And in the Discussion, I Fit Where?

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And in the Discussion, I Fit Where?

 Hey all,

So I consider myself a Deist in that I believe there is a higher power. For me, that higher power is the massive, near-infinite, incomprehensible (ultimately, by any life-form in this reality) mathematical formula that guides the physical laws of this universe. It's not a granddaddy in the sky, but a force that guides the way this universe has composed itself. My belief system also allows for the supernatural, in that I've had experiences that cannot be explained away by current science, though I feel, if they weren't stigmatized and were analyzed, they could be explained by science. I have also had minimal experience with things like telepathy and telekinesis, which I believe can also be explained by (potentially testable) electro-magnetic phenomena and the powers of the human mind, but which i fear contribute to the illusion of a "God." I won't go on and on.

Problem is, I have a hard time knowing where I fit into this discussion. Should I stay out of the forums that say "No Theists?" I find myself unable to address questions posed to theists because the questions often assume premises to which I don't hold.

Honestly asking...feedback encouraged.

Ryan


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neptewn wrote:So why are you

neptewn wrote:
So why are you discounting centuries of various cultures utilizing chemical keys to achieve a higher consciousness? By the way it's not the level you achieve while on them, it's your interpretation of what you learned after that's important. You and the books you read missed the point, it's obvious in your armchair dismissal.

I was introduced to esoterics back in the 80's along with drugs. I don't need a lesson. 

There is a scale, or spectrum of levels, on which the consciousness can be shifted. (provided by Alice Bailey) You can imagine it as a fourth dimension of the world. My information is, that drugs violates the integrity of human nadis, chakras and subtle bodies, so the person is exposed to astral (emotional) levels of existence, usually lower of the seven. This is not only dangerous and unhealthy, it's also rather useless, because astral realms are the realms of illusion. Everything from there must be taken with a grain of salt. In higher astral realms a good learning indeed may take place, but rather during sleep. Otherwise, it's a jungle of thoughtforms and battlefield for humanity's sanity. Interpretation may be faulty, while a consciousness on higher realms provides a quick, precise, true knowledge.
These cultures skilled in ethnobotany are also primitive, close to stone age. Higher than astral is a lower mental realm, which is related to logics and rational thinking. This higher quality is being expressed by our culture, shamanism is anachronism.

This is my information, this is as I understand it. So you understand it differently.  I am curious about your information, about your point. Maybe you don't need a lesson, but according to you I probably do, so I'm listening. I think it's quite a fundamental dissent, worth discussing. Btw, who's talking about armchair? It seems to me that the group I'm in, belongs to an elite of  esoteric work for this euroregion.

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smartypants wrote:I'm in

smartypants wrote:
I'm in search of the materials that might support what I know to be true, I just haven't gotten to them yet.

I'm sure you're aware that's roughly the opposite approach to the scientific method.

smartypants wrote:
DG may be more educated in some ways, but his knowledge is narrow and closed-off in scope.

But you can learn quite a lot from a specialist, and if your goal is actually learning, then you may come across information that happens to be pretty well nailed down. When that's the case, people get "narrow and closed-off" about it. That's largely because it's rigorously established.

Anyway, welcome. If you're still interested in believing in psychic powers or whatever, you'll get some flak from me, but I wouldn't take it personally. I mean, it's just me.

Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence


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deludedgod wrote:Quote:DG is

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

DG is a science expert, but the problem with experts is, that they consider unscientific every science, that they don't understand.

I have to interrupt because that is ridiculous.

But holy shit, funny!

I read, "DG is a science expert". Um, what, like a ... scientist? And then, "they consider unscientific every science, that they don't understand."

No, dude, they consider anything that isn't science unscientific. Don't tell me it takes a scientist to tell the difference, because I'm not a scientist, and I can tell the difference. Usually with science, there's less pachouli, for one thing. A lot less talking about shit that doesn't make any sense, too ... and also ... oh yeah, how could I forget? SPECIFICS.

Sweet Mother of Mercy, how difficult is this? Star Wars was just a movie, for the love of Jove! You can't move shit with your mind!

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HisWillness wrote:Sweet

HisWillness wrote:

Sweet Mother of Mercy, how difficult is this? Star Wars was just a movie, for the love of Jove! You can't move shit with your mind!

But I can sure as hell try!

''Black Holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.''


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Luminon wrote:There is a

Luminon wrote:

There is a scale, or spectrum of levels, on which the consciousness can be shifted. (provided by Alice Bailey) You can imagine it as a fourth dimension of the world. My information is, that drugs violates the integrity of human nadis, chakras and subtle bodies, so the person is exposed to astral (emotional) levels of existence, usually lower of the seven. This is not only dangerous and unhealthy, it's also rather useless, because astral realms are the realms of illusion. Everything from there must be taken with a grain of salt.

 

I won't assume here that I have the answers or that your information is inaccurate. Drugs are dangerous and the bulk of society should avoid them.

It's actually quite simple. People tend to turn inward and question themselves, but they don't always like what they find. A side-effect is those that enter with precondition, also tend to have the worse experience. So when terms like dangerous and unhealthy are thrown out there, I have to question their experience and wonder what it is about themselves they don't like or trust. It is never about achieving some higher mental state, you don't leave your own head, that line of thinking can be dangerous in itself. It's about recognizing and dealing with those inhibitions that bind us, allowing for an alternate perspective.

Luminon wrote:

In higher astral realms a good learning indeed may take place, but rather during sleep. Otherwise, it's a jungle of thoughtforms and battlefield for humanity's sanity. Interpretation may be faulty, while a consciousness on higher realms provides a quick, precise, true knowledge.
These cultures skilled in ethnobotany are also primitive, close to stone age. Higher than astral is a lower mental realm, which is related to logics and rational thinking. This higher quality is being expressed by our culture, shamanism is anachronism.

This is my information, this is as I understand it. So you understand it differently.  I am curious about your information, about your point. Maybe you don't need a lesson, but according to you I probably do, so I'm listening. I think it's quite a fundamental dissent, worth discussing. Btw, who's talking about armchair? It seems to me that the group I'm in, belongs to an elite of  esoteric work for this euroregion.

My point is simple it appears the information you gathered was through other peoples findings. You speak from their view point and their authority, not your own. In my case I questioned these authorities and put this to a test, as outlined by my findings above. After all we are talking about our own minds. Do I have a lesson for you? I don't believe so, after all I found nothing mystical just some clarity regarding my own head. If I have some advice it is question any authority that is making proclamations regarding your mind, these proclamations themselves as I discovered can be the barrier in itself.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs


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HisWillness wrote:But holy

HisWillness wrote:
But holy shit, funny!

I read, "DG is a science expert". Um, what, like a ... scientist? And then, "they consider unscientific every science, that they don't understand."

No, dude, they consider anything that isn't science unscientific. Don't tell me it takes a scientist to tell the difference, because I'm not a scientist, and I can tell the difference. Usually with science, there's less pachouli, for one thing. A lot less talking about shit that doesn't make any sense, too ... and also ... oh yeah, how could I forget? SPECIFICS.

Sweet Mother of Mercy, how difficult is this? Star Wars was just a movie, for the love of Jove! You can't move shit with your mind!

Well, I have a personal observations which suggests otherwise. The point is, that to tell the difference, it needs a person who learns about the object of controversy. Scientists have a bad public relations, because they sometimes behave arrogantly. They tend to be very quick in condemning something, without even looking at it. They think, that they actually can know and judge something they never studied. Who of the skeptical people actually bothered to read Ageless Wisdom Teaching or Initiation Human and Solar? Some yes, but not many, maybe because they don't want to admit that they don't understand them. I have seen it in practice. I have seen a skeptic to be unable to comprehend a common, simple instructions for a mental exercise. He kept thinking about them instead of simply doing them. 'How can I do this?' 'How can it be, when there is no such a thing?' and so on. He was already hard-wired, unable to use a higher, intuitive thinking.

