Newsgroup sci.physics 209935

keith stein wrote:-
the 2.73 K  background radiation
is  actually              a far red shifted black body spectrum  of
about                             6000 degrees K 
>David L Evens:
>Except that the stars would have to exist in a perfect spherical shell,
>D J Green wrote:
> Hang ona minute people. COBE was sent up to have a look at the   background 
>radiation (microwave) in the late eighties _because_ thet     couldn't figure 
>out why the background radiation _did_ appear to be      perfectly uniform. Ift 
>found the _tiny_ fluctuations predicted. The     2.73K is a measure of the 
>tempersature (which can be deduced from a      blackbody frequency/temperature 
>plot). This is a measure of the   _average_ temperature of the Universe, 
>including very hot stars and      cold, empty space. The background radiation 
>is 
>sort of an echo from the   big bang.
>> 6000K is the temp of the su. Is this why you think that 6000K is a
>> satisfactory temperature for the universe to be at?
In article <32822D9E.3B5@onramp.net>, Larry Richardson writes
>It is my understanding that the CBR is a relic of the decoupling of
>matter and radiation due to the average temperature dropping below that
>required to maintain atomic ionization, and the figure I recall is about
>3000K, or approximately the surface temperature of an M class star - the
>unionized gas became transparent to ambient radiation, whereas the
>ionized gas had been opaque.
>
>Larry Richardson
keith stein writes:-
                    about 3000 K eh! Larry.
  (So my 6000 K was no closer than Dave's 2.73 K then %-)
   Now I shall endevour to remember for the future:-
        CBR = red shifted 3000 K Black Body spectrum
            = surface temperature of Class M star
Thank you Mr. Richardson. (Can i quote you on that %-)
-- 
Keith Stein

virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com (Mahipal Singh Virdy):
[...]
>Since Scientific progress is a relay race across the stretch of
>centuries, Newton's contributions are absolutely right. 
moggin@mindspring.com (moggin): 
>>]>     Lord, you go on.  But your reasoning  doesn't work, since "He 
>>]> made an important contribution" isn't synonymous with "he was 
>>]> absolutely right."
jac@ibms46.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr):
>|> Irrelevant, since the moggin quotes are not complete quotes of the 
>|> respective sentences that Virdy wrote.  For someone who has posted 
>|>  complaints about trimming quoted articles, moggin is remarkably 
>|> free with the text when misquoting others.  
moggin@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:
>>   Actually, Mr.  Carr, I quoted every word in Virdy's article.  They
>>say not to attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity --
>>but in your case, it's a toss-up.
Jim:
> I believe this confirms that moggin is a pathological liar. 
   A classic case of projection.
> The moggin included the text of Virdy's article, but the quotes 
> that *moggin* wrote, specifically "he was absolutely right", 
> leaving out the qualifying phrase "about his work regarding 
> planetary orbits", are clearly and unambiguously a 
> misrepresentation of what Virdy wrote.  [...]
   Since I quoted the entire text of Mahipal's article, I presented
what he wrote in his own, unaltered words.  Then I explained to
him where I disagreed.  I accepted his premise that Newton made
"a great many contributions" to science, but I differed with his
notion that "Since Scientific progress is a relay race across the
stretch of centuries, Newton's contributions are absolutely
right."
-- moggin

In article <32932755.72A2@duq3.cc.duq.edu>, Fred Bortz
 writes
>various people at this address. wrote:
>> 
>> Subject: How Does Energy Travel Through Atoms?
>> From: David Kaufman, davk@netcom.com
>> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 05:39:03 GMT
>> 
>> *putting on an exagurattedly polite tone*  
>-snip-
>> And no, this is not creative critisism, this is a  the real thing.
>> 
>> Alana.  (it's my birthday on Saturday.)  Ali, I hope you didn't ask Ben
>> to get a chair for David!
>
>Happy almost-birthday, Alana.  (Mine's today :-) )
>
>I agree that David is irritating, but so are gratuitous insults.
>
>I've watched David's behavior long enough to know that he isn't going to
>shut up.  When I see his name on a posting, I simply ignore it.
>
>He's one of these people who really thinks his ideas are clever and feels
>a compulsion to share them.  We all have that tendency sometime, but most
>of us recognize it before we become real pains-in-the-butt.  David doesn't.  
>
>Fred Bortz
>---
>Speaking of clever ideas: 
>=====================================================================
>Let me tell you about my books.  Visit my WWW homepage
>        (http://www.duq.edu/facultyhome/fredbortz/home.html)
>Fred Bortz  --  Author of science and technology books for young
>    readers, including CATASTROPHE! A Selector's Choice on the NSTA-
>    CBC List of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children for 1996
>=====================================================================
Alana, it seems to be that your birthday card has disappeared...
-- 
Goddess
The girl who cried "MONSTER!" and got her brother....
E-mail : goddess@segl.demon.co.uk
Homepage: http:/www.segl.demon.co.uk/frances

