VisorCentral.com - Inane ramblings

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Posted by dick-richardson on 07-27-2001 07:35 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn
Such a watch does not exist in our universe. All matter warps the universe via gravity, so all watches do, in fact, tick differently.

nevermind. Thanks for the info, it's giving me a lot to think about.

quote:
I don't see where you're going... Out of my element or just plain stupid... I don't remember much about weak force vs. strong force.. a little help?

Nuclear forces.

quote:
Right. such as?

It's indivisible, un-multipliable, nothing can be added to it, nothing can be taken away from it, etc. In fact, as far as numbers go, it isn't one.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by Rob on 07-27-2001 07:36 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
I stand by what I said Toby. I'm not talking about 'Voodoo science'. I'm talking about people who choose to put their faith in science as opposed to religion, or philosophy

I think you are confusing two seperate things, here. People don't look to science to answer metaphysical questions about the meaning of life, what happens after death, whether there is a God, etc. Trusting a meteorologist's prediction about the weather tomorrow is not a particularly religious or spiritual matter. Contrast this to trusting a particular priest, guru, or shaman to interpret God's will or explain how to reach salvation. Most self-respecting religions these days don't focus much on trying to explain how lightning works or where earthquakes come from, they concentrate on issues that transcend the empirical world. Do you really know people who 'believe in Darwin' or 'believe in Einstein' the way that others 'believe in God'? 'Faith in science' really means confidence that the scientific process is a good way to determine how our physical world works, especially because repeated, objective, independent tests can be done to strengthen or weaken current hypotheses or theories. And if you doubt a scientist, I (or someone smarter than me who I trust won't lie to me) can always try to reproduce their experiments and see the results with my own eyes. There really isn't any 'faith' in science except when the word is used loosely to mean the amount of confidence we have in a theory based on repeated experimentation, or the amount of confidence we have in an expert that he's not lying about something. This is fundamentally different than 'faith' in religion, which really is faith -- beliefs about God and the meaning of existence that cannot really be proven except through direct religious experience, and even then the only one you can prove it to is yourself. This is in no way a criticism of religion. In fact, I think it's a good thing that you cannot 'prove' religious tenets -- what need would there be for faith and what value would religion have if believing in God was as obvious and straightforward as believing in gravity. But to say that I have 'put my faith in science' because I believe my weatherman without confirming his predictions with my own doppler radar is like saying that I think my girlfriend is God because she told me it's raining out and I believed her without checking for myself.

Posted by K. Cannon on 07-27-2001 07:46 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Sorry. Fixed it.

Yeah, and I'm still trying to read and understand it...

Posted by Toby on 07-27-2001 07:49 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
That akin to saying without a yardstick, there is no distance between between us.

Not exactly, but time and distance are analogous in this sense. Both are just arbitrary constructs in an absolute sense (meaning there is no absolute measurement for them).

quote:
Time is both our measurement and the thing being measured. The measurement doesn't exist without human interpretation, but time does.

Again, does it? Without our interpretation would 'time' exist? Let's say that there is an omnipresent being. Time does not exist to this being in the same sense that it does to us. Everything that we see linearly is analogous to their looking at a multidimensional map laid out flat on a table.

quote:
God?

Which God, though? The God of the Hebrews? Which God of the Hebrews? El? Yahweh? The God of the Bible? Which Bible? The Old Testament? The Geneva bible of Jean Chauvin? The KJV? The NIV? The Jefferson Bible?

quote:
And our perceptions (if the universe itself is more than mental) are of actual characteristics.

Says who? If we've got a God that's testing us to see if we'll know 'right' from 'wrong' and 'what He wants us to do' from 'what He doesn't want us to do', who's to say that our physical world isn't just another test to see if we'll think that our physical world is the real us, or whether all that matters is our incorporeal selves?

quote:
My point was that the yield from handfull of seeds and n number of generations is determined (in part) by how much time I have. As long as time exists, I will have a concrete number of apples.

But can you tell me the finite number that you will have? Until the apples stop producing or until your time ends, the potential supply is infinite in a sense.

quote:
But what about the watch on his wrist? Sure, he can't read it unless it's held directly in front of his face with it's own light source, but why wouldn't his watch continue ticking off the seconds that are passing while he's sitting on that light beam?