Btw, if you want specifics, then read this book, it's an adequate introduction and overview. 

neptewn wrote:

It's actually quite simple. People tend to turn inward and question themselves, but they don't always like what they find. A side-effect is those that enter with precondition, also tend to have the worse experience. So when terms like dangerous and unhealthy are thrown out there, I have to question their experience and wonder what it is about themselves they don't like or trust. It is never about achieving some higher mental state, you don't leave your own head, that line of thinking can be dangerous in itself. It's about recognizing and dealing with those inhibitions that bind us, allowing for an alternate perspective.

So you mean it as the introspection. All right, if some drugs works like that, it may work, though I'd choose other methods. For example, humanistic astrology, determining of ray structures (and thus one's major vices and virtues-to-be-obtained), point in evolution, meditation, etc. My parents are skilled in some of these methods and they also teaches them to people, for some years already. It's good also because it sets objective standards for the work.

neptewn wrote:
My point is simple it appears the information you gathered was through other peoples findings. You speak from their view point and their authority, not your own. In my case I questioned these authorities and put this to a test, as outlined by my findings above. After all we are talking about our own minds. Do I have a lesson for you? I don't believe so, after all I found nothing mystical just some clarity regarding my own head. If I have some advice it is question any authority that is making proclamations regarding your mind, these proclamations themselves as I discovered can be the barrier in itself.
To be precise, I have my lifetime observations and also experiences of other people around. Then, I compare them to already existing theory. I usually find out, that the theory fits on them very well. It is basically what I would want to say, just written down in much more advanced form, this is why I use other people's words. Of course, when I read the theory, I also search for logical inconsistencies in it. So far, I found none, maybe a few unclear technical details, but in these cases it's probably by my ignorance. There are of course parts of the theory which I'm not able to verify personally, but I've been given a sufficient evidence of the most important points, on which all this is dependent. Some of it is also well documented by photograph and video, if you're interested.

Btw, as for research of my own, I experiment with a control of bioenergy through mental focusing. This gives results, both good and not so good, but it's a fringe, specialized area of knowledge. This means I'm on my own with that, there are currently no gurus of that kind, useful for me on more than about 20%. This also means that I'll maybe have to write it all down, set the terminology, perform experiments and studies, to find out what the hell that kind of energy is and what is it good for. I meditate hoping to achieve a higher state of consciousness and intuition which will allow me to cope with that better. It's my brain I use for that, and someday I'd like to understand what's happening in there.

 

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Quote:It's my brain I use

Quote:

It's my brain I use for that, and someday I'd like to understand what's happening in there.

 

Shouldn't take too long, based on its output so far.

 

Garbage in, garbage out, as we used to say in our Fortran days ...

 

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EXC wrote:smartypants

EXC wrote:

smartypants wrote:

 I can't help but seek explanations outside the realms of established science, because I like things to have meaning.

So does everyone. But why does that justify making up a meaning when you don't have enough information about something to assign it a meaning? And what now is the point of expressing your opinions with us since you believe whatever provides you with comfort, not what is true and rational. We can't take you seriously.

So maybe there should be a special category for superstitious people that believe whatever provides them with comfort.

You misunderstand me. I'm not looking for comfort, but explanations. Having grown up Christian and realizing that the story of Jesus was most likely a complete fiction was not comforting in the slightest. In fact, it was quite disturbing to me. But I considered it a welcome revelation I could embrace.

What you refer to as "making up meanings" I'd consider hypothesizing possible explanations that I can now look into to flesh them out. Maybe I'm kidding myself, I don't know.


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Balkoth wrote:Smartypants,

Balkoth wrote:

Smartypants, as I'm not sure you're getting the point DG is making, let me try to express it in a less scientific manner (I'm hoping I get his point too).

You currently think there is a supernatural guiding force for the universe which consists of the physical laws of the universe.  Or something similar.  If I'm in the ballpark, please don't nitpick this part, because it's not the point of this post.

You think the idea of the Christian god, Judaism god, Islamic god, etc, is silly.  And I imagine you've talked to people who believe in the invisible sky daddy.  If you've talked to them about their belief, you've probably tried to show them how properties they attribute to their god doesn't make any sense.  So, in a hypothetical situation...

Them: I believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc god.

You: I understand what you're claiming this god is.  Let me explain why that cannot exist and go through each property.

All good, right?  You might disagree, but you know what he's claiming and you can discuss the various properties.  The idea has been defined.

Now what if this happened instead?

Them: Dude, there's like totally a god.

You: What's this god like?

Them: He's like god, dude.

You: Er...can you be more specific?  Tell me some concrete details?

Them: He's...god.  Dude, he's god.

You: Can you please give me some specifics?  Tell me what properties he has?  What attributes he possesses?

Them: God.

As you can imagine, that isn't a very productive conversation for either party.  From DG's perspective, you've been talking like the second person and he wants you to talk like the first person.  He disagrees with your initial statements, sure.  But he's willing/interested in trying to convince you otherwise, but he needs specific details, specific terminology, for the discussion to be meaningful.  And hell, if you can prove him wrong on something, he'll probably thank you for doing so.

But until you can put your ideas into a scientific format that he can make sense of and discuss, nothing will happen.  Currently, from his perspective, you two are trying to discuss a subject in calculus but you're talking in terms of arithmetic.  He just wants you to phrase your ideas in the correct fashion so they make sense, basically.  That help?

Yes, I totally understand what you're saying. Using your analogy, I'd say it's more likely the other person would resort to answering with "because the bible says this or that." I'm like the believer who hasn't ever actually read the bible, except the texts I'd reference would be scientific studies. This is all very new to me and I have a very firm theory of how I believe things work, I just haven't had the chance to research it.

I can't help thinking, however, that what passes for impeccable scientific process and debate around here is just a poor disguise for a lack of basic rudimentary social skills.

R


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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:

smartypants wrote:

I am a bit curious what things caused red flags if you care to elaborate...

R

Well, simply put, I disagree with you on many things, and I thought some of your conclusions were rather rash and unsupported.

Let's take a look.

Quote:
A complete formulation of those laws? Are you kidding???

No, he's not kidding. Scientists have narrowed down all known forces into a few basic types.

Quote:
Very arrogant, not to mention naive.

Why is it arrogant? Why is it naive?

Quote:
How could you possibly suppose, with our understanding of like .00000001% of the universe, that we understand anything?

Because we do. Scientists don't assume these things; modern genetics, the periodic table of the elements, and general relativity aren't pulled out of a hat by an old man with crazy facial hair. All ideas are subjected to countless hours of meticulous research followed by uncompromising peer review at a level of science that I don't even have a chance in hell of understanding yet.

If you want to argue that scientists have not made this much progress, then, by all means, study the material. Analyze the research. Or, even better, do your own research; discover an unknown force. The responses you have made here are meaningless.

Quote:
Quantum physics is in its infancy, after all. We have no idea exactly what dark matter even is. You can name all the physicists you like (and love the name-dropping paragraph, by the way). They're only human. We are so far from comprehending the total organization of the universe its not even funny. Even the greatest minds say so: the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know.

Now if the Singularity comes to be, this conversation will be decidedly different.

What does this have to do with DG's response?

Quote:
So yeah, when I say "the laws of the universe," I do mean the gigantic mathematical formula that constitutes our reality. Having chosen imprecise wording doesn't automatically negate the ideas behind them.

True, but unless you can clearly explain your position, it is impossible to discuss.

Quote:
The arrogance, it's superhuman. You have to be in your twenties, I'd bet on it. If you're not, you might want to consider why I thought you were.

