Karl Popper as the 'Ultimate Warrior'

[Loisenman]

Lois Isenman
February 21, 2008
Intuition In-Depth

About a year ago I took Conjecture and Refutation by philosopher of science Karl Popper (1902-1994) out of the Brandeis library. (snip) Popper was among the first philosophers of science to suggest that scientific theories are a product of human imagination/intuition. He felt that theories come first and determine which experiments are done. In contrast, the logical positivists, whose views were prominent at the time and still are to some extent, believed that the data comes first and determines theory. Since for Popper theory is based on conjecture, he argued that falsification of theory, or disproof, not verification, is the proper work of science.

Flipping through Conjecture and Refutation, I saw that a previous reader had left me a gift. It was an exceedingly unlikely bookmark for a treatise on the philosophy of science---even one that was a reasonably good read. Sporting the rather terrifying image of the bulked-up Intercontinental Wrestling Champion Ultimate Warrior in full warrior regalia shown above, it revealed the human being at its least cerebral and abstract. Brandeis is a pretty lofty place. Is it possible, I wondered, there is a Brandeis student who reads philosophy of science by day but is obsessed by steroid-taking human gladiators of the least subtle kind at night?

The idea of calling Karl Popper 'the ultimate warrior' came to seem less strange when I started dipping into Conjecture and Refutation. One chapter in particular brought home to me that Karl Popper could rightly be seen as a champion wrestler.(By the way,eventually I read the medium-size print on the back of the card and the mystery cleared up. It is one of a series of wrestling cards given out with video rentals at Coliseum Video Stores. What do I know!?)

In the chapter that especially captivated me, called "Back to the Presocratics," Popper considers the early Presocratic Tradition in part in light of the question of the role of observation in scientific endeavor. The following passages are from close to the beginning of the chapter. They might surprise those who associate Popper only with the idea that scientific theories have to be falsifiable (and empirically so). Read More...

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. I believe that in their prioritization of inductive knowledge over deductive knowledge,

both Newton and Einstein full endorse the prioritzation of intuition over observation (although our intuition may require the synthesizing of our observations, as building blocks, but even then, in my view, it requires the inspiration and coordination of the Holy Spirit). Remember Einstein's criterion when selecting his hypotheses was aesthetic.

But of course, as secular fundamentalists, arrogant present-day "scientismificists" repudiate any role played by God. It would diminish their status in their own eyes, as all-knowing (at least potentially, apparently S(sic)cientists. The sovereign irony is that the non-relativistic nature of light is a clear indication that it is not proper to our cosmos in space-time - even though it interacts with it in a veritable host of banal and unprepossessing ways. Moreover, this appears to be endorsed by the Peculiarity, which apparently consisted of photons and other massless or near massless forms of radiation. (Or is it still active? I think that consideration is repugnant to cosmologists, as a destabilising factor. They prefer linear thinking to paradoxes/imponderables, which is understandable enough - if desperately unscientific and obscurantist). Yet, 'radiation' requires some form of generation - and we know it's not a giant battery or someone blowing into a kind of cosmic balloon. On the other hand, the latter would fit in very well with the major religions, wouldn't it?

I have only read a brief article on Popper's views on empirical science, but immediately became a great admirer.

[edhopper]

2. What you don't understand

of the workings of Einstein and Science in general could fill several volumes.
No, Einstein did not base his theory on aesthetics, he based them on math.
You unwillingness to contemplate a Godless Universe is pervasive throughout your post.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Don't display your ignorance. He based his proof on mathematics, Dumbo!

Gee, such a simple distinction, totally bereft of any possible ambiguity... and yet, you somehow manage to get it completely wrong! Although I have to admit, it is such a monolithic truth, you couldn't have got it partially wrong, even if you'd been a little smarter.

Don't tell me. You're an atheist, a secular fundamentalist. Why do you think mathematicians even talk about the attractiveness of a theory, a proposed solution, on account of its 'elegance'? But don't take my word for it. You should be able to find Einstein's own words concerning the aesthetic criterion he adopted for selecting his hypotheses. Google is your friend, as they say.

And as another matter of fact... Einstein wasn't too hot at mathematics or physics. He got a friend to do most of his mathematical calculations and when he graduated in Physics at his polytechnic, came in the bottom half of his class.

[edhopper]

6. It's amazing how

little you understand what mathematicians mean when they use those terms.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. That best you can come up with? Mysterious invocations of mathematical

arcana!

Go on. Tell us. explain it all to us. I dare you.

[Random_Australian]

22. I have things to say to this as well!

"Why do you think mathematicians even talk about the attractiveness of a theory, a proposed solution, on account of its 'elegance'?"

Because it burns brains less! It doesn't make it any more or less true, but it means that it is more useful because it is easier to manipulate.

What you were missing is the word "attractiveness" means just that - it's attractive, not right.

"Einstein wasn't too hot at mathematics or physics."

Which is why he formulated GR in tensor form. Specifically, rank 2 symmetric tensors.

And those are *not* used by anyone without some serious mathematical talent.