How fast would this light beam have to be reflected for him to be able to see it?

Posted by K. Cannon on 07-27-2001 07:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Rob
And if you doubt a scientist, I (or someone smarter than me who I trust won't lie to me) can always try to reproduce their experiments and see the results with my own eyes. There really isn't any 'faith' in science except when the word is used loosely to mean the amount of confidence we have in a theory based on repeated experimentation, or the amount of confidence we have in an expert that he's not lying about something.

I think you could substitute the word "belief" in bobbymike discussions on this topic for "faith."

I mean, I believe man has been on the moon but I sure as s*** ain't gonna be able to do it myself.

Posted by septimus on 07-27-2001 07:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
It's indivisible,

Sure it is. Infinity/2=Infinity. Infinity/Infinity=1. Infinity/0 does not exist. Infinity/-Infinty=-1

quote:
un-multipliable,

Sure it is. Infinity * 2 = Infinity. Infinity * -501 = -Infinity. Infinity * 0 = 0.
quote:
nothing can be added to it,

Sure they can. Infinity + 1 = Infinity. Infinity + -1 = Infinity. Infinity + -Infinity = 0.

quote:
nothing can be taken away from it,

Infinity -1 = Infinity. Infinity - Infinity = 0. Infinity - (2 * Infinity) = 0.

quote:
etc. In fact, as far as numbers go, it isn't one.

Again, why?

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Posted by Toby on 07-27-2001 08:40 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by K. Cannon
I think you could substitute the word "belief" in bobbymike discussions on this topic for "faith."

Except that the context can change these to mean very different things.

quote:
I mean, I believe man has been on the moon but I sure as s*** ain't gonna be able to do it myself.

Well, I'm not 100% sure that man has been to the moon, but again, these are different things. Would you believe that man had been to the moon if your only source of information was a couple thousand years old or more, had been translated, retranslated, interpreted, and edited by any number of people, and man had never shown any evidence of being capable of getting back there since that time?Gee, it almost feels like this is my thousandth post to this thread, nevertheless the whole board

Posted by septimus on 07-27-2001 08:45 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Gee, it almost feels like this is my thousandth post to this thread, nevertheless the whole board

Congrats!

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Posted by BobbyMike on 07-27-2001 09:27 PM:

Congrats on 1000 Toby.

I think that it would be easier to hash this out in person. I keep writing things and seeing them interperted differently than I meant, and reading what others write and interperting it differently than they intended. You say something, I reply, you rebut and clarify your earlier statements, I respond and rebut and clarify, etc.

Main Entry: 1faith
Pronunciation: 'fAth
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural faiths /'fAths, sometimes 'fA[th]z/
Etymology: Middle English feith, from Old French feid, foi, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust -- more at BIDE
Date: 13th century
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
synonym see BELIEF
- in faith : without doubt or question : VERILY

I see from this that while what I meant as faith in science (for the masses) is covered (complete trust), you (Toby) and others seemed to take it to mean that I meant everybody who trusted in science did so without actually thinking. After reading your posts and Rob's, I realized I was not clear. Not my intent, and I apologize for the confusion.

Theories are only as strong as the science that can reproduce them. Junk science is an anthema, I imagine, to scientists just as junk religion is an anthema to religious people.

I can see how you would be more partial to Jesuit teachings than any other. Many Jesuit priests have science backgrounds as they find the two can mesh well. Rigorous.

"Or he might just know enough about science to realize that it was beyond the realm of science."

Do you mean that science will never answer the question, or can't currently? Clarify, please.

"Just because one has a hammer, does not mean that every problem should be treated as a nail."

Tell that to Thor.

"Where has 'science' proven it? Ultimately, no theory in a real world science is ever proven beyond dispute. We live in a dynamic system. The parameters don't stay constant, and we don't have control over them (like in Geometry or a lab environment."

I was actually talking about social studies, but as a salesman I can only provide anecdotes (useless as proof I know). I guess I should have said "people generally make major decisions based on emotions, not logic.". Ask your wife. I don't know many women that want to know that they were the 'logical choice' as opposed to the 'emotive' choice!

Michael

__________________
"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Posted by Toby on 07-27-2001 10:22 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
[...] Do you mean that science will never answer the question, or can't currently? Clarify, please.