If I didn't have a thick skin, I'd have flounced from the interwebs years ago, and yet here I am still arguing about things.

I don't know you, that's why I'm not taking any of this personally. That doesn't stop me from thinking you think you know more than you actually do.

R

*sigh*

You're starting to remind me of Arj. That is not a compliment.

If you want to be the rational individual in this exchange, make DG the "bad guy," and move the discussion along, then I suggest that you type a clearer and more detailed argument for deism and the human-brain-electromagnetism-thing. Your religion analogies aren't helping.

You claim that the human brain can project energies. What is "energies?" How does the human project them? How do you know that science is too "dogmatic" to research this topic? Etc.

Thanks, I'm a n00b and everything, so it's helpful to know what I'm facing. 

We might have formulated some theories that sound good, but we have explored such a miniscule little corner of the universe, I just can't accept that whatever else is out there won't change those theories in unimaginably fundamental ways.

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

I'll do my best to prove I'm more worthwhile in a conversation than this Arj person. S/he sounds annoying. LOL

The vagueness of my terms is due to the fact that I don't know exactly what these processes are. It's just my attempt to explain in scientific terms things I've experienced with the firm belief that I'm not crazy or hallucinating. I will certainly try to find them, but I'm not convinced the information is out there, at least not with the rigor behind it that this forum would require. I'll see what I can come up with.

R


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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:

smartypants wrote:

Again, I can't go there without resorting to anecdata, which is always suspect.

Ah, I see. That means that this discussion is probably over, unless you want to post your experiences.

Oh, I'd be happy to go on and on about my personal experiences, but that's been proven completely useless in any kind of debate situation, so what's the point?


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Luminon wrote:Do you know

Luminon wrote:
Do you know anything about rays, sub-rays, permanent atoms, atman, buddhi, manas, chohans, devas, monads, nadis, embodiment, overshadowing, occult laws, axioms, and so on?

Can you define each of these terms.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan


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Tapey wrote:1)How do you

Tapey wrote:

1)How do you know it exists?

2)How are these people chosen, is it genetic?

3)Why hasn't one of these people won the 1 million dollar prize from the amazing Randy?

4)Why hasn't this energy cured any diseases?

Just a few basic things that would be easy to answer if it was real. I'm sure scientists would be thrilled if it were real, think of the possiblities for them.

 

Common answers answers

1) I have seen it ( you have been most likely tricked)

2)I don't know 

3) Doesn't need the money ( then why over charge)

4) It has but science doesn't regconise it. (If something cured cancer,  a not to uncommon claim, do you really think it would go unrecognised?)

 

1) I've experienced it countless times, which is not that different from your common answer.

2) Everyone has it, but western culture has favored the suppression of it in recent generations.

3) See #2. Plus a good deal of the people who have tapped into it probably realize there are more important things to worry about then the almighty dollar.

4) It may not be a cure-all solution, but it's been well documented that attitude affects health. Ulcers caused by stress is the perfect example.

R


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Luminon wrote:Hello and

Luminon wrote:

Hello and welcome, Smartypants! As I see, I can agree with you on most of the things. I'm very glad to have you around. I don't know an internet forum where we both would fit, but this one is good. It's a lot of very intelligent and educated people around. Christians only discusses their Holey Bible all the time, they're boring. How can they read only one book so often? I could never understand that, having myself read hundreds of them.

As for the formalities with theism or non-theism, I recommend you to compare yourself against a typical theist, Christian for example, Bible literalist, maybe. Read about the attributes of Jahweh and think if you like him and why. Consider your attitude towards science, abortion, stem cell research, and then to sin, afterlife, Hell, Satan, justice ( and specially a so-called 'divine justice' ) etc. I have come to a satisfying conclusion that I can agree with local people about all important things for the practical life, and laugh together with them when they're digging deep into a steaming heap of religion.
You may find out that you're not like a typical theist for whom this website exists. If you come from a tolerant place, you might have never thought about yourself in terms of any religion or non-religion, feeling ascended beyond these superficial labels, and feeling like letting the humankind know that there is more in the world than just theists and atheists. This website is made mainly for people afraid of Hell, afraid of it's gruesome creator (Jahweh), afraid of nonbelievers in him, and afraid that this all is a lie, which it is. This forum mostly consists of people who have been like that, but then they broke the chains of belief (often with a great effort and personal sacrifices) and became free of the fear. This great achievement made them interested in saving their fellow believers from the mind disease known as theism. This makes them in my opinion very focused on that task, and possibly different than  other people you've ever met. This is why I strongly recommend you to read The Unofficial Newcomer's Guide to Skeptics.

Thanks for your support, I appreciate it.

R


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HisWillness

HisWillness wrote:

smartypants wrote:
I'm in search of the materials that might support what I know to be true, I just haven't gotten to them yet.

I'm sure you're aware that's roughly the opposite approach to the scientific method.

smartypants wrote:
DG may be more educated in some ways, but his knowledge is narrow and closed-off in scope.

But you can learn quite a lot from a specialist, and if your goal is actually learning, then you may come across information that happens to be pretty well nailed down. When that's the case, people get "narrow and closed-off" about it. That's largely because it's rigorously established.

Anyway, welcome. If you're still interested in believing in psychic powers or whatever, you'll get some flak from me, but I wouldn't take it personally. I mean, it's just me.

Quite consistent with it, actually: form a theory and seek out the evidence for or against. Also, "rigorously established" in a narrow margin of understanding.

Thanks for the welcome, I intend to stick around for a while.

R


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HisWillness wrote:You can't

HisWillness wrote:

You can't move shit with your mind!

And you know this to be true because.........?


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smartypants wrote:This is

smartypants wrote:
This is all very new to me and I have a very firm theory of how I believe things work, I just haven't had the chance to research it.

Do you see the at last two ways that statement seems very arrogant and condescending to scientists or people interested in science?

Quote:
I can't help thinking, however, that what passes for impeccable scientific process and debate around here is just a poor disguise for a lack of basic rudimentary social skills.

I disagree.  See previous comment.  To a person versed in science, you came across as rude and presumptous in your original posts.  I don't think you intended that, but to many people that's how it seemed.  In their eyes, it seemed you were the one lacking basic social skills.

Again, I realize that was not your intent, but that is how it came across, and it was that tone to which people were responding.


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HisWillness wrote:[You can't

HisWillness wrote:

[You can't move shit with your mind!

Umm, Star Wars clearly shows that with enough midi-chlorians and extensive training in the ways of the force, one will be able to move objects with their mind.

At least I cite the sources for my claims.

''Black Holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.''


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Balkoth wrote:smartypants

Balkoth wrote:

smartypants wrote:
This is all very new to me and I have a very firm theory of how I believe things work, I just haven't had the chance to research it.

Do you see the at last two ways that statement seems very arrogant and condescending to scientists or people interested in science?

Quote:
I can't help thinking, however, that what passes for impeccable scientific process and debate around here is just a poor disguise for a lack of basic rudimentary social skills.

I disagree.  See previous comment.  To a person versed in science, you came across as rude and presumptous in your original posts.  I don't think you intended that, but to many people that's how it seemed.  In their eyes, it seemed you were the one lacking basic social skills.

Again, I realize that was not your intent, but that is how it came across, and it was that tone to which people were responding.

I didn't intend that at all. I only was trying to defend myself and felt attacked. Honestly, I didn't expect such a hostile reaction to this post, since I'd only hoped to find out what this forum was all about. Probably I shouldn't have gotten so defensive, but I'm only human, after all.

R


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SSBBJunky wrote:HisWillness

SSBBJunky wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

[You can't move shit with your mind!

Umm, Star Wars clearly shows that with enough midi-chlorians and extensive training in the ways of the force, one will be able to move objects with their mind.