"He got a friend to do most of his mathematical calculations"

Well, he got a lot of help from friends at any rate. Wouldn't you know, matrices of PDE's aren't that easy to work with. Shock! Horror!

"and when he graduated in Physics at his polytechnic, came in the bottom half of his class"

Have a guess at how many of the general population would be accepted into the polytechnique.

Add to that the whole "didn't study seriously like the other students did" and your comment has reached zero meaning.

[Duncan]

36. I wouldn't bother.

The use of the term "secular fundamentalist" right off the bat demonstrates that this person is either incapable of, or unwilling to engage in a reasonable discussion and personally I wouldn't bother trying. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. There are atheists who believe there is no god, but that is not what makes them atheists, and is not the same as a lack of belief. Agnosticism is not holding beliefs in that which can not be sensed or directly inferred from our senses. One can be both an atheist and an agnostic. One can be an agnostic who had a mystical experience of god and thus believes in god, but only so far as their experience. A fundamentalist is somebody who adheres to a set of beliefs, so by definition the term cannot apply to systems that are defined by a lack of belief. Its like having a voracious lack of appetite.

[Orsino]

3. Few scientists bother "repudiating" God.

God is simply unneeded in any scientific hypothesis so far.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Apart from cosmology. The source of the Peculiarity is a closed book to them,

and will remain so, because, as you correctly imply, science deals with the measurable.

To a non-scientist, it impressive that they have managed to identify the particles and the effects of the Big Bang on them virtually from the moment of their "bursting forth".

[Loisenman]

8. Popper is actually proposing a much broader review of science than he is generally associated with

What so interested me about these passages, especially the ones quoted later in the article, is that Popper, who is generally associated with the idea of empirical falsifiability, is actually proposing a much broader criterion for falsifiability. I am an agnostic, however, I read Popper to be saying that whether or not there is a God could fall within the realm of scientific discourse. Although this question doesn't interest me so much, others that are just a bit or a lot less ultimate and cannot be empirically determined at this time do interest me. Popper seems to be saying that theories beyond what we can empirically test and measure at the current time can be legitimate areas of scientific concern, if one can engage in critical discourse about them.

[Name removed]

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[edhopper]

10. The supposition that

the Big Bang bubbled up from another dimension is proof of God!?! Why?
Agnostics are okay because they might yet come to your point of view that God must exist!?!
Atheism can lead to psychopathic, murderous behavior!?! (You should check out secular humanist philosophy)
But since all religions can lead to the same behavior, why single out atheism, rather than realize psychopathology is mental illness, resulting from an ailing mind, not a world view?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Joe Chi Minh]

13. That was a very penetrating and detailed rebuttal, for which I shall

always be in your debt. Well, actually, you encapsulated the very accusation I levelled at you and your fellow 'fundies' very neatly.

[edhopper]

14. You keep using the term

Peculiarity. I have never seem this used in the context you do. I believe the term in physics you are looking for is Singularity. Of course you've already demonstrated how little you know about physics.

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. Semantics, Dum Dum. Means the same. I leave pedantic concern

for adult jargon to youthful, awe-struck, high-school, science students such as your good self.

Now, how about adressing the substantive points I raised. You don't even understand the words, do you? Lost as ever, in above your head. You could though perhaps aspire to become a journeyman scientismificist studying ice-cream flavours, like La Thatcher used to.

[edhopper]

16. Not semantics.

the term "singularity" has a precise meaning in physics. But you ramble on about peculiarity and a designed universe. You argue that the physics of the big bang somehow prove the existence of your God. Yet it is obvious that your understanding of that physics is limited.
You have an hatred for atheist and are desperate to feel superior to the "scientific fundies." Does that sound about right Vicar?

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. See who wins.... You're not bright enough to argue with, and I don't need to.

I'll be vindicated. And it will all be on a level you can't begin to grasp (and no amount of education would be able to help you, because you lack the native intelligence), or you would have refuted my points about the Singularity and the significance of the word, 'design'.

Even the most ineluctable logic - is beyond you. They're not about science proximately, only in their implications. Science can't handle the Peculiarity beyond stating the nature of the massless particles and near-massless particles it radiates. As for their source... "Pass..."

The mainstream religions, on the other hand, begin with mysteries. A word secular fundy numpties would avoid like the plague. The word, 'paradox', sounds so much more scientific, doesn't it? "One day... blah, blah, empirical science will explain everything!" You hopeless mutts! "There are no mysteries, just paradoxes", is what you'd say, isn't it? As George Burns would say, "Say goodight, Gracie."

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. I'm sorry for descending into snide remarks, but it's difficult

for me to understand how otherwise intelligent, educated people can fail to see the madness of secular fundamentalism. I can't understand how we've arrived at a situation in which the existence of a Creator needs to be proved, rather than the other way round. Every aspect of empirically observable Creation, never mind man's spiritual sense (shared in some cases, even more keenly if less reflectively by the animal kingdom), proclaims the existence of a Creator. As I've pointed out, even our language indicates it! And now, science has made the claims of theism even more compelling, if that's possible. How could it do otherwise?

