Greg H.

"Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide,

No escape from reality.

Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see,"

 

Surely either everything we can see, touch and feel is real or nothing is!

“What is real? How do you define, ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you

can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply

electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” —Morpheus, in The Matrix, 1999

Nowhere in this posting did I refer to a supreme God, or that god did it. I merely stated that for a universe to become viable, there had to be a reason behind its happening. Reread my initial post.

Actually, what you said was:

To exist as science theorizes, it still demands a supreme entity of some sort to kick off the show. But what would this absolute power be? Scientist are straight forward in their stance of providing and proving theories. Many use this rationale as the reason for there not being a God, while Religious people have nothing but their faith in which to believe there is one. Well, regardless of an individual's thoughts, there must be a supreme entity of some sort. But what?

You mentioned a supreme entity specifically twice in the OP. That sounds a lot like God, not a reason. A supreme entity would certainly be a reason, but a reason is not necessarily a supreme entity.

I said to you....it is incredible the FANTASY and IMAGINATION you have to find any escuse to try to explain evidences in terms of academic history (melamin ?? and Egyptians...!!!..hahaha !!!).

 

"Afrocentrists, on the other hand, claimed that the Dogon could see Sirius B without the need of a telescope because of their special eyesight due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. "Lecture 1st Melanin Conference, San Francisco, September 16-17, 1987"). There is, of course, no evidence for this special eyesight, nor for other equally implausible notions such as the claim that the Dogon got their knowledge from black Egyptians who had telescopes."

 

Do you know that the Egyptian civilization comes 20.000 years ago from Sahara land...before it was a dessert?...

If you use your FANTASY and IMAGINATION for creating more than for destroying....you will get better results !!!

 

 

 

So many people and strings to move so small stone???....HAHAHAHHAHA...HAHAHAHAHAHAH !!!

Your posts are starting to degenerate into what appears to be random babbling and maniacal laughter. What was your point here?

...I was thinking that when a living organism turn into elements when it dies that doesn't mean that a living organism is a compound of those elements...

Actually, that's exactly what it means.

Here's a question that will get your head churning: What if we find out there is a God - but that He's not responsible for Creation?

However, regardless of which side of the plate you swing from, the universe didn't just simply appear from nothingness. To exist as science theorizes, it still demands a supreme entity of some sort to kick off the show.

Why? Why does the answer to anything we don't yet understand have to be "'God' did it" (for some definition of the word God)?

You are kidding right?

 

I agree Jesus was the most influencial person in history although Moslems will disagree they are sure it is Muhammud

Hey, he didn't make fun of your list, why are you disparaging his? Unless what you were really looking for was a bunch of people who agreed with you?

1. The chap who invented writing.

2. The guy who invented the 0.

3. Socrates

4. Hippocrates

5. Plato

6. The caveman who figured out to control fire.

7. The fellow who came up with the wheel.

8. The sailors who came up with navigation by stars.

9. Archimedes

10. The greeks and turks who came up with the idea of cement.

11. Oh, and let's know forget the chap who learned to forge iron.

12. Gutenberg

I don't believe something is just all-knowing.

So if it's not all knowing and not all powerful, why refer to it as God, with all of the connotations that word carries?

Something needed to be there to bring order out of the potential chaos, so-to-speak.

But why do we need to call that something God, especially if we're positing it's a natural, not supernatural source.

No i don't think you will be able to get 20 hp from a 5hp motor, that is essentially what you are trying to do.

I was trying to figure out a way to say that. You did it much more succinctly that I could have.

Actually if you invoke observations, there can only be extracting information. Remember, this involves all types of observation, even those particles who do not have eyes. Observations in physics means extracting information, and omniscience in this case would mean knowing the entire framework of your model.

 

(Sorry Greg, I was typing so fast) - ''Actually if you invoke observations, there can only be extracting information.''

But if we assume that our "God" entity is already all knowing, why would he need observations at all? Doesn't the idea of knowing everything already sort of preclude the need to make observations to learn something?

How do you know about any system without an observation of that system?

 

As I pointed out, knowledge is not necessarily the same as observation. On the human scale, one necessarily precedes the other (in my previous example someone had to go outside and check the temperature at some point), but for an individual, it is possible to know things that you haven't directly observed.

Correct me if I am wrong (I am going somewhere with this), but according to the uncertainty principle, it is the actual measuring that causes the probability wave to collapse, and prevents you from accurately measuring the other property (for instance, if I measure position accurately, I cannot also measure velocity). Is that a correct summary?

That's correct - but an observation of types could also be thought about as having all the information about your system... the old saying ''an all-seeing, all-knowing God'' would be impossible to really comprehend in physics because particles would act in such erratic ways....

Here's my contention - if our theoretical God entity really is all knowing, he wouldn't need to observe the particles. Knowing is not the same as observing - not really.

Consider the following scenario. You have spent your entire life in a window-less, door-less room that has the means to keep you alive to adulthood. Your only means of communication with the outside world is an intercom speaker through which people can speak to you but you cannot answer.

If someone calls you on the intercom to tell you it's hot outside, then you know it's hot (for some definition of the word hot), without ever observing "outside" for yourself. (In fact, you have never even seen outside).

Now, obviously, on a human scale, someone had to make the observation, but if we assume our entity really is omniscient, i.e. all knowing, then it should be possible that he would know without needing to make the observation. Perhaps he can observe the probability waves directly and determine the information from them (something we cannot, to my knowledge, do).

In this way it is possible that he could be all knowing, and the uncertainty principle still hold true.

Obviously this is just an opinion, as we have no way of testing these statements, but as a thought exercise, it may hold some value or some insight.