At least I cite the sources for my claims.

Sarcasm noted. And certainly if a movie approaches the subject, that HAS to mean it's bullshit.

R


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smartypants wrote:SSBBJunky

smartypants wrote:

SSBBJunky wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

[You can't move shit with your mind!

Umm, Star Wars clearly shows that with enough midi-chlorians and extensive training in the ways of the force, one will be able to move objects with their mind.

At least I cite the sources for my claims.

Sarcasm noted. And certainly if a movie approaches the subject, that HAS to mean it's bullshit.

R

 

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smartypants wrote:I didn't

smartypants wrote:

I didn't intend that at all. I only was trying to defend myself and felt attacked.

I understand.  Three things to keep in mind: one, they were attacking your ideas, not you.  Two, they were trying to help you.

Three...let's look at the first response by DG and break it down:

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

So I consider myself a Deist in that I believe there is a higher power.

This is too vague to be meaningful. Can you expound on this without using deliberately vague language like "guiding force" and "higher power" and articulate the properties and nature of what you are attempting to describe?

Actually, since you used the word "incomprehensible" you shot yourself in the foot from an epistemological standpoint since by definition incomprehensibility precludes you from being able to say anything meaningful at all about this supposed "higher power", so in making this assertion that there is some "incomprehensible higher power" you aren't actually saying anything meaningful or important from a rigorous philosophical standpoint.

1. Higher power is vague.  Can you be a bit more specific?

2. If you're saying God is incomprehensible, that means you can't actually say anything about God, can you?

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

which I believed can also be explained by (potentially testable) electro-magnetic phenomenon

In my experience, people who say this are those who don't actually know anything about electrodynamics. Electrodynamics is a completed and organic component of modern physics. As such, your claim would be superfluous. But since I do happen to know (a lot) about electrodynamics, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I would be interested in any precise articulation you have of precisely how "electro-magnetic phenomenon" are responsible for telepathy. And, be as complex and opaque in terms of scientific and mathematical terminology as you wish.

Oh, and before I forget: Welcome to the forums. Always good to have someone new.

3. From what I've seen, that sort of statement usually means the person doesn't know anything about electrodynamics.  But, giving you the benefit of the doubt, could you be specific about what you mean in your post, and use all the scientific jargon you want as I'll be able to understand it.

4. Welcome to the forums.

As you can see, DG's initial response wasn't a nasty attack.  From there you jumped to...free will...and things headed south.

Quote:
Honestly, I didn't expect such a hostile reaction to this post, since I'd only hoped to find out what this forum was all about. Probably I shouldn't have gotten so defensive, but I'm only human, after all.

As I just noted, the initial reaction wasn't particularly hostile at all,   Hopefully you found out something about the forums, though: ideas and beliefs will be questioned when presented and justification of them is expected.  It is not an attack on the person, it is a questioning of the ideas.

And yes, your defensiveness did sort of kick start the going south.  Just keep in mind that you personally are not under attack and your ideas are being questioned to try to help you.  Remember the tagline of the site?

"Believe in God?  We can fix that."


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smartypants

smartypants wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

You can't move shit with your mind!

And you know this to be true because.........?

Because anyone who could move something with their mind could claim a prize for one million dollars from James Randi. One million dollars is sufficient to motivate any human being alive to demonstrate their telekinetic powers. Out of six billion people, there have been exactly zero successes.

There's also the little problem of the known forces of the universe. But whatever, that's just narrow knowledge that seems to be consistently correct, strangely.

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Luminon wrote:HisWillness

Luminon wrote:

HisWillness wrote:
Sweet Mother of Mercy, how difficult is this? Star Wars was just a movie, for the love of Jove! You can't move shit with your mind!

Well, I have a personal observations which suggests otherwise.

Oh, well then ...

HisWillness wrote:
Scientists have a bad public relations, because they sometimes behave arrogantly. They tend to be very quick in condemning something, without even looking at it. They think, that they actually can know and judge something they never studied.

I'll do this one more time, but it'll be the last. If you happen to be a scientist, and you happen to have reams and reams of data that supports one idea, like the [edit: four fundamental interactions, three forces operating] in the universe, and someone comes along with the idea of a totally unobserved [fourth] force, with no data, and is COMPLETELY FUCKING HIGH ASDPOIFAFVPVE NPVA FAA;SDNOIVNNDF

...

Okay, sorry ... I just get a little rage, because ... see, when you've seen how science works to avoid these kinds of "controversies" by putting the empirical data first, and communicating as specifically and clearly as possible, it's all so clear. It's not "narrow" to ask for details about observation. It's being specific, and through being specific, we can actually know stuff ... which is good.

Luminon wrote:
Btw, as for research of my own, I experiment with a control of bioenergy through mental focusing.

How exactly does one measure "bioenergy"?

Luminon wrote:
It's my brain I use for that, and someday I'd like to understand what's happening in there.

You and me both, pal.

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Quote:like the four forces

Quote:

like the four forces that act on matter in the universe

Three. Give Weinberg and Salam their due credit.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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deludedgod wrote:Quote:like

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

like the four forces that act on matter in the universe

Three. Give Weinberg and Salam their due credit.

I was thinking of the fundamental interactions, wasn't I? Three! Three forces!

...

I'll come in again.

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fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence


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smartypants wrote:Ulcers

smartypants wrote:

Ulcers caused by stress is the perfect example.

 

Not a perfect example at all. In fact pretty crap an example if you were aiming to illustrate a typical physiological illness.

 

It pays to keep up with events, smartypants. Nobel Prizes for Medicine might not be big news where you come from so you might be forgiven for lagging four years behind on that one. Luckily for you however, should you be unfortunate enough to suffer from an ulcer, doctors (real ones) are a bit more on the ball.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4304290.stm

 

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smartypants wrote:We might

smartypants wrote:

We might have formulated some theories that sound good, but we have explored such a miniscule little corner of the universe, I just can't accept that whatever else is out there won't change those theories in unimaginably fundamental ways.

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

Ah, this is all just a matter of induction, constant conjunction, as Hume might say. Based on everything we have observed, the universe has an objective, reliable organization, so we base all our knowledge on these things. Of course, it's very possible that new evidence will arise to challenge some scientific idea. In fact, this happens all the time, and science will always analyze the data and try to adapt itself, but until that happens, it is pointless to deny the knowledge we have gained. Of course, we always have to stay open-minded, but that's as far as it's rational or meaningful for us to go based on the problem of induction. Sure, we can all be living in the Matrix, but until that's proven, we must accept that the world is as we perceive it; there is no alternative.

smartypants wrote:
I'll do my best to prove I'm more worthwhile in a conversation than this Arj person. S/he sounds annoying. LOL

She probably would have responded to my previous post by calling me a Nazi, so you're doing pretty good.

smartypants wrote:
The vagueness of my terms is due to the fact that I don't know exactly what these processes are. It's just my attempt to explain in scientific terms things I've experienced with the firm belief that I'm not crazy or hallucinating. I will certainly try to find them, but I'm not convinced the information is out there, at least not with the rigor behind it that this forum would require. I'll see what I can come up with.

R

DG hit you hard because your subjective experiences don't agree with our current knowledge about the world. I have not received so much scientific training (yet), but I can also testify that people have been bugging me with supernatural claims my entire life and not a single one of those claims has ever been verified. When I was younger, I even attended a Catholic summer camp where a girl's broken leg was supposedly healed by the power of God. I was understandably skeptical since I had absolutely zero evidence that the girl's leg was even broken in the first place, and I find it quite suspicious that people in many different religions with all kinds of leg problems are healed all over the world every week, but God never, ever, heals an amputee.