In fact, I think what was responsible for the Church's supine silence at the notion of empirical science being anything other than the most primitive paradigm for knowledge, was the shame the Church was exposed to as a result of the swinish Christian-fundamentalist churchmen who gave Galileo such a hard time. All those years ago! He wasn't tortured, but the threat of it was a terrible scandal; one which John-Paul II was anxious to apologise for, but even then, was criticised for it by some dopey Catholic laymen in the Catholic newspapers.

So, naturally, when I hear the kind of supremely arrogant and insulting twaddle on here peddled by atheist fundamentalists, I'm not prepared to just "turn the other cheek". To me, they are on here, like the trouble-makers in a classroom; if you don't crack down on them, they'll take it over and spoil everyone else's chance to communicate rationally. So, there's your answer. It doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer it to be otherwise, but life in this vale of tears is like that. Not always how we'd like it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. I wonder why it never seems to strike scientists as odd in the extreme

that no scientist or group of them has ever managed to make even a single cell of VEGETABLE life, nay, even a virus, from raw chemicals. Life is as a book as closed to the most distinguished and universally acclaimed scientists, as it would have been to the earliest cave man. Actually, the cave man would have been a lot nearer to understanding its essential nature.

Yet, just as 'Coup d'Etats R Us' might be taken to epitomise the CIA, whatever its original purpose, so 'Replicating Processes under Laboratory Conditions and Testing Them R Us' might surely be considered an apt, if tortuous epitomisation of Science. WHAT GIVES! Why the silence? We know the primordial soup theory has been discredited. Is it not high time you stopped burying your heads in the sand, and unequivocally acknowledged a sovereign, spiritual dimension seemd immensely more probable than not - however redolent of lese-majeste towards empirical science? Just to acknowledge that physics has taken you to the edge of the unknowable, in view of the autonomous dimension of Light and unsurringly, therefore, of the Singularity (the source of whose radiations we have heard nothing about, even by way of questions. They know they're licked there, but won't rock the boat). J'ACCUSE, mes pauvres vieux!

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Sorry about the typos. "unsurringly" should be "unsurprisingly."

"Life is as a book as closed...." should read, "Life is a book as closed...."

[Random_Australian]

21. Yay! I have answers for you!

"I wonder why it never seems to strike scientists as odd in the extreme that no scientist or group of them has ever managed to make even a single cell of VEGETABLE life, nay, even a virus, from raw chemicals."

Because we worked out just many chemicals we need to put together and in what order to do it.

You see, when making stuff in the lab you only generally add a few atoms at a time. (Well, more in convergent sythesis, but still not a lot)

And the sequences that make up life are too long for us to do like that. Life is built to replicate itself so it is very good at it, but that makes it no easier for us.

"Life is as a book as closed to the most distinguished and universally acclaimed scientists"

Well no, not really. We've (basically) understood life for quite a while now. It is not practical to synthesise, but that does not make it in the least mysterious.

"We know the primordial soup theory has been discredited"

Fascinating! I have never heard of such a thing. What on earth makes you think that?

"acknowledged a sovereign, spiritual dimension seemd immensely more probable than not"

Hmmmmm. Not following. Define a 'spiritual dimension' and maybe I'll follow.

"Just to acknowledge that physics has taken you to the edge of the unknowable,"

Well, actually it hasn't. Sorry, but we're still going.

"in view of the autonomous dimension of Light"

What autonomous dimension of light? Is light not the propogation of coupled electric and magnetic waves, oscillating in the plane perpendicular to the direction of travel?

"of the Singularity (the source of whose radiations we have heard nothing about, even by way of questions. They know they're licked there, but won't rock the boat)"

Which "the Singularity"? The Big Bang? That one was atemporal.

The ones at the centers of black holes? Nothing odd about them, either.

How about the singular heat capacity of a pure solid at its melting point?

What about the singular distribution in a BEC?

Which singularity do you refer to?

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. Thanks for responding. When you gonna make a single-cell living organism, then?

You're working on it? You know good science requires you test whether your certainty that you know how to initiate life is on the mark. Your conjecture may seem logical to you, but alas, there's many a slip twixt cup and lip. That's why we have empirical science. To test the physical realities.

"Life is built to replicate itself so it is very good at it, but that makes it no easier for us."
I'm sure it doesn't. Doesn't that tell you something? Maybe the Creator doesn't like y'all getting ideas above yourselves. "God scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts".

There's a thing. Life is and it's good at doing something. How can an edifice of atoms constitute life and do things? intelligent things, based on designs? I thought life would be ethereal. Or does it turn up once the edifice is built?

Well, I'm sorry to have to have to inform you, but, you see, unlike the rest of our created universe of space-time, the speed of light is constant, and nothing can have one absolute feature without being absolute as a whole. The big picture you, see, not laboratory-intensive minutiae to be pored over. Well, even though light, while interacting with it, is clearly not proper to space-time, it's perhaps dangerous to talk about any 'thing' being absolute. There's a lot of mystery/paradox about the subatomic world isn't there? And why wouldn't there be, since it must meeet the Creator God at some juncture, inevitably beyond our ken in scientific terms?

