granpa

I understand that the young marsupials latch onto a part of the wall of the pouch which then expands in their mouth making it impossible for them to release it. no doubt this is how nipples evolved. that would imply that placentals did evolve from marsupials.

do monotremes produce milk? what about marsupials? placentals (which lack a cloaca) require much more water than marsupials. maybe that has something to do with their split.

I totally agree that nothing is ever known beyond a doubt. but I wonder whether some things might be knowable beyond a reasonable doubt?

what if both premises and conclusions are not known for certain? that is the question. what if all you have is a vast body of interconnected truth statements/hypothesis none of which are known for certain, some of which may contradict each other? how do you proceed? how do you determine which statements are more probable? can you ever know anything for certain or are you doomed to eternal uncertainty? that is what I believe the op is asking.

knowledge is a "pyramid scheme"? I dont even know what that would mean.

before they were facts they were [bayesian] expectations. after error correction, presumably, they become facts. at first I 'expect' that the sun will rise tomorrow because I saw it rise 1000 times before. after connecting the rising of the sun with the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the earth around the sun, and many other things which support it, it becomes a fact.

can you give me even one good reason why I should continue this discussion when all any of you do is constantly try to tear everything I say apart? I posted what I considered to be a thought provoking idea. I hoped I would find others who find this stuff as interesting as I do. I havent found even a single person who wants to do anything but attack every word I say. this is not worth the effort. I'm getting nothing out of this at all.

saying 'it should be obvious' is hostile?? its already been explained. there is no point in repeating myself endlessly.

it should be obvious

threatening to excommunicate me is hardly a threat. I could care less. I have the impression that no matter how simple and obvious something I say is that its going to be endlessly picked apart by at least one of you. and if you cant argue with what I said then you just pretend I said something else and argue with that. I can get a little cranky sometimes and I probably shouldnt post when I'm in such a mood. I apologize for that. I have posted many thought provoking ideas on this site hoping that I might find some others that also find these things interesting. but nobody seems to be interested in having any intelligent conversation. everyone is only interested in selling their own personal pet idea and in tearing apart everyone elses ideas. this is whats wrong with, not just this site but, the scientific establishment and indeed the whole world as far as I can tell. if you excommunicate me then so much the better.

Dear granpa, You have received an infraction at Science Forums, The Original. Reason: Flaming ------- Your surliness and insults do nothing to help make you understood. ------- This infraction is worth 10 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious infractions will never expire. Original Post: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=455565 All the best, Science Forums, The Original

each vibrating nucleus is a classical antenna. lag due to the finite propagation speed of the field results in energy being lost. this energy becomes waves.

AFAIK 'first quantization' replaces the continuous field of classical physics with a sort of network of masses and springs (quantum oscillators). but the velocity and position of each mass is still continuous. this is quantum field theory. second quantization quantizes even the values that the velocity and position of each mass can take (actually it quantizes the displacement of the masses). (or something more or less along those lines) thats my understanding of it. if I'm wrong then I'm sure someone will tactfully point out my error. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Vacuum_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy so yes the field is quantized

since some of you dont seem to know what I'm talking about here is a link on two dimensional parity. http://www.iu.hio.no/data/QIC/info2/node10.html multidimensional parity is exactly like it except that it can have more than 2 dimensions. now correcting one error in a mere 2 dimensional scheme isnt very relevant but if we think in terms of 100 dimensions and many many errors (the limit is 50% error=100% noise) then it becomes very educational. when we begin we dont know which bits/statements are right and which are wrong. a soft in/soft out decoder assigns a confidence value to each bit depending on how many other bits support or argue against it. on the second pass through the decoder it does the same thing except that it then takes into account the confidence value of each of the bits that supports or argues against it. after many passes through the soft in/soft out decoder it becomes clear which are correct and which are wrong. (unless the errors are too extensive). each bit in our example can be thought of as being equivalent to some scientific statement that we have reason to believe. just as each bit is connected (vertically and horizontally) to many other bits (which it either supports or argues against) so our statement is connected to many other statements some of which it supports and some of which it argues against. everything we know about everything forms a vast interconnected web of statements. each statement supports some others and argues against some others. at first we dont know which statements are right and which are wrong. but after extensive error correction we finally decide which ones are right. (unless the errors are too extensive) but then we are left asking ourselves 'what is the basis for believing X'. where X is some bit/statement. this is why it is relevant to this thread. it seems circular (though in reality there is a firm basis for believing X is correct)

you mean as the earths orbit takes it closer or further away from the sun, the earth and moon (and our meter sticks) should shrink and we should notice a change in the distance (as measured by our shrunken meter stick) between them?

actually, after thinking more about it, here is how I see it. if it is space that stretches then yes light, of course, will seem to be compressed along with everything else. but if it is objects that become compressed, and space itself is unaffected, then I see no reason to think that light would be affected. light would only be affected by time dilation. I could be wrong but thats my intuition.