Edit: Last sentence.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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Quote: Arrogant and naive

Quote:

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

This is a little bit of a misleading argument. There are branches of science which purport only to investigate facets of reality which are specific to us here. My discipline is one of those. All of the biology we study is “Earth biology”, obviously, we don’t know any other biology. So you are obviously referring to those disciplines which purport to investigate reality as a whole, or fundamental principles that would hold across all physical reality. This is a remarkable idea which has only arisen in the last 500 years. It really, I suppose, begins with the first Cosmological revolution, the Copernican principle. The Copernican principle is one of several cosmological revolutions and principles which, at least on a philosophical level, are crucial to understanding the way in which a discipline like physics would be able to model principles of reality that would hold across the entire universe. Ironically, the Copernican principle (which is actually generalized by the modern version, due to the second Cosmological revolution of Hubble) is pretty much summarized by you: We aren’t special. Our location in the universe isn’t particularly special. The laws describing underlying physical phenomena here shouldn’t be particularly special. This is often used in conjunction with the principles of isotropy and homogeneity. Isotropy comes up all the time in Cosmology as well as chemistry and material science. As a general principle, it states that no direction is more special than any other. An obvious example is a beaker containing a reagent at a certain concentration M. If we examine unit volumes, we should expect there to be M moles of reagent present. Statistically, this will not be exactly the case, but we should not expect direction-dependant variance at all. That is, we shouldn't expect more reagent to occupy one region of the beaker over another. A reagent in a beaker is said to exhibit isotropy.

These principles are fundamental to all physics, because physics is an attempt to generalize laws that govern the way reality works. In particular, this gives rise to the notion of frame independence. All observers in the universe have a frame of reference, which in abstract terms can be envisioned to be a coordinate system (of arbitrary system of position) with the observer at the origin, in which the observer makes observations of events at position (x,y,z,t). In particular, observers can measure observable physical quantities and then formulate physical laws to describe how they are related to each other. People often use the phrase “physical law” in a vague way, but it has a precise meaning. A physical law must always link an observable to an observable. For example, F=ma is a physical law, but E=-grad V or B=Curl A are not, since V and A are not observable physical quantities. Furthermore, physical laws cannot violate parity and they cannot equate different types of quantities. That is, a scalar cannot be equated to a vector, nor vice-versa. A pseudovector cannot be equated to a vector nor-vice versa. This would not make any sense from a mathematical standpoint and it also wouldn't make sense from a physical standpoint. If a vector and pseudovector were equated, parity would be violated since if we set up a mirror universe where (x,y,z) becomes (-x,-y-z) then the pseudovector wouldn't flip, but the vector would, which would make no sense. Furthermore, physical quantities like scalars, vectors and psuedovectors and tensors obey certain coordinate transform laws. In other words, if we transform from a certain reference frame K to another frame K’ then the quantities must transform in a certain way. For a physical law to be meaningful, it must not change under inertial transforms. There are many physical quantities (in fact, most of them) that exhibit frame dependence. Mass, velocity, position, current, etc. etc. but a physical law which links one of these observable quantities to another cannot change under such transforms. If they did, it would be unphysical. It would exhibit a frame dependence that would mean it was no longer a law of physics. Physics is all about observation. Observers can record in their frame certain observable quantities like charge, mass and velocity. Observers may differ in their quantities recorded, but if they should ever compare notes, then the relationship they find between two observables should be the same, regardless if they are sitting next to each other, or billions of light years from each other on distant planets. The concept of inertial transform does not depend on separation (which is actually a frame dependant concept anyway). If this is the case, that the observers agree on the relationship all the time, that relationship is a physical law. Note also that a crucial proviso was included. The transform must be inertial otherwise the observer would have to introduce extra terms to account for his observation. The invariance of all physical laws under inertial transforms is called the second postulate of special relativity.In particular this is important because two observers could be studying the same object, but measure the same quantities differently due to frame dependance. To state that a particle moves with velocity v is to state that it moves with a velocity v in an arbitrary frame K. To take this proviso off would make the sentence mean nothing, as velocity is frame dependant. 

The first and least general formulation of this was done by Galileo. Consider a coordinate system O which is that of a stationary observer with respect to the Earth (all our conventions here are defined with respect to the Earth’s surface). For simplicity we will discuss motion over small regions of space relative to the size of the Earth because vectors do not commute over curved space.

Let us suppose that the motion of an object from the perspective of O is such that the position vector of the object a is r(t) where t is time and the position vector points from the origin to the object. Now suppose there is another reference frame O` (O-dash) which coincides with O when t=0, as shown below:


Let us suppose that O` is moving with velocity v0 in the frame of reference of O. Thus at time t in the coordinate system of O the origin of O’ will be located at position vector v0t. Thus in the coordinate system of O’ the displacement vector of the object  a, which is denoted r’(t) is simply:

 

r’(t)=r(t)-v0t

This is simply a consequence of vector addition (this will not hold over curved surfaces, however).

Now suppose we wish to find the velocity of object a recorded in frames O and O’, We simply differentiate to find:

dr’/dt = dr/dt-v0

What of the acceleration? Differentiate again to find:

d2r’/dt2 = d2r/dt2

This is the crucial result, for it tells us that the laws of motion are independent of choice of coordinate axes. This is famously known as the relativity principle.  It is clear that if observer O concludes that body a is moving with constant velocity, and, therefore, subject to zero net force, then observer O’ will agree with this conclusion. Furthermore, if observer O concludes that body a is accelerating, and, therefore, subject to a force, then observer O’ will remain in agreement. It follows that Newton's laws of motion are equally valid in the frames of reference of the moving and the stationary observer. Such frames are termed inertial frames of reference. A more precise way to state the relativity principle is that no physical experiment can distinguish between inertial frames.

Consider, for example, a sound wave in stationary air. At STP, this will propagate at 343ms-1. Any experimenter in any frame of reference should obtain this value. An observer which is moving will measure a different  value for the speed of the wave in air, but he will also measure a different value for the speed of the medium, and therefore, his result, the speed of sound with respect to stationary air, will be the same. To put it another way, any wave whose speed will be measured the same in all inertial frames must be capable of propagation without a medium; otherwise we would be able to distinguish between two inertial frames, which would violate the principle of relativity.

This principle was generalized completely by Einstein, and now it is an organic part of modern physics.

 EDIT: Slight nitpick.There are believed to be on the order of 1011 galaxies in the universe, not 1015.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Balkoth wrote:smartypants

Balkoth wrote:

smartypants wrote:

I didn't intend that at all. I only was trying to defend myself and felt attacked.

I understand.  Three things to keep in mind: one, they were attacking your ideas, not you.  Two, they were trying to help you.

Three...let's look at the first response by DG and break it down:

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

So I consider myself a Deist in that I believe there is a higher power.

This is too vague to be meaningful. Can you expound on this without using deliberately vague language like "guiding force" and "higher power" and articulate the properties and nature of what you are attempting to describe?

Actually, since you used the word "incomprehensible" you shot yourself in the foot from an epistemological standpoint since by definition incomprehensibility precludes you from being able to say anything meaningful at all about this supposed "higher power", so in making this assertion that there is some "incomprehensible higher power" you aren't actually saying anything meaningful or important from a rigorous philosophical standpoint.

1. Higher power is vague.  Can you be a bit more specific?

2. If you're saying God is incomprehensible, that means you can't actually say anything about God, can you?

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

which I believed can also be explained by (potentially testable) electro-magnetic phenomenon

In my experience, people who say this are those who don't actually know anything about electrodynamics. Electrodynamics is a completed and organic component of modern physics. As such, your claim would be superfluous. But since I do happen to know (a lot) about electrodynamics, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I would be interested in any precise articulation you have of precisely how "electro-magnetic phenomenon" are responsible for telepathy. And, be as complex and opaque in terms of scientific and mathematical terminology as you wish.