But you know, as I've intimated before our worldy knowledge is of the lowest possible order, our spiritual knowledge, of the highest.
Consequently, in the next life, Einstein would be unlikely to have any advantage in understanding the empirical composition of this world than someone who was born severely mentally deficient. Indeed, if he felt compelled to endow one with the greater wordly knowledge in the next life (though it would be as useful as a chocolate fire-guard), he would presumably bestow it on the person with the greater spiritual stature (in the unlikely event he/she would want it).

I believe (there's a word to conjure with...) that physical light forms a continuum with spiritual light and corresponds with, respectively, space and time and, again respectively, a knowledge-faith continuum. Secular faith would be what we exercise when we trip the living room light-switch. A very good chance of the light coming on. And that, in turn, forms a continuum with religious faith.

The thing is, though, that God created the world and human beings so that those who don't wish to believe in God will always be able to find 'wriggle' room. Christ could easily have convinced everyone of his power as God, as he had to the Apostles. But knowledge, all knowledge, I think, but certainly the spiritual knowledge-faith I mentioned, is a matter of the will to know. I believe philosophers call it Voluntarism. The truth of it in the religious regard, is clearly what Christ's teachings in the Gospels unequivocally indicate. The word, 'religion' derives as you may know, from the latin verb, 'ligere', to bind. A lot of people prefer not to be bound by any God. If they've had a hard life in one way or another, they may already feel hard done by!

Yes you're "still going", but having increasingly to manage mysteries (or as you would probably prefer to call them, 'paradoxes'), not just beyond your understanding, but 'a priori' beyond your understanding. The human brain is not wired to cope with paradoxes in terms of the requirement to reconcile the respective meanings within the conflicting poles of oxymorons.

"The Singularity is atemporal". Precisely. And doesn't that mean it's aspatial? Its source comprehensively beyond your ken. Do you know if it is still radiating? that would be interesting to know. But have you considered the possibility? In my limited readings on the matter (intelligence requires a certain parsimony in terms of knowledge retention), I don't recall mention of it.

Which singularity did I refer to? Well, you see, I did use the letter,'S', in the upper case, which signifies a proper name, so clearly, the reference is to the Big Bang.

Incidentally, the term 'dimension' in relation to the world (for want of a better word) of the spirit was ill-conceived, as I realised soon after, since the stem latin meaning relates to measurement, and the spiritual 'world' could in no wise be measurable. As the Psalmist said, "In order to know you, I must be eternal". It's that 'absolute' thing again.

[Random_Australian]

25. Oh?

What an interesting conversation. I say that one does not need to make life in order to understand it, and your response?

"When you gonna make a single-cell living organism, then? You're working on it?"

Hmmmm.

Oh well, slip of the tongue on your part maybe then. I press onwards!

"You know good science requires you test whether your certainty that you know how to initiate life is on the mark."

I have a much better sentence.

"You know good science requires you to either show that an event is composed of variables in the null, or to test a predictive hypothesis if you require further variables"

I'll take the first option.

The constituents of life where shown to be the same as the constituents of non-life in the late 1800's.

That means that the life/nonlife distinction is arbitrary.

That means that "life" from "nonlife" became the null hypothesis for the start of life.

That plus evolution leads us to where we are now.

And that's a composition of the variables in the null that explain what we see already. Yawn. Next.

Hmmmmm, I see I should have made myself more clear about chemistry.

We use stepwise synthesis. Nature doesn't. We are good at some things that nature isn't and vice-versa.

For instance, I've yet to find a natural process to get a vat of detergent, and neither have I seen a stepwise synthesis of a virus.

"Doesn't that tell you something?"

Yes, it tells me that the two processes are not the same. Groundbreaking stuff, I'm sure.

Creator the whatnow?

"How can an edifice of atoms constitute life and do things?"

Too true. Obviously, since no atoms can do things, my computer is in my imagination.

Of course, various systems with simple rules can shown complex behaviour, but we all know maths is just mumbo-jumbo anyway.

"intelligent things, based on designs?"

Design? Sorry, not in the null. Please present evidence against the null.

"I thought life would be ethereal"

Sorry, but modern science has found these things called "atoms" and "molecules". Not only are they corporeal, but it looks like life is made of them. Exciting times, no?

"the speed of light is constant, and nothing can have one absolute feature without being absolute as a whole"

Hmmmmmm, not following you there. Does this mean since the length of the energy-momentum fourvector is absolute, velocity is absolute? In other words, I measure my hand to be moving at a velocity, and a person flying overhead in a plane measures the same velocity?

"it must meeet the Creator God at some juncture"

Mmmm? Why is that?

"physical light forms a continuum with spiritual light and corresponds with, respectively, space and time and, again respectively, a knowledge-faith continuum"

I believe you've been shopping too much at unsupported assertions-R-us.

Unless you've some kind of evidence that you'll decide to grace me with.

"Its source comprehensively beyond your ken"

Twelve days ago, RF breakdown was comprehensively beyond my ken. Go magnetic resonance acceleration yourself.

"Do you know if it is still radiating?"