Read the Einstein articles first. They touch upon it. Feynmann has some good stuff on it too, but I've no URLs handy.

quote:
I was actually talking about social studies,

Well, given that my education is in one of the social sciences (Management! The people who brought you the Hawthorne Effect!), I'm even more leery of their 'proofs' than anyone else's. lol

quote:
but as a salesman I can only provide anecdotes (useless as proof I know). I guess I should have said "people generally make major decisions based on emotions, not logic.". Ask your wife. I don't know many women that want to know that they were the 'logical choice' as opposed to the 'emotive' choice!

LMAO...actually, we've had that discussion several times. Keep in mind that I'm married to a science teacher. She was the logical choice (albeit considering that one of the premises that went into the conclusion was the emotive aspect). Well, time for me to go. Company coming over for chili and discussions tonight (travel and numismatism more likely as topics than religion, etc., although religion will likely come up peripherally since the travel was with a church group).

Posted by BobbyMike on 07-28-2001 03:42 PM:

"Company coming over for chili and discussions tonight..."

Yummy, who makes the chili? Nobody makes good chili up here. (I gained fresh maple syrup and lost good chili!)

__________________
"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Posted by Toby on 07-30-2001 02:38 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
Yummy, who makes the chili? Nobody makes good chili up here. (I gained fresh maple syrup and lost good chili!)

My wife makes the chili. She's an excellent cook when she has the time.

Posted by dick-richardson on 07-30-2001 06:02 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Not exactly, but time and distance are analogous in this sense. Both are just arbitrary constructs in an absolute sense (meaning there is no absolute measurement for them).

Agreed.

quote:
Again, does it? Without our interpretation would 'time' exist? Let's say that there is an omnipresent being. Time does not exist to this being in the same sense that it does to us. Everything that we see linearly is analogous to their looking at a multidimensional map laid out flat on a table.

But it's existence would be fact.

quote:
Which God, though? The God of the Hebrews? Which God of the Hebrews? El? Yahweh? The God of the Bible? Which Bible? The Old Testament? The Geneva bible of Jean Chauvin? The KJV? The NIV? The Jefferson Bible?

Who's to say that these are different 'Gods' and not different perceptions of an omnipresent God?

quote:
Says who? If we've got a God that's testing us to see if we'll know 'right' from 'wrong' and 'what He wants us to do' from 'what He doesn't want us to do', who's to say that our physical world isn't just another test to see if we'll think that our physical world is the real us, or whether all that matters is our incorporeal selves?

Entirely my point with the parenthetical statement - albeit less clearly than yours is laid out.

quote:
But can you tell me the finite number that you will have?

no, but I can absolutely guarantee that there will be a finite number.

quote:
Until the apples stop producing or until your time ends, the potential supply is infinite in a sense.

The potential yield is not infinity, no matter how much time is taken into consideration. You will have infinitely many apples only when you have an infinite amount of time - fairly similar to a word that can only be defined by itself in that infinity is needed for infinity's proof.

quote:
How fast would this light beam have to be reflected for him to be able to see it?

If the watch emitted its own light - a timex indiglo? - it's speed wouldn't matter as long as it's held directly in front of einstein's eye.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by septimus on 07-30-2001 06:06 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
The potential yield is not infinity, no matter how much time is taken into consideration. You will have infinitely many apples only when you have an infinite amount of time - fairly similar to a word that can only be defined by itself in that infinity is needed for infinity's proof.

Why are you assuming that the universe won't exist for inifinite time, and that it hasn't already?

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Posted by dick-richardson on 07-30-2001 06:06 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn

Sure it is. Infinity/2=Infinity. Infinity/Infinity=1. Infinity/0 does not exist. Infinity/-Infinty=-1

Sure it is. Infinity * 2 = Infinity. Infinity * -501 = -Infinity. Infinity * 0 = 0.
[b]
Sure they can. Infinity + 1 = Infinity. Infinity + -1 = Infinity. Infinity + -Infinity = 0.

Infinity -1 = Infinity. Infinity - Infinity = 0. Infinity - (2 * Infinity) = 0.

Again, why?

You're using the term as a definition of itself.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by dick-richardson on 07-30-2001 06:09 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dietrichbohn

Why are you assuming that the universe won't exist for inifinite time, and that it hasn't already?