Oh, and before I forget: Welcome to the forums. Always good to have someone new.

3. From what I've seen, that sort of statement usually means the person doesn't know anything about electrodynamics.  But, giving you the benefit of the doubt, could you be specific about what you mean in your post, and use all the scientific jargon you want as I'll be able to understand it.

4. Welcome to the forums.

As you can see, DG's initial response wasn't a nasty attack.  From there you jumped to...free will...and things headed south.

Quote:
Honestly, I didn't expect such a hostile reaction to this post, since I'd only hoped to find out what this forum was all about. Probably I shouldn't have gotten so defensive, but I'm only human, after all.

As I just noted, the initial reaction wasn't particularly hostile at all,   Hopefully you found out something about the forums, though: ideas and beliefs will be questioned when presented and justification of them is expected.  It is not an attack on the person, it is a questioning of the ideas.

And yes, your defensiveness did sort of kick start the going south.  Just keep in mind that you personally are not under attack and your ideas are being questioned to try to help you.  Remember the tagline of the site?

"Believe in God?  We can fix that."

See, you're the type of person I like arguing with. You call out questionable issues, but without all the venom. 

Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to describe it, since I think it's near impossible for any rational being inside this reality to grasp what it is in its entirety. All I know is that we're all subservient to its laws, whether we like it or not. The vagueness is unavoidable in that regard.

I just don't like the term "God," because that seems to imply there's a person up there, which I don't believe. If I bow down to anything, it's physics, really, because everything in the universe is subjected to it.

We can say a lot about it, science has, but the incomprehensibility of it is compatible with a sense of humilty that it will forever outside our ability to understand it entirely, since our understanding necessarily has to obey its laws. I believe this is the basis of humans' resort to mystical beings to explain it away.

I don't fully understand electro-magnetism, but it seems like a good starting point. What I do know is that other creatures on the planet have evolved to sense different kinds of phenomena, senses that our culture has told us we lack. I'm not convinced that we do lack those abilities. I'd love if the tests could be done to figure out why these things happen, but I'm not sure they have yet.

The problem is, though, that I wasn't asking for a debate on my beliefs. Rather, I was asking where I stand in this particular forum because I was unsure, since I'm not a Christianazi, and I hope it's been made clear, not a Theist. 

"Help" can come in many forms, sometimes unpleasant, but it does need to be based in an understanding of where I'm coming from, or else it's useless to me, and counteractive. This I've learned from the work that I do, which has considerable implications in social psychology.

I do thank you for your thoughts.

R


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Nordmann wrote:smartypants

Nordmann wrote:

smartypants wrote:

Ulcers caused by stress is the perfect example.

 

Not a perfect example at all. In fact pretty crap an example if you were aiming to illustrate a typical physiological illness.

 

It pays to keep up with events, smartypants. Nobel Prizes for Medicine might not be big news where you come from so you might be forgiven for lagging four years behind on that one. Luckily for you however, should you be unfortunate enough to suffer from an ulcer, doctors (real ones) are a bit more on the ball.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4304290.stm

 

LOL This article is supposed to prove that stress isn't a contributing factor to people developing ulcers? Totally irrelevant.

R


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smartypants wrote:LOL This

smartypants wrote:

LOL This article is supposed to prove that stress isn't a contributing factor to people developing ulcers? Totally irrelevant.

I think you still have the scientific method backwards. Until you know something, you don't know it. So we know that 90% of duodenal ulcers and 80% of stomach ulcers have nothing to do with stress, they're just a bacterial infection. If we don't know what causes the other incidences of ulcers, then it doesn't mean we know it's caused by stress, it means we don't know. Could be anything. Arguing that it's stress without data doesn't really help anything.

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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:

smartypants wrote:

We might have formulated some theories that sound good, but we have explored such a miniscule little corner of the universe, I just can't accept that whatever else is out there won't change those theories in unimaginably fundamental ways.

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

Ah, this is all just a matter of induction, constant conjunction, as Hume might say. Based on everything we have observed, the universe has an objective, reliable organization, so we base all our knowledge on these things. Of course, it's very possible that new evidence will arise to challenge some scientific idea. In fact, this happens all the time, and science will always analyze the data and try to adapt itself, but until that happens, it is pointless to deny the knowledge we have gained. Of course, we always have to stay open-minded, but that's as far as it's rational or meaningful for us to go based on the problem of induction. Sure, we can all be living in the Matrix, but until that's proven, we must accept that the world is as we perceive it; there is no alternative.

smartypants wrote:
I'll do my best to prove I'm more worthwhile in a conversation than this Arj person. S/he sounds annoying. LOL

She probably would have responded to my previous post by calling me a Nazi, so you're doing pretty good.

smartypants wrote:
The vagueness of my terms is due to the fact that I don't know exactly what these processes are. It's just my attempt to explain in scientific terms things I've experienced with the firm belief that I'm not crazy or hallucinating. I will certainly try to find them, but I'm not convinced the information is out there, at least not with the rigor behind it that this forum would require. I'll see what I can come up with.

R

DG hit you hard because your subjective experiences don't agree with our current knowledge about the world. I have not received so much scientific training (yet), but I can also testify that people have been bugging me with supernatural claims my entire life and not a single one of those claims has ever been verified. When I was younger, I even attended a Catholic summer camp where a girl's broken leg was supposedly healed by the power of God. I was understandably skeptical since I had absolutely zero evidence that the girl's leg was even broken in the first place, and I find it quite suspicious that people in many different religions with all kinds of leg problems are healed all over the world every week, but God never, ever, heals an amputee.

Edit: Last sentence.

That "objective, reliable organization" is exactly what I consider to be the "higher power" in the universe--as much as that phrasing has caused problems here.

LOL I know way too much about interweb snafus to resort to accusations of nazism.

What I'm saying is that the person with the broken leg--if they were, in fact, afflicted--might believe they were healed for a very specific and explainable reason. The human brain might have a lot more power than we recognize, and "belief" might be the catalyst for those powers. Again, I think what the human brain can do might be testable, but I don't have the credible research to back it up, unfortunately, so I'm just theorizing.

The Catholics are really fucked up, btw.

R


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deludedgod wrote:Quote:

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

This is a little bit of a misleading argument. There are branches of science which purport only to investigate facets of reality which are specific to us here. My discipline is one of those. All of the biology we study is “Earth biology”, obviously, we don’t know any other biology. So you are obviously referring to those disciplines which purport to investigate reality as a whole, or fundamental principles that would hold across all physical reality. This is a remarkable idea which has only arisen in the last 500 years. It really, I suppose, begins with the first Cosmological revolution, the Copernican principle. The Copernican principle is one of several cosmological revolutions and principles which, at least on a philosophical level, are crucial to understanding the way in which a discipline like physics would be able to model principles of reality that would hold across the entire universe. Ironically, the Copernican principle (which is actually generalized by the modern version, due to the second Cosmological revolution of Hubble) is pretty much summarized by you: We aren’t special. Our location in the universe isn’t particularly special. The laws describing underlying physical phenomena here shouldn’t be particularly special. This is often used in conjunction with the principles of isotropy and homogeneity. Isotropy comes up all the time in Cosmology as well as chemistry and material science. As a general principle, it states that no direction is more special than any other. An obvious example is a beaker containing a reagent at a certain concentration M. If we examine unit volumes, we should expect there to be M moles of reagent present. Statistically, this will not be exactly the case, but we should not expect direction-dependant variance at all. That is, we shouldn't expect more reagent to occupy one region of the beaker over another. A reagent in a beaker is said to exhibit isotropy.