The same things that say it exist say it ceased to exist.
Remember, the proof that Hawking used was a temporal reverse of a collapse to a singularity. (By a black hole, but of any mass distribution)

I am having fun here!

Just checking though - I've not offended you, right? (No point in one enjoying a good argument if the other isn't so happy)

[Joe Chi Minh]

26. No. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. Why would it be?

Youv'e just said that life seems to find it easy replicate itself, but you can't do it... because life's made of atoms, which you've got to move one by one. And it's very labour intensive. A very compelling scenario for the creation of life you have there. Let me know when you get enough atoms. It's an intriguing prospect.

"I have a much better sentence."

Well, as for your sentence being a better one... you're judgement hasn't exactly proved impressive up to now. You see, if you could respond to my qustion without humiliating yourself you would have.

"The constituents of life where shown to be the same as the constituents of non-life in the late 1800's."

Life doesn't have constituents, you mutt. It's spiritual! But your adverting to nineteenth 19th century, mechanistic, clockwork science figures, all right. Have you ever seen a dead body? If you had, you would realise that a human being is more than his/her physical components.

"Too true. Obviously, since no atoms can do things, my computer is in my imagination."

Wow. You really are dim... Garbage in.....garbage out. Never heard that? Pity. I've been witnessing it from your pooter up to now, and it sure don't look as if it's going to improve any time soon. But then you're probably one of those characters who believe that, one day computers will be made into living beings. Well, it is difficult for me to credit, but there is an intlligence behind he operations of your computer. You see, as I keep telling you, 'design' means 'intelligence', i.e some measure of intelligence, be it never so limited, is implicit. Do you understand the meaning of 'a priori' truths?

"Hmmmmmm, not following you there. Does this mean since the length of the energy-momentum fourvector is absolute, velocity is absolute? In other words, I measure my hand to be moving at a velocity, and a person flying overhead in a plane measures the same velocity?"

(My, you must be very brainy to be able to use scientismific words like that!) I mean that though the earth, is spinning at such a speed... now, now, don't be pedantic.... in the same direction as rays of the sun hitting it, the speed of that light will not be reduced by the speed of the earth's rotation in the same direction. Got it? Gee, I'm having to explain to a scientist stuff shown in diagrams for scientific noddys like me in an encyclopaedia! I've never known an academically educated person to be as slow as you.

“’it must meeet the Creator God at some juncture’
Mmmm? Why is that?”

Well, that mysterious Singularity (note the capital), clearly not material as we know it in our world of space-time, emits massless and near massless particles, such as photons - well there's a coinkidinky! - which interact, coalesce and solidify to form the galaxies and the dark matter in the universe. Your brain is evidently too sophisticated to pick up on it, but there would appear to be a progression from masslessness to mass. As a conjecture, it is at least an endeavour to follow an elementary logic, while your clockwork scientismificism remains bizarrely silent on the subject.

"’physical light forms a continuum with spiritual light and corresponds with, respectively, space and time and, again respectively, a knowledge-faith continuum’

I believe you've been shopping too much at unsupported assertions-R-us.”
Absolutely correct. And a more magnificent emporium you could not wish to set eyes upon, and where, moreover, infused knowledge is occasionally vouchsafed to us. Of course, schizophrenia and the voices some hear (always others of course) have been a problem too...

“Unless you've some kind of evidence that you'll decide to grace me with”

See above. But alas, if I had it, I realy don’t think this is a sphere you’re really cut out for. You couldn’t even grasp the significance of the nature of the Singularity being extra-temporal, even when I prompted you with the mention of its also being extraspatial. The fact of the Singularity’s source defying the awesome intelligence of you searchers for the empirical knowledge, proper to space-time, hasn’t really impinged upon your consciousness, has it? That there is a realm of which you can, a priori, know nothing, zilch, zero, bubkis, nil, nowt, diddly squat, or a certain jacobus scatalogicus, well, it plum doesn’t register with those towering intellect of yours, does it?

"'Its source comprehensively beyond your ken'
Twelve days ago, RF breakdown was comprehensively beyond my ken. Go magnetic resonance acceleration yourself".

Oops, your comprehensive understanding of the Singularity's is obviously just around the corner.

"’Do you know if it is still radiating?’

The same things that say it exist say it ceased to exist.
Remember, the proof that Hawking used was a temporal reverse of a collapse to a singularity. (By a black hole, but of any mass distribution)”

Ah, yes, I believe that, like his string-theory confreres, Hawking is a hot stuff on conjectures. Like me - ‘cep my Area of interest doesn’t submit Himself to Mr McGoo-like measurements by mortal men.

"I am having fun here!"
Show me a happy man, and I'll show you a fool. Well, actually that pearl came from one of your own fellow-atheist luminaries, GBS.

I wish I could share your enthusiasm. I can certainly understand your zeal to learn at my feet, so to speak, but guruhood to materialists is very, very labour intensive. And, of course, unrewarding.