This would be a good place to mention straw arguments since we get them a lot and giving them a name and recognizing them will help us identify them more readily. This too is a term that appears in discussion forums.

 

This text defines a straw arguemnt as follows

 

I'm sure we've all seen these in our travels.

And I am sure we will all see them again.

Correct me if I am wrong (I am going somewhere with this), but according to the uncertainty principle, it is the actual measuring that causes the probability wave to collapse, and prevents you from accurately measuring the other property (for instance, if I measure position accurately, I cannot also measure velocity). Is that a correct summary?

This Psychology Today article may interest you - Dr. Nigel Nicholson discusses several reasons, from an evolutionary psychological basis, why humans engage in gossip.

The New Word On Gossip, Psychology Today, May 2001

Edit to add:

According to R.I.M. Dunbar of the University of Liverpool

 

Analyses of freely forming conversations indicate that approximately two thirds of conversation time is devoted to social topics, most of which can be given the generic label gossip.

From the abstract of Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective, Review of General Psychology 2004, Vol. 8, No. 2, 100–110

So I think it's fair to say that yes, if not all, then certainly a large percentage of human beings engage in some form of gossip.

 

How do you do the MultiQUOTE?

Click Multiquote from all of the posts you want to quote then hit the Add Reply button at the bottom of the page. This is important - do not click reply on any single post, or it will only quote that post. You must click the Add Reply button all the way at the bottom of the page for the Multiquote function to work.

Someone is finally picking up on the idea that maybe we should know about near Earth asteroids a little earlier than a few days to a month before they get here.

You go B612.

Telescope aims to head off asteroids' impact on Earth

Since we can turn any living creature into elements (Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc), but we can't turn carbon, oxygen and hydrogen into a living organism (without the help of another living organism), do you think the periodic table is useful?

The periodic table is useful for its intended purpose. Creating lifeforms is not that purpose.

Oops!

Quit right. I can't type.

I was aiming for the start of the palaeolithic so it's 2 zeros too many.

3 million years.

Still a long time before there were any books to read while you waited for modern civilisation to turn up.

It happens. And I apologize for the brusqueness of my post - I just realized it was rather rude sounding. That was not the intention.

Are you sure about that? It says "inability to distinguish expertise from mere authority." That means that when I'm given an exepert opinion and an opinon from "mere authority" I should be able to distinguish between the two. I guess I'm wondering what "mere authority" is?

 

Speaking as an authority outside their field is no authority at all. I think that's a given.

When you're making a statement of fact, you're speaking as an authority on the subject. Specifically, I am referring to these two definitions of the word authority:

6.

A conclusive statement or decision that may be taken as a guide or precedent.

7.

Power to influence or persuade resulting from knowledge or experience

So therefore, recognizing an expert from a mere authority is to recognize when the person making the statement has the knowledge (i.e. the expertise) in that field to make such a statement and have it be recognized as more than just a random opinion.

Estimates for the date vary, but humans evolved about 300 million years ago.

Um, not to put to fine a point on it, but that's a load of crap. Try more like 6 to 7 million years ago, if you date by the fossil evidence of the first hominids.

300 million would be the edge of the Carbiniferous/Permian eras, and we barely had reptiles, much less mammals. Primates don't appear in the fossil record until the Paleogene era, roughly 55 million years ago. Maybe you had an extra 0 in your number?

Thank you for your response. Yea. I know that its referring to argument from authority. I believe that's obvious. And I undestand that not all arguments based on authorities are fallacious. Argument from authority is a valid technique in reasoning. That wasn't the question. I wanted an example of the inability to distinguish expertise from mere authority.

My apologies. One such example would be consistently quoting people speaking as authorities outside of their fields of expertise. Like using Kent Hovind as your expert on evolution.

negatron?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negatron

Isn't that Megatron's little brother?

I believe what they are discussing is what is commonly referred to as the fallacy of argument from authority.

First, let's be clear, not all arguments based on authorities are fallacious. If my cardiologist gives me a recommendation about my heart, I'd fully expect him to know what he's talking about. If, however, he gives me a recommendation about neurosurgery, I would be well within my rights to conclude he might not know what he's talking about.

In the book Logic Made Easy (D. Bennett, 2004), the author defines the fallacy of appeal to authority thus:

Appeal to authority...establishes the strength of an assertion on an authority, but one who is not qualified to lend weight to the current argument.

An expert, by contrast, is typically considered to be someone who works in the field on a daily basis - Einstein, for example, would be considered an expert in relativity, and his statements and equations could be (and are) used to bolster points made in discussions on that field. However, I would not necessarily use his opinions to bolster a case of forensic anthropology, since his expertise in that area is not well defined (and most likely is non-existent).

Peter F. Hamilton used anti-matter drives in his ships in the The Night's Dawn trilogy, especially for ships that needed high thrust, like combat ships. You might take a gander at those books, if you have the time, as I don't remember the details of how they worked.

From your proposal, I would suggest either dumping the plasma completely and venting the antimatter annihilation by-products directly as thrust (through a magnetic nozzle type arrangement) or using it produce electricity that is then tied into some kind of drive system (an ion drive, or something similar).

You can see some proposed types of anti-matter rockets on wikipedia: Antimatter Rocket

I don't understand. What were the first five items in the list you quoted?

Swan, I see where you're coming from, but I disagree specifically because the observation was included in the list of refutations. Had the observation been set apart, in it's own paragraph, I'd be more inclined to your point of view, but as it is written (intended by the other person or not), it comes off to me as if they are including that in the refutation of the argument, speaking to PMB's reasons for attempting to refute the argument in the first place.

Again, that's just my opinion - take it for what it's worth.