this phrase is kind of the shadow to those who refuse to consider connections that don't immediately resonate with their perceived knowledge, which was built up on this last centuries schools of thought. It will become less relevant of a phrase, as interdisciplinary schools of thought continue to multiply. Noone, will have to preach that phrase as academia will have finally gotten over it's negative isolated tendencies.

I saw a lecture by Robert Sapolsky and he talked about how there is a great danger in living within your own category of thought. This phrase, albeit not universally valid, is a corrective for those who utterly fail to appreciate this danger.

Or I am just talking madness.

 

[Brontosaurie]

^ well put

 

[own8ge]

diversity exists only within equality.

I made that up, but I believe it.

 

[Doktorin Zylinder]

I'd have to say I do believe in the "everything is connected" because of the theory of quantum entanglement, or Einstein's "spooky action at a distance," and from personal experience.

From my own personal experience at look at my conceptual matrix of all things, the multidimensional web of all things I have experienced, know, and have gathered. If I add something to the matrix everything else shifts to accommodate the new piece thereby creating new connections. If I find a piece that is false, it must be removed thereby creating a hole which other pieces fill. Some connections are lost because of this, but the addition of subtraction of a piece of information can make or break a paradigm.

 

[al.otakupunk]

I've watched a bit of Cosmos recently. I believe in Episode 2, Neil DeGrasse Tyson elaborates on how very long any one string of DNA is. And at the very beginning of every string, the DNA of every single living creature contains the same pattern. Furthermore (this actually came from elsewhere, one of my textbooks I think), our atoms, the very building blocks of our existence, are the very same atoms that make up the dust which form stars.

That is how I have always interpreted that statement. In a certain scientific sense, everything is connected. We all stem from the same materials. We are all stardust. (Damn, science can make you cry with joy sometimes. :') )

 

[EvilBlitz]

Well I wouldn't say everything is connected, but that many things are linked that some would not think are at first.

For example the Arab Spring revolts, and the revolution in Syria. Syria is undergoing its worst drought in ~1000 years and the food price index at the UN when it breaches 200 for staples typically leads to riots/civil disobedience in countries with large segments of the population with no disposable income.
Did anyone see any of that mentioned in the mainstream media?
The statement can be taken too far, but I find more often than not people underestimate how linked many aspects in life can be linked that at first might not seem linked.

 

[YOLOisonlyprinciple]

I hate it. It's a meaningless statement that humanities dropouts use to add gravitas to some point they're making.

idk, i feel the sentence makes sense just that people dont misinterpret it
Connected- "bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established"

So in a sense "everything relevant" is connected. The universe all lies within the same space. Everything in the universe is "together" and as they are in the same space they are are in contact with each other and capable of interacting with each other
So connected could be basically something that can interact with something else.

And because only things which we can interact with are relevant.
Hence if we assume "everything" to only include things which are relevant; then yes everything is relevant.

Being an ex physicist and a student of psychology I often get this nonsense. "I just thought of so-and-so and then they called, how do you explain that?" I'll try and point out the thousands of times they thought of somebody and didn't get a call but invariably they don't want to hear it "yes but how do you explain it??"

Personally feel it isnt wrong to imagine things;
Just because unicorns dont exist, doesnt mean it is wrong to imagine unicorns if it makes me happy
Happiness doesnt have to be derived from interactions with the outer world only.

 

[Jennywocky]

I've watched a bit of Cosmos recently. I believe in Episode 2, Neil DeGrasse Tyson elaborates on how very long any one string of DNA is. And at the very beginning of every string, the DNA of every single living creature contains the same pattern. Furthermore (this actually came from elsewhere, one of my textbooks I think), our atoms, the very building blocks of our existence, are the very same atoms that make up the dust which form stars.

That is how I have always interpreted that statement. In a certain scientific sense, everything is connected. We all stem from the same materials. We are all stardust. (Damn, science can make you cry with joy sometimes. :') )

Yeah, I haven't watched all of the series remake, but I got choked up in a few spots. Those universal truths seems more transcendent than those we construct here on our little planet to make society whirl and clink.

 

[Sinny91]

I can agree with it on some scientific based level, and even philosophical.
Everything we perceive is a wave length, which travels via the unknown medium.
Philosophically, each action has a reaction, butterfly effect etc.

I can't imagine having to use that comment in any conversation tho.

 

[taradigrade]

After reading the replies, I feel like there is a divided response between language and physical connection. I had, without much thought, presumed everything was connected in terms of say gravity. Just because some body's gravity does not have visible influence on another's doesn't mean the interaction is 0, it may be negligible/microscopic (However, I haven't researched gravity in the depth I'd like concerning negatives and 0, so not the best example I admit). In many responses here, language seems to be more basis than maths. Atoms are the component of all/most things, for example. Atom is a word to describe an area of certain properties. Nothing links all atoms but relation under this term due to properties, in the way it's been implied. Am I seeing a divide that isn't there? Would my "physical connection" in fact break down to also be language?