Because infinity cannot exist in a system you can measure quantitively.

e.g., you can't have infinitely many apples because they would infinitely exceed the universe - which can't be infinitely large if it's expanding.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by K. Cannon on 07-30-2001 06:21 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
I think that it would be easier to hash this out in person. I keep writing things and seeing them interperted differently than I meant, and reading what others write and interperting it differently than they intended.

I wasn't trying to misinterpret you with the "belief" for "faith" thing--I think i got your point. I was trying to remove the "religious" flavor/stigma of the word "faith" from the comparison for those who were bogging down in faith (religious) and science mutually exclusive. I think you mean even though "SCIENCE" means that the experiment could be reproduced, most people take the expert's word for it (i.e. believe the expert's word or have faith in the expert's word.) So, by extension, people who claim to only believe things that are proven are, in essence, taking it on faith b/c they haven't actually proven the things themselves.

quote:
I should have said "people generally make major decisions based on emotions, not logic.". Ask your wife. I don't know many women that want to know that they were the 'logical choice' as opposed to the 'emotive' choice!

Michael, my guess is that the selection of most wives involves a combination of the two...as should the selection of most husbands. Interesting new study idea: Comparison of divorce rate and marriages where the spouses were selected (a) solely on emotion; (b) solely on logic; or (c) a combination of the two. (Arranged marriages or the marriages of the Royal Family excluded)

Posted by septimus on 07-30-2001 06:34 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Because infinity cannot exist in a system you can measure quantitively.

First of all, can you exactly measure any system quantitatively, or simply apply the most convenient abstraction (number) to your best guess? How many particles are in an apple? An infinite number?

...Anyway...

The only reason we think that the universe has not existed infinitely is the big bang. This theory does not claim that the universe will not continue to exist infinitely (in fact, last I heard scientists are leaning towards eternal expansion). Even if it did, relativity says that the universe is bent about another dimension much like a ball, that if you travel in a straight line you come to the other side, so there are infinte measure of the universe...

Ok, now, there are two reasons why I think it's at least plausible that the universe has existed infinitely:

1) According to Big Bang Theory, we don't know what happened before the singularity, and cannot know. It may be that the singularity has existed for all eternity.

2) There is an alternate theory of the universe put forth by Stephen Hawking called The no-boundary universe, in which time is non-linear and could be argued to be infinite. That PBS site I just linked is really cool, btw.

But I think that no matter what, I'm not going to convince D-R that infinity doesn't need to be classified as a non-number or that it can be implemented in our universe in the same way as other irrational numbers.

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Posted by Toby on 07-30-2001 06:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
But it's existence would be fact.

Nope. If everything happens 'now', where is there room for 'time'?

quote:
Who's to say that these are different 'Gods' and not different perceptions of an omnipresent God?

MPD God?

quote:
no, but I can absolutely guarantee that there will be a finite number.

How can you?

quote:
The potential yield is not infinity, no matter how much time is taken into consideration. You will have infinitely many apples only when you have an infinite amount of time - fairly similar to a word that can only be defined by itself in that infinity is needed for infinity's proof.

If God exists, and infinity doesn't, who created God?

quote:
If the watch emitted its own light - a timex indiglo? - it's speed wouldn't matter as long as it's held directly in front of einstein's eye.

You're not thinking about this enough. If Einstein is travelling away from the clock at the speed of light, then the light from the watch would have to go faster than the speed of light to reach Einstein, no matter how close it was to his eyes (even if there was a cable planted into his optic nerve).

Posted by dick-richardson on 07-30-2001 08:46 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Nope. If everything happens 'now', where is there room for 'time'?

Um......nevermind.

quote:
MPD God?

MPD?

quote:
How can you?

Logic. An infinite number of apples cannot exist at one time. Period.

quote:
If God exists, and infinity doesn't, who created God?

Who said this universe was the only one?

quote:
You're not thinking about this enough. If Einstein is travelling away from the clock at the speed of light, then the light from the watch would have to go faster than the speed of light to reach Einstein, no matter how close it was to his eyes (even if there was a cable planted into his optic nerve).

I'm assuming Einstein is facing forward. The light emitted from that watch would have an absolute velocity of 0 (the same way that a rock thrown bacwards 65 mph from a car traveling 65 mph just drops to the ground to an 'outside' observer). Am I missing something about the nature of light?

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

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