"Just checking though - I've not offended you, right? (No point in one enjoying a good argument if the other isn't so happy)"

Well, I'm never offended in a querulous kind of way, if that’s what you mean. Any offence first tickles me then inspires me to ridicule my would-be adversary. But enjoyment on a topic like this? No. I don’t enjoy witnessing another person’s humiliation. The act of his ignorance of it only serves to heighten my discomfort. All the more so, given the sublime nature of the topic.

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. if your really want to me to continue with this discussion, I'll have to insist on your addressing

the fact of the Singularity, 'a priori', defying the human intellect - together with all the other paradoxes/mysteries that the physicists are encountering at the extremities. That's the only topic that interests me. But you're still hooked, I think, on 19th century clockwork science.

I have not so far managed to elicit any kind of recognition of the significance, in relation to the fundamentalist materialism of modern scientismificism, of the ever-proliferating paradoxes discovered in physics these days. Not a glimmer. It seems to pass right over your head. It's the quality(?) of your thought-processes I find disturbing. And I'm sure you're one of the brighter sparks among your class-mates. Perhaps you're a lecturer. Anything's possible these days.

[Random_Australian]

29. I'm a little young to be a lecturer. :) One day, though. Maybe. If I don't choose

some other life.

Anyways, the whole singularity thing. Being a sucker for precision, I'll put things down a little neater.

I'll actually agree that as long as the statements

"any description of an event must contain at most as much information as the complete description of the event"

and

"we have no more information about the singularity other than it existed"

hold true, then any explanation or description of the singularity will contain at most "the singularity occured".

Question:

"of the ever-proliferating paradoxes discovered in physics these days"

What ever-proliferating paradoxes? Point me to some!

:)

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. Well, I'll tell you what.... you tell me what the universe is expanding into first.

How about that? And when you find the answer, read up a little on quantum physics. Though perhaps I should have used the nice religious term, mystery. And don't tell me that expanding space-time is like the surface of an orange, and it doesn't have to expand into anything, please. Or just Google, "paradoxes in physics."

"Inter-subjective" is the term I believe, used by philosophers of science to get around the problems physicists have discovered post-Einstein, with the notion of objective reality. The truth of the matter is that the reason why measurements at the level of sub-atomic particles are affected by the observer, is because someone is running a film for our benefit.

Although quantum physics has shown them this barrier to their understanding, with their mechanistic heritage, scientists are loathe to understand that the frames require some kind of vivifying spirit to run the film for them, in order for them to display dynamism, life. When scientists understand the nature of life itself, the dynamism that keeps the universe and everything else in existence and motion, then they will assuredly understand why, existing as they do in time, they cannot perfectly identify certain properties of a particle simultaneously. It's going to be, 'either/or'.

Incidentally, my suggestion that you could even be a physics lecturer was black humour on my part. I was thinking of the English mother's reaction, when her elated teenage son ran up to her, waving a letter in his hand, bawling, "I passed my degree! I graduated!" While doubtless expressing her own delight to her son, she thought to herself ruefully, "Thank God for falling standards." I think it prudent of you to consider other possible careers.

[Random_Australian]

45. Hello! I'm back from holidays!

Whaddya mean "what is the universe expanding into?"

Space. From the Big Bang. Am I missing something? That seems kinda obvious.

If you are wondering what space is expanding into, it isn't. It appears to be a paradox only if you make the a priori assumption that to expand, one must move into something. Which doesn't really apply to space, y'know.

"read up a little on quantum physics"

Personwhodoesn'tunderstandandthusassumesno-oneelsedoessayswhat?

:)

Read up on the schrödinger equation. :)

Oh look! How precious! "And don't tell me that expanding space-time (...) doesn't have to expand into anything, please."

Ok, in what other words shall I put the truth? If you think space needs to expand into space you have your concept of space a bit wrong.

"The truth of the matter is that the reason why measurements at the level of sub-atomic particles are affected by the observer, is because someone is running a film for our benefit"

Wow! Realies? Trulies? I could have sworn there were absolute physical limits about what a measurement was, and that any form of measurement involves interaction.

Silly me. Would you perchance show me why my notions about "you hit it with a photon. That changes it" is incorrect.... or in the very least something different to gravity, lightning, or any other natural phenomena that you don't ascribe to someone running a film for our benefit.

"Although quantum physics has shown them this barrier to their understanding, with their mechanistic heritage, scientists are loathe to understand that the frames require some kind of vivifying spirit to run the film for them, in order for them to display dynamism, lif (long paragraph about how wonderful you are)"

Evidence! Got any?

"I think it prudent of you to consider other possible careers."

Wow! What an excellent suggestion. As you wisely picked up from "maybe, if I don't choose something else", my heart was 100% set on bieng a lecturer.

I want to be a magical space explorer, and like you, do it from my armchair.

[TZ]

49. lol!

You get him R_A!!!
:popcorn:

[Random_Australian]

50. This is such fun.

It has been weird to be told all the old school stuff like it was new and I should have never heard it before, though. Schrö's cat and uncertainty were 1st year things.

