Eise

That is a very good question, indeed.

I am wondering if you understand special relativity, where we of course also have time dilation. I think if you understand time dilation in special relativity, then you would not ask such a question. An easy analogy is the length of a line segment in 2-D space. Its projection on the X-axis can be longer or shorter dependent on its orientation in the plane: if it is parallel to the X-axis its projection is as long as the line segment itself; if it is perpendicular to the X-axis its length is 0. But you would not ask what the physical cause of the shortening of the projection is, would you? Same with special relativity, except that the coordinate system is that of spacetime: dependent on the 'orientation' of the events in spacetime, which in this case means dependent on the relative velocity of observers, different lengths and time differences are measured. But there is no physical cause for these differences: it is a question of perspective. Same with general relativity: dependent on the masses around, spacetime is bent differently, and so observers at different places (and different velocities) have different perspectives on events happening, including time (which of course includes frequency), and lengths. But for an observer at the same place, with the same velocity, a clock just normally ticks as usual. Physically, nothing changes. But other observers, because of their different perspective, see the events differently. So asking for some kind of mechanism that slows down processes, is just the wrong question. There is no mechanism at all, so not for atomic clocks either.

This? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTVIMOix3I

Thanks for clarifying that there is a gliding scale from '100% sure that not ...', 'no idea at all', 'pretty sure that ....', 'nearly sure that ...', 'it is proven that ...' You do as if 'nearly sure...' is the same as 'do not know at all'. If we would use that criterion, we should rewrite a lot of books about antiquity. Historians have methods to recognise forgeries, or better, to filter probable true descriptions of historical events. Christians would not be very glad with what historians have to say about Jesus. Of course one of the reasons why these discussions are so endless, is that the historical base of Jesus' existence is small. But the other one is the emotional resistance that there could be a historical basis for Christianity's development. But modern day Christianity has not much to do with the portrait that historians have of Jesus: an apocalyptic preacher, spreading the message that the end of days was coming very soon, possibly in his own life time. Paul had to bend his theology pretty hard, when some of the people in his churches were worried about people that already died before the final days: were their souls saved or not? Thanks, forgot that one.

No. It must be: he probably existed, but we cannot be 100% sure. I think you are confusing history with physics. What does count for historical evidence? In the Christ case: - mentioning by Paul that he met Jesus' brother, James - mentioning by Josephus of James, whose brother was called 'Christ' - mentioning of John the baptist by Josephus - mentioning of John the baptist by in a few gospels Oh, of course, they were all Christian forgeries... And then Paul grounding churches based on an apocalyptic theology, that pretty well fits some points the oldest gospels agree upon about what Jesus preached.

Well, not an impressive number. Otherwise there would not be any discussion at all. Of several hypothesis, historians must choose the explanation that fits best to the material we have. And we do not have much material, if we filter out all inconsistencies, additions with obvious Christian theological purposes, etc etc. But still, the simplest explanation is that Christianity goes back to a preacher called Jesus at the beginning of the first century. But of course, the simplest explanation might not be the correct one. Thanks. But I won't say much more either. I've made my contributions, and what happens now is mostly just repetition of arguments that were already given. At what Forum did you already discuss this topic?

Hmmm... Let's see what you really said: So your question starts with a statement (not a question!): "Probably that phrase by Paul is disputed". I reacted on that. For me you were displaying mistrust, and I did not found it necessary to answer your question anymore. It sounds to me you already have made your mind up: "If it is written somewhere, then it is a falsification, an insertion by later Christians. If we cannot be sure, it is wrong". Then you are asking something that, if you were really following the discussion, should have known yourself, or could have looking up with Google: search for "Paul meets James", and you are done: Galatians 1:18-20. Then you come with a similar suggestion ("the Josephus section is disputed"), and cite a web page that is critical of Doherty's position. Your reference to 'last part of the page' is unclear as unclear can be. I found nothing there that supports what you are saying. And in the light of you referring to this text, and asking where Paul mentions that he met James, the brother of the Lord, your complete posting does not make much sense: in this text it is mentioned where Paul has written that he met James. So obviously you do not really read, and just throw in a few opinions. If I my judgement of you is wrong, then my apologies. But then: better avoid that people get such impressions, by writing better, more contentful postings.

Yes, on good grounds. You are over-generalising. Do you know of one 'fact' accepted by historians, based on visions written down by some person in antiquity? Of course one leaves out such things. Obviously you have not read the epistles of Paul. He is concerned mainly with the building up of his churches everywhere in the Mediterranean, and solving the social and theological problems arising there. And therefore he had to write letters. And some of them have survived. If he would have been interested in making a chronicle of Jesus, he would have written more about Jesus life, don't you think? Right, we cannot be sure. But taken all hints together, the by far simplest explanation is to assume that an apocalyptic preacher called Jesus stands at the beginning of the religion that is called Christianity.

By mythicists, yes, of course. But not by most historians. You mean this, from your page? No historian takes Paul visions of a resurrected Jesus seriously as proof or hint that Jesus existed, so that reference is useless. Paul's interest was mainly theological and political. Why should he write about Jesus, if there were enough people around him knowing the events in Jesus' life? And now you are supposing motives of Paul you don't know about! Just read the epistles, then you can see with what Paul was mostly concerned. Yes, Paul believed in Jesus, an he took his existence for granted.