I didnt say that it was. stop being so ridiculous. at least read what I said before you reply. for the record, what I am saying here has nothing whatsoever to do with this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16306-us-investigation-into-gravity-weapons-nonsense.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=tech it has nothing to do with EM waves becoming gravity waves. the gravity waves I am talking about are created directly by the vibration of the nuclei due to heat. I just realized that 'gravity wave' can mean 2 different things. I am talking about the kind that propagate through empty vacuum. not the sort that form on the surface of water or the atmosphere. if these gravity waves are indeed responsible for the heating of the suns corona then it should be possible to build some kind of high frequency gravity wave detector. and if the process of absorption is reversible then it should be possible to build an emitter.

I understood him perfectly

I think post 3 answered that better than I could. anyway, what you say is exactly what I am saying may not be true. thousands of years ago it was common sense that the earth couldnt be round because everyone knew that objects would fall 'down' off the sides. we know now that they had it backwards. 'down' is whatever direction objects happen to be falling. you say that its common sense that objects require 'space' to exist. what if you've got it backwards. maybe 'space' is just a description of how the objects that exist interact. what if objects could interact in ways that are not space-like? like quantum entanglement for instance.

science isnt logic? whats the difference? he asked for the logical basis of any given statement. the only possible basis that I know of is consistency. thats on topic. each field of science/logic is based on a small set of axioms (definitions) which are based on a simpler field of science/logic. ultimately the simplest field, the one that all others ultimately reduce to, is based on a set of axioms that are basically just a set of definitions. logic could therefore be said to be 'by definition'. however that doesnt explain how we actually discover it or how we know how it applies to the real world.

a single molecule.

Pre-space existence: Imagine a universe consisting entirely of discrete entities that have no other properties than a simple internal state that is either on or off. call them bits. each bit observes 2 other bits and changes its state (time itself would be discrete) according to what it sees. it does not matter 'where' these other 2 bits are at. (think quantum entanglement). in fact the whole concept of 'where' would be meaningless to them because space itself would not exist. To make it more interesting we would have to imagine that the bits can somehow increase in numbers by dividing in two. we could imagine that the whole thing began with a single bit which divided repeatedly forming a vast chaotic sea of bits in which life could conceivably evolve. Now I dont know if such a universe does or even could exist but I do propose that the concept of 'space' might not be as fundamental as it is usually thought to be. Origin of chaos: In our universe a particle could divide into 2 identical particles. but they wouldnt really be identical because they would have different positions. in such a universe as described above there is no such thing as 'position'. so it would be meaningless to say that a particle had divided into 2 if the 2 resulting particles were not distinguishable in some way. Something from nothing? Why do people assume that existence came from nothing? Why not from everything? Time wasnt created. Being created would require time. you can only go back to the very beginning and then you just cant go back any further. Asking whats before that is like asking whats north of the north pole At the very beginning, 'everything' was a singularity but it wasnt 'nothing' What caused the first cause? Instead of saying that every event is 'caused' by previous events maybe we should say that every event is 'influenced' by previous events. Then the question of can an event occur without a cause becomes can an event occur that isnt influenced by a previous event. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/34196-origin-of-the-universe-matterantimatter/page__p__437141#entry437141

self consistency and consistency with observed facts is the ultimate basis for all of science. thats very much like multidimensional parity error correction. after you perform the error correction you can ask yoursef how you know any one bit and the answer will be because I know these other 10 things. but how do you know each of those 10 things. you know them because of 100 other things which in turn are based on 1000 other things. it goes on and on and around and around. yet it works.

actually I've been thinking about that and I'm not sure. if objects can shrink in a gravitational field then maybe light waves do too. science forums doesnt seem to be sending me the instant email notifications that it is supposed to. I only saw your post by chance.

not if the earth shrinks, time dilates, and undergoes a loss of simultaneity as we all accept that it does.