[Random_Australian]

30. Anyway, now that that singularity mewhatsit is out of the way, the rest of the post.

1)

"but you can't do it... because life's made of atoms, which you've got to move one by one. And it's very labour intensive. A very compelling scenario for the creation of life you have there"

Sorry, but you seem to have misunderstood. The scenario for the creation of life was *not* that jars of chemicals were mixed by chemists, but that it occured through the various natural processes. The same chemistry that propogates life, in fact.

"Life doesn't have constituents, you mutt. It's spiritual! But your adverting to nineteenth 19th century, mechanistic, clockwork science figures, all right. Have you ever seen a dead body? If you had, you would realise that a human being is more than his/her physical components."

Mmmmm, it almost like information is stored in the completely material brain by the way atoms are arranged. Which of course is an affront to the idea that atoms are the constituents of humans. :) Well, maybe not quite.

"You see, as I keep telling you, 'design' means 'intelligence', i.e some measure of intelligence, be it never so limited, is implicit. Do you understand the meaning of 'a priori' truths?"

This sentence seems to make little sense to me. In response to you saying "how can something made of atoms consitute life and do things?" I say that my computer is made of atoms, and it does things. And I find this in reply. Odd.

Or are you trying to say that since my computer is designed, I am?

"My, you must be very brainy to be able to use scientismific words like that!) I mean that though the earth, is spinning at such a speed... now, now, don't be pedantic.... in the same direction as rays of the sun hitting it, the speed of that light will not be reduced by the speed of the earth's rotation in the same direction. Got it?"

Aye, I realised that the first time, silly-head.

I'll put it simpler. You said "unlike the rest of our created universe of space-time, the speed of light is constant, and nothing can have one absolute feature without being absolute as a whole"

There is an obvious counter to this (and it works quite well), because there are other things that are absolute (and constant), one of which is the length of the energy-momentum fourvector.

A) You said that light was the only constant thing. Wrong.
B) You said that nothing can have one absolute feature without being absolute as a whole. Wrong again, as the components of the fourvector are demonstrably NOT absolute. eg. the momentum of a moving object.

I am well aware of the invariance of the speed of light.

"emits massless and near massless particles, such as photons - well there's a coinkidinky! - which interact, coalesce and solidify to form the galaxies (...) but there would appear to be a progression from masslessness to mass."

Actually, initially there was a rapid interchange between massive and non-massive particles. When the density and pressure was high, any matter rapidly hit antimatter and the photons were of high enough energy to make matter-antimatter pairs. Mmmmm, soupy.

When expanded and cooled, of course, photons dropped below the energy required to make spontaneous matter-antimatter pairs, and matter was basically wiped out, except where it could not find an antimatter pair.

And that tiny remnant is what we see today.

So we went from a highly contained photon gas to a more diffuse photon gas, and when conditions were favourable matter was made. How about that.

In other words, it was not so much a progression from masslessness to mass, but a progression from "confined enough to have photons of such energy that energy spontaneously became matter" to "photons that no longer satisfied that condition".

"Singularity’s source defying the awesome intelligence of you searchers"

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace

The idea that atoms existed defied that kind of intellect.

Atoms weren't so hard to get at. What we are dealing with now is. I expect it to take some time to make progress, and maybe we'll never get it.

"h, yes, I believe that, like his string-theory confreres, Hawking is a hot stuff on conjectures"

'Cept it wasn't conjecture. Proof as cited.

"how me a happy man, and I'll show you a fool. Well, actually that pearl came from one of your own fellow-atheist luminaries, GBS"

:) I have my own reasons for not caring, but let's not let this get any longer.

"No. I don’t enjoy witnessing another person’s humiliation"

Oh? Now that I've shown you had wrong ideas about what I had said, do you still think that you are humiliating me?

[Joe Chi Minh]

32. No. I know it. Here is some pabulum for you to consider, though I doubt:

you will be apt for it.

http://home.honolulu.hawaii.edu/~pine/C8sum.htm

Read about the Schrodinger's Cat paradox I thought you might have known about. Also, the Time Paradox item - both via the link, below:

http://webs.mn.catholic.edu.au/physics/emery/brainteasers.htm#Schrodinger

http://humanaturalism.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-intelligent-design.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

33. The most incisive article relating to epistemology and science is reached via this link:

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9501/bigbang2.html

What happened to the rest of the thread?

[Joe Chi Minh]

34. What I've said is not entirely fair to you. You're a kid, and there is

a whole scientismifical establishment out there, many with the highest academic accreditations, but every bit as thick as you, if not more so, in matters where they can't get out their slide-rules. I'm sure you're one of the smartest lads in your school, academically.

However, one day, mankind will marvel at the utter crassness, the fathomless stupidity of this lunatic (il)logical empiricist mindset. The so-called scientific method is only common-sense testing, for crying out loud!

[Joe Chi Minh]

35. In case you are interested, here is a whole swag of articles, most of them,

interesting, and some very interesting, including some directly pertinent to our exchanges, particularly one or two relating to quantum mechanics.

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/college/specialinterestgroups/spirituality/publications.aspxintersting

Re Steven Hawking, the surprise is not that he insists he is not an atheist, but a deist, but rather that there could ever have been respected scientists who swallowed Wittgenstein's utter piffle.