These principles are fundamental to all physics, because physics is an attempt to generalize laws that govern the way reality works. In particular, this gives rise to the notion of frame independence. All observers in the universe have a frame of reference, which in abstract terms can be envisioned to be a coordinate system (of arbitrary system of position) with the observer at the origin, in which the observer makes observations of events at position (x,y,z,t). In particular, observers can measure observable physical quantities and then formulate physical laws to describe how they are related to each other. People often use the phrase “physical law” in a vague way, but it has a precise meaning. A physical law must always link an observable to an observable. For example, F=ma is a physical law, but E=-grad V or B=Curl A are not, since V and A are not observable physical quantities. Furthermore, physical laws cannot violate parity and they cannot equate different types of quantities. That is, a scalar cannot be equated to a vector, nor vice-versa. A pseudovector cannot be equated to a vector nor-vice versa. This would not make any sense from a mathematical standpoint and it also wouldn't make sense from a physical standpoint. If a vector and pseudovector were equated, parity would be violated since if we set up a mirror universe where (x,y,z) becomes (-x,-y-z) then the pseudovector wouldn't flip, but the vector would, which would make no sense. Furthermore, physical quantities like scalars, vectors and psuedovectors and tensors obey certain coordinate transform laws. In other words, if we transform from a certain reference frame K to another frame K’ then the quantities must transform in a certain way. For a physical law to be meaningful, it must not change under inertial transforms. There are many physical quantities (in fact, most of them) that exhibit frame dependence. Mass, velocity, position, current, etc. etc. but a physical law which links one of these observable quantities to another cannot change under such transforms. If they did, it would be unphysical. It would exhibit a frame dependence that would mean it was no longer a law of physics. Physics is all about observation. Observers can record in their frame certain observable quantities like charge, mass and velocity. Observers may differ in their quantities recorded, but if they should ever compare notes, then the relationship they find between two observables should be the same, regardless if they are sitting next to each other, or billions of light years from each other on distant planets. The concept of inertial transform does not depend on separation (which is actually a frame dependant concept anyway). If this is the case, that the observers agree on the relationship all the time, that relationship is a physical law. Note also that a crucial proviso was included. The transform must be inertial otherwise the observer would have to introduce extra terms to account for his observation. The invariance of all physical laws under inertial transforms is called the second postulate of special relativity.In particular this is important because two observers could be studying the same object, but measure the same quantities differently due to frame dependance. To state that a particle moves with velocity v is to state that it moves with a velocity v in an arbitrary frame K. To take this proviso off would make the sentence mean nothing, as velocity is frame dependant. 

The first and least general formulation of this was done by Galileo. Consider a coordinate system O which is that of a stationary observer with respect to the Earth (all our conventions here are defined with respect to the Earth’s surface). For simplicity we will discuss motion over small regions of space relative to the size of the Earth because vectors do not commute over curved space.

Let us suppose that the motion of an object from the perspective of O is such that the position vector of the object a is r(t) where t is time and the position vector points from the origin to the object. Now suppose there is another reference frame O` (O-dash) which coincides with O when t=0, as shown below:


 

Let us suppose that O` is moving with velocity v0 in the frame of reference of O. Thus at time t in the coordinate system of O the origin of O’ will be located at position vector v0t. Thus in the coordinate system of O’ the displacement vector of the object  a, which is denoted r’(t) is simply:

 

 

r’(t)=r(t)-v0t

This is simply a consequence of vector addition (this will not hold over curved surfaces, however).

Now suppose we wish to find the velocity of object a recorded in frames O and O’, We simply differentiate to find:

dr’/dt = dr/dt-v0

What of the acceleration? Differentiate again to find:

d2r’/dt2 = d2r/dt2

This is the crucial result, for it tells us that the laws of motion are independent of choice of coordinate axes. This is famously known as the relativity principle.  It is clear that if observer O concludes that body a is moving with constant velocity, and, therefore, subject to zero net force, then observer O’ will agree with this conclusion. Furthermore, if observer O concludes that body a is accelerating, and, therefore, subject to a force, then observer O’ will remain in agreement. It follows that Newton's laws of motion are equally valid in the frames of reference of the moving and the stationary observer. Such frames are termed inertial frames of reference. A more precise way to state the relativity principle is that no physical experiment can distinguish between inertial frames.

 

Consider, for example, a sound wave in stationary air. At STP, this will propagate at 343ms-1. Any experimenter in any frame of reference should obtain this value. An observer which is moving will measure a different  value for the speed of the wave in air, but he will also measure a different value for the speed of the medium, and therefore, his result, the speed of sound with respect to stationary air, will be the same. To put it another way, any wave whose speed will be measured the same in all inertial frames must be capable of propagation without a medium; otherwise we would be able to distinguish between two inertial frames, which would violate the principle of relativity.

This principle was generalized completely by Einstein, and now it is an organic part of modern physics.

 

 EDIT: Slight nitpick.There are believed to be on the order of 1011 galaxies in the universe, not 1015.

LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?


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EDIT: Double post


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Quote:LMAO Wow. You really

Quote:

LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?

No. If I knew I was going to get a response like that, I would not have written it. Given that this is your "response" you should not be suprised at all that you are on the recieving end of so much venom. Next time I will try to write an explanatory post that can accomodate your tiny attention span. You will notice that in the post above (which I put a lot of work into) I put no venom into the post. I hoped this would prompt more fruitful dialogue since you ignored my previous request. I see that I presumed wrong.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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HisWillness wrote:

smartypants wrote:

LOL This article is supposed to prove that stress isn't a contributing factor to people developing ulcers? Totally irrelevant.

I think you still have the scientific method backwards. Until you know something, you don't know it. So we know that 90% of duodenal ulcers and 80% of stomach ulcers have nothing to do with stress, they're just a bacterial infection. If we don't know what causes the other incidences of ulcers, then it doesn't mean we know it's caused by stress, it means we don't know. Could be anything. Arguing that it's stress without data doesn't really help anything.

I'm fairly certain that mental distress has been proven to be a contributing factor to decreased immune system performance. I don't have the data to support that, but I'm sure it's out there.

R


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smartypants wrote:LMAO Wow.

smartypants wrote:

LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?

All you'd have to do is read the first line: "This is a little bit of a misleading argument."

My point (to accommodate your attention span): if thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

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smartypants wrote:I'm fairly

smartypants wrote:

I'm fairly certain that mental distress has been proven to be a contributing factor to decreased immune system performance. I don't have the data to support that, but I'm sure it's out there.

R

See, again with the "I'm sure it's out there" bit. Actually, the jury's still out on that one, so it's not knowledge so much as it is hypothesis. Which means we don't know yet. Here are some actual studies (well, the abstracts - if you have access to a JSTOR account you might be able to read them):

Examples of stress increasing immune response:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10706626

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17890050

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HisWillness wrote:

smartypants wrote:

LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?

All you'd have to do is read the first line: "This is a little bit of a misleading argument."

My point (to accommodate your attention span): if thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

I read the whole thing, thank you, but it was clearly self-involved and self-serving, as expected.

Everything has meaning, because it's impossible to remove ourselves from the grand design of the universe. If we do or if we don't, it's all guided by the monstrous mathematical formula of the reality in which we exist.


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smartypants wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

All you'd have to do is read the first line: "This is a little bit of a misleading argument."

My point (to accommodate your attention span): if thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

I read the whole thing, thank you, but it was clearly self-involved and self-serving, as expected.

Everything has meaning, because it's impossible to remove ourselves from the grand design of the universe. If we do or if we don't, it's all guided by the monstrous mathematical formula of the reality in which we exist.

How was that in any way an answer to my question? Let's try again:

If thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

I mean, speaking of "self-involved" and "self-serving", are you just blowing smoke?

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deludedgod wrote:If I knew I

deludedgod wrote:
If I knew I was going to get a response like that, I would not have written it.