Well, Paul mentions that he met James, brother of Jesus (in one of the epistles whose authenticity is not disputed). That is pretty close. Especially because Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews also mentions James, and that he had a brother Jesus who was called Christ. This phrase is found in several independent versions of Josephus' texts, even those without the obvious Christian insertions. For historians of antiquity, this is more or less a smoking gun. If you do not accept this, you will have to deny a lot of more persons who are supposed to be historical. Mythicists of course have a great strategy here: if a text seems to hint to the existence of Jesus, then it is a later Christian insertion.

From Wikipedia: Bold by me. Further: But I have spent already more than enough time in this.

That's OK. You asked what people think of it. I gave my opinions. I just have to warn you that many of Gabriel's ideas (at least in the way he published them in those books) are shallow, and give a bad impression about what philosophy really is. If you want an impression of what modern metaphysics is, you can read e.g. D. M. Armstrong, Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. It surely is not such an easy read, and not funny at all, but if you want to know what is metaphysics about, it is a much better read.

No, I did not. But: # I looked at the video. This is cheap metaphysics. # Reading the critiques on the original book (in German), many critics say the same # I read another book of Markus Gabriel ('Ich ist nicht Gehirn' ~ 'I am not brain'). After the reading I, as an academic philosopher, felt ashamed that somebody like him is a philosophy professor. Just attacking straw men and caricatures of view points of others. So I will not read the book. Seems a waste of time to me.

He made it himself, and put it on Wikimedia. No Wikipedia article references it. See here.

Yeah. That's why I found it interesting.

Well, I assume that frontal colliding real life cars are pretty close too perfect inelastic collisions, no? I think the central lesson is that the frontal collision of two cars, each driving 50 km/h, even if they are approaching each other with a velocity of 100 km/h, cause the same damage to one car driving at 50 km/h as when this car collides with a perfect wall.

First time I see the word 'deceleration'... (non-native English speaker). But it makes a simple explanation. If nobody objects... then thanks.

As I said, the relative velocities are clear. But what about the effect? Take the perspective of one single car: will it have the same damage in all three situations?

Hmmm. That is ambiguous, or may be even wrong. Imagine the following 3 situations: 2 cars, each with 50 km/h frontally collide 1 car, 50 km/h, collides with a 'perfect wall' 2 cars, one is standing still, and the other collides with it with a velocity of 50 km/h The relative velocities are clear (forgetting relativity for the moment). But a person in between will experience the same effect in 1 and 2, where the relative velocities differ, but not in 3. But this also means that the single car in situation 2 will have the same effect as one car in situation 1, even if the relative velocity in situation 1 is 100 km/h and in 2 50 km/h. Or am I totally confused?

Feynman's statement about this is legendary:

What mysteries?

How much energy is needed to remove the water from the hygroscopic substance?

Just in addition to what I said about buckyballs, from here: Is there a theoretical or practical limit to the mass that wave phenomena can be measured?

I know this is dangerous in a room full of hard boiled physicists (I am only soft boiled...). According to Quantum Theory (QT) everything physically existing must be described with wave and particle attributes. However, when we look at the corresponding wavelengths, we see that for everyday objects, this wavelength is many magnitudes smaller than the objects themselves, so we do not notice this. However, when the particles get smaller, their corresponding wavelength relatively increases, it can so to speak become even bigger than the particles themselves. This means that with very small particles we cannot neglect their wave character anymore, and physics must take this into account to describe their behaviour. As far as I know, the biggest particles with which the wave character was experimentally confirmed were 'bucky balls'. For the description of atoms, electrons, protons etc, we definitely need QT. Small particles that are bound, e.g. in space or by electrical fields, form standing waves: As you see, standing waves can only exist when they 'exactly fit in their limits'. So there is room for half a wave, for a whole wave, 1 and a half, etc: so you get discrete states: a wave with a wavelength of 4.2197465 'half-waves' just cannot exist: only states of 1, 2, 3, 4 ... etc 'half-waves' are possible. So you get the discrete, quantum character: a system can have state 3, or 4 but not 3.5. The different states correspond to different energies: so in a system like e.g. a hydrogen atom, when the electron that is 'waving' around the nucleus can only get in certain states, and when it jumps from one state to the other, it can only emit its energy (in this case as a photon (=light)) in certain discrete values, being the difference in energy between the two states. From the other side, it can also only absorb light of the exact correct energy. This explains the discrete spectra of the elements. Standing waves of electrons in atoms, called orbitals, are of course completely different then the simple standing waves above: See also here. As the first state is still a wave, the ground energy is never 0. So even the lowest state still has energy. Another aspect of waves is that they are smeared out over space and time. You cannot measure the exact location of a wave, because it simply does not exist. This leads to the uncertainty principle: we cannot measure the frequency and the location of a wave in every detail. This is already true for simple classical wave mechanics, and it is true in QT too. I know this is all simplified, but as a first understandable characterisation, it should do. Of course it is much more complicated. From here on you can read Wikipedia... https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics ...

Yep. Morning traffic jams in the city, because of all the mothers bringing their children to school because the traffic is so dangerous, because there are so many mothers who bring their children to school because...