How could he have ever been a respected philosopher? I mean, if he had died before Einstein's theories of relativity had been published, his ostrich-like materialism might not have seemed quite so insane. But Einstein had made the most extraordinary predictions without the benefit of empirical testing which, by definition(!), were to ensue.

Alas, the explanation is all too common among high-flyers whose only real career is a supercharged ambition. The academically-educated, if anything are less likely, rather than more likely, to base their thinking concerning the more important dimensions of our life here on earth, on sound assumptions. Consequently, whatever the grounds for their admiration of his ideas, however irrational, he evidently found such admiration by his peers and teachers rather satisfying - so why question them? However, I don't think there can be any doubt that his materialism is a unique departure in human history from the most elementary conceivable common sense. Objects of amazing complexity don't just happen as a result of endless and incidentlly ongoing coincidences.

Furthermore, materialism does not, cannot, begin to address the reality, now empirically proven by physics that there is a dynamic force holding things together in being, in time. Even if the film could be stopped and measurements(?) taken within a single still frame, it would be skewed and could not reflect the reality which is dynamic, energised and impelled by a life force. Things cohere in and over time.

As regards the Singularity, in one of the links I appended, the author states that, other than the fact that the Singularity contains the Universe within it, inevitably, in some strange sense, nothing can be said about it. Physicists know nothing. But I beg to differ. The very fact of the radiations from the Singularity whence our space-time cosmos emanated, unambiguously indicates that the source thereof is dynamic, transcendentally intelligent and dazzlingly creative and, to all appearances, infinitely powerful.
So, while a particular religion has not been scientifically proven, the extraordinary existence and action of a Creator-God is evidenced beyond all peradventure. Deism.

To find an analogy for the wilful blindness of the scientific(/governmental/commercial) establishment, I think you would have to turn to the demi-monde of professional boxing promotion and administration, by the good offices of whom, it is sometimes said that to get a draw, a visiting boxer needs to KO the hometown hero. Except the wilful, 'head-in-the-sand' blindness of the s/g/c establishment is more surreal. To match that, you'd have to be looking at the louche penumbra of US Republican politics. TOTALLY surreal.

[Jim__]

37. "...Wittgenstein's utter piffle."

Do you know how silly you sound?

And, BTW, your link does not take us to a "whole swag of articles."

[Joe Chi Minh]

38. You really have to be spoon-fed, don't you.? Dumbos I had known...

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=paradoxes+physics&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

[Jim__]

39. Name calling is childish and, actually, quite pathetic.

[caraher]

41. So true. Which in itself is reason enough to ignore this guy...

Just let him bask alone in the glow of his smug sense of superiority... clearly none of us has the intelligence to rise to his exalted level of wisdom and knowledge...

[Jim__]

42. You're right. I shall try to ignore him. - n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. Not silly...?

[TZ]

44. You are silly and condescending and WRONG

Remember you challenging R_A on creating life in a lab? Well that's being done right near where I live:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
So that argument is complete BULLSHIT.
By the way, I suspect R_A has more scientific learning in his little finger than in your entire narrow mind of yours.
I consider R_A a friend and you were nasty and condescending to him (maybe you should consider a career change is one of the most laughably stupid things I have seen here for awhile). I personally also regard him as the most intelligent person on this board. And that would leave YOU in a whole other category.

[Random_Australian]

48. Guess what I'm going to ask you for - ask all of your sources for -

That's right, it's evidence!

I've seen none. Therefore your arguments are made of suck.

And I'm a little suprised you never addressed:

**********************
as long as the statements

"any description of an event must contain at most as much information as the complete description of the event"

and

"we have no more information about the singularity other than it existed"

hold true, then any explanation or description of the singularity will contain at most "the singularity occured".

**********************

Because your arguments against that would probably be interesting. Or at least entertaining.

[Random_Australian]

47. If the "most incisive" article relies on strawmen and the "you find a watch in the woods"

arguments like that,

you are screwed.

Note: Not only is that an argument from authority, but the wrong authority. :)

[Random_Australian]

46. I read them. The first one was a standard media article, the second one

only paradoxical if you think everything works as you experience it on the usual macroscopic scale, and the third was the usual crap that meant pretty much nothing.

That was a waste of my time.

Next.

[hunter]

24. Human knowledge is of no cosmic significance.

Our brains and our hands are too small to encompass much at all.

The dancing words and numbers are only clumsy representations of that which is.

Today I went to Mass and I played with some words and numbers. This pleased me.

It's how I celebrate life.

A physicist, an artist -- they both create representations of what they feel, what they see.

These representations will please others... or not. These representations may be further developed by others... or not.

There's a destination beyond which none of us can see.

The joy, the reason for life, is sharing the journey with others.

It is all art.

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. I'd have put it the other way, the cosmos is not of no significance at. all. in

the overall scheme of things, but I think you're approaching it from another angle, also valid. God and you, God and me, God and all his kiddywinks, joyful in the Mystical Body of Christ.

[Loisenman]

40. New URL for Popper piece

Karl Popper as The Ultimate Warrier