That would have been a shame, considering it's a pretty good synopsis of that specific vein of physical thought. If high school students just memorized that, they'd probably be better off than with most of their textbooks.

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deludedgod wrote:Quote:LMAO

deludedgod wrote:

Quote:

LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?

No. If I knew I was going to get a response like that, I would not have written it. Given that this is your "response" you should not be suprised at all that you are on the recieving end of so much venom. Next time I will try to write an explanatory post that can accomodate your tiny attention span. You will notice that in the post above (which I put a lot of work into) I put no venom into the post. I hoped this would prompt more fruitful dialogue since you ignored my previous request. I see that I presumed wrong.

Yes you would have written it. Thinking of yourself as some kind of scientific expert gives you a boner. That's cool. I read your post, but it was more or less meaningless to me because you lack the ability to communicate with the people you're addressing. Only people with true intelligence can assess the audience they're addressing and create the appropriate rhetoric, so don't feel bad. Having studied Linguistics steadily for the past decade and a half, I can assure you that your communication skills are seriously lacking. I'm sure in your limited little circle of academic friends find you very eloquent.


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HisWillness wrote:

smartypants wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

All you'd have to do is read the first line: "This is a little bit of a misleading argument."

My point (to accommodate your attention span): if thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

I read the whole thing, thank you, but it was clearly self-involved and self-serving, as expected.

Everything has meaning, because it's impossible to remove ourselves from the grand design of the universe. If we do or if we don't, it's all guided by the monstrous mathematical formula of the reality in which we exist.

How was that in any way an answer to my question? Let's try again:

If thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

I mean, speaking of "self-involved" and "self-serving", are you just blowing smoke?

Are you even aware of what I'm saying? There were two different subjects being broached here. Your quote of me answers your question.


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smartypants wrote:Yes you

smartypants wrote:
Yes you would have written it. Thinking of yourself as some kind of scientific expert gives you a boner.

DG's a scientist, and you're the dick.

smartypants wrote:
Only people with true intelligence can assess the audience they're addressing and create the appropriate rhetoric, so don't feel bad.

I suppose you'd be the judge of "true intelligence", having been able to not answer my question twice.

smartypants wrote:
Having studied Linguistics steadily for the past decade and a half

Keep it up, champ -- you'll get that undergrad degree eventually.

smartypants wrote:
I'm sure in your limited little circle of academic friends find you very eloquent.

That must have been the most textbook example of projection I've ever seen.

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smartypants wrote:Are you

smartypants wrote:
Are you even aware of what I'm saying? There were two different subjects being broached here. Your quote of me answers your question.

Let's recap:

me wrote:
If thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

smartypants wrote:
Everything has meaning, because it's impossible to remove ourselves from the grand design of the universe. If we do or if we don't, it's all guided by the monstrous mathematical formula of the reality in which we exist.

...

Who's the bad communicator, here? Your assertion that we don't have the right to say we know anything based purely on ignorance of the subject matter is helpful how?

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Quote:Yes you would have

Quote:

Yes you would have written it. Thinking of yourself as some kind of scientific expert gives you a boner.

I don't need to "think of myself as some kind of scientific expert". I am a scientific researcher. That is merely a statement of my chosen career path.

Quote:

I read your post, but it was more or less meaningless to me because you lack the ability to communicate with the people you're addressing.

I'm sorry if it appears opaque. Will seems to understand it. At any rate, if there are certain components that are meaningless, I could go through them on request.

The intelligence jab was amusing. Way to sidestep the issue at hand! The only judge of my intelligence I consider to have any usefulness at all is my ability to understand, analyze and synthesize complex concepts in my chosen field of endeavor. You, thankfully, are not the judge of my intelligence. At any rate, I invite you to have a read of some of the things I have taken the trouble to write here, such as the following piece on molecular biology in the link below, in which I take great care to elucidate everything required so as to avoid confusion for non-specialists, to see for yourself that it is certainly not the case that my communication skills are sorely lacking.

The Third Revolution

You must understand, that a certain (not very high) degree of scientific literacy is required to have a serious discussion about the basic physics concepts that will invariably crop up in this conversation. None of this extends at all beyond what is needed at high school. If you don't know what "F=ma" means or what a vector is, then it is probably not within your best judgment to attempt to engage in a conversation where physics will invariably come up, and then try to sidestep the problem by pinning it down to my "poor communication skills". You initiated this conversation, and you're the one who continues to make reference to the "laws of physics" and "electromagnetic phenomena". Given this, you can't possibly start crying foul at other people when real, serious physics, like what I wrote above, actually comes into the conversation. without looking absolutely ridiculous to everyone present. It takes sheer gall to not only do that, but then act like this is someone else's problem. 

 

Will wrote:

If thinking we know anything is hubris, are you suggesting an alternative, nihilistic epistemology?

Now, I don't know about you, smartypants, but I look at this and I see a yes/no question, that demands a yes/no answer which you haven't delivered. 

But let's return to the issue at hand. You asserted that we couldn't and didn't know anything about the universe. This is the only way to interpret what you have said here:

Quote:

Arrogant and naive because we're just these tiny little parasites on a tiny little rock floating around in one of however many quadrillions of galaxies. To assume we understand any of it is pure hubris.

Now, as I have shown above, the Copernican principle (the fact that we are a tiny insignificant piece of reality) is in fact an argument for our ability to know and systematically learn and deduce things about reality, because all science which systematically investigates reality works with this principle. I await your reply.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Quote: I don't fully

Quote:

I don't fully understand electro-magnetism, but it seems like a good starting point.

But that's not really helpful at all in terms of trying to establish what you are talking about, because essentially everything we experience is because of the fundamental force of electromagnetism. Chemical reactions proceed because of electromagnetism. The reason you don’t fall through the floor is because of electromagnetism. Every sound you hear is a consequence of electromagnetism (the forces that particles exert on each other by which they oscillate producing sound are electromagnetic repulsion). Your ability to see is a consequence of electromagnetism. So is everything you taste. You kick a sharp object and it hurts? That’s because of electromagnetism. With the exception of object’s weight, and the orbit of Earth, absolutely everything you do, experience, and sense, is because of electromagnetism. It’s the only force which has the necessary properties to be able to result in complex interactions and formations between atoms and molecules. The weak and strong forces are too short range. Gravity is far too weak. Also, all of those are attractive whereas electromagnetic forces can both repulse and attract, without which property nothing we see around us would exist. So to say “X is a consequence of electromagnetism” is about as general as you could get, and isn't that helpful.

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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I understood it, and learned

I understood it, and learned some things as I haven't studied physics much.

Smartypants, although you said

Quote:
See, you're the type of person I like arguing with. You call out questionable issues, but without all the venom.

I'm beginning to wonder if you realize how hypocritical you're being.  DG wrote a explanatory post to try to help you and the first response you gave was a rude and venomous comment.

DG has written a fair amount here, look around and find some of his posts.  You'll notice they're usually scientific and aimed at helping other people understand science.  Check out a specific essay he recently wrote called "The Third Revolution."  He's giving up his time to write things to try to help other people, and the response you give is "LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?"

That's not a venom-free comment.  That's not a neutral comment.  That's not even a critical comment.  It appears to be nothing but a vemonous and insulting statement with absolutely no value.

I realize you probably didn't expect people to question your beliefs and ask you to justify yourself so soon.  That does not excuse some of the comments you've made, however.

Maybe this was just a bad start.  I hope so.  At this point, you can act maturely in a manner that seems more in-line with your original post...or you can continue to spout things like "LMAO Wow. You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you?"

It's up to you, and I dearly hope it's the former.  Buck up, answer the tough questions, and be ready to consider that you might be wrong.  Sure, we might be wrong too.  We admit it, and are willing to try to find the truth.  Are you?