Edward Green (erg@panix.com) wrote:
: In article , Ken Fischer  wrote:
: >Edward Green (erg@panix.com) wrote:
: >: The stimulation was the assertion that the absence of gravitational
: >: field inside a spherical shell was "intuitive",  if you found the
: >: divergence theorem intuitive.  Fine.  I grasp the arguement;  but it
: >: still seems like a peculiar special case.  What happens if we break
: >: the symmetry?
: >
: >       I see you believe in a gravitational "field" just like
: >everybody else. :-)
: Well,  let's just think of this a mathematical problem then...  :-)
       Ok, but I like thought experiments better.    There is
a lot that is interesting about gravitation within hollow
shells and solid bodies.
       The acceleration of gravity within a solid homogeneous
sphere is directly proportional to radius, and makes all the
shell outside the test point have no effect on the test particle.
       But I think it is much more interesting to consider more
than one theory, and see what differences can be found.
: >    But centers of mass do not move due to gravitation alone,
: >relative to the inertial coordinate grid, so conventional thinking
: >of "force fields" may not agree with observational facts.
: You must forgive me...  I am kind of jumping into the middle.  I was
: really only trying to understand the behavior of the classical field.
        I am the one who butted in, I'm sorry, the subject of
gravity is very attractive to me. :-)
: >       But if you break the symmetry, then the results would
: >seem to become easier to predict.
: >
: >: Suppose we dimple in the surface of a spherical shell at one point.
: >: Now go for a pleasant float in the interior.  The field from all other
: >: points is as before,  but this dimple is now closer to you... so you
: >: will be attracted to it from all points in the interior.  Correct?
: >
: >       Possibly not, you would have to try it to be sure.
: Hmm...  if you were infinitely patient,  I suppose you could float
: some charge oil droplets inside a slightly deformed charged sphere.
: But I assume the mathematical question is well posed,  anyway.
        Yes, and how about a small hole instead of a dimple?
: >                               
: >: this induce
: >
: >       Did your server drop carrier?
: >
: Now there is an interesting thing.  I am using primitive technology
: -- the small and atavistic vi editor -- and what I see on the screen
: does not always seem to be in synch with what is going to be written
: to a file.  Provides a convenient excuse for all manner of errors,
: though:  "It's the damn editor!"  :-)
        I don't need excuses with mine, it usually eats the
articles and nobody ever sees them. :-/
: With regard to your other assertions,  I have no input.  But then,  I
: was really only asking about the classical model,  as I said before,
: not the real world.  I think Brice Wightman had the correct intuition:
: If dimpling in one point attracts you towards that point on the
: interior,  then compressing the sphere along one axis attracts you to
: either pole... the question being,  what is the relative strength?
: Alright,  it may seem obvious that you will be attracted to the nearer
: pole more,  but then it might seem "obvious" that inside an ideal
: sphere you would be attracted more to whatever point on the shell you
: happened to be closest to... but that is wrong,  so a better argument
: is needed.
: That argument is,  that the strength of the perturbation from moving a
: portion of the wall inward...
:                     1/(r - dr)^2  - 1/r^2
: falls off ( ~linearly?) with distance,  so you are indeed attracted to
: the nearer bulge more strongly.
         Do you think you could do the math on the attraction
of two hemispheres?
Ken Fischer

In article <575uk0$1as@lynx.dac.neu.edu> mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
>Jeff Inman (jti@santaclara.santafe.edu) wrote:
>]this, it seems to me.  In this regard, I view Malthus as a rare
>]visionary. Not as a pessimist, because if you read the whole thing,
>]he isn't a pessimist.  What he is is someone with a brilliant insight
>]into the irony of "progress", and what seems to me to be an
>]interesting spiritual take on things. 
>
> Malthus has been proven wrong empirically. It is the fact that
> production of food per capita in the world has been rising for two 
> centuries, and continiues to do so. (for example, an installation of about
> an acre in size can produce currently a ton of food, enough
> to feed a thousand people). Malthus is currently a favourite among 
> anti-science crowd. It might be amusing to trace his influence on the 
> ideas of national-socialism. Does "Mein Kampf" contain reference
> to Malthus ? 
Malthus has always been a favorite among the anti-science crowd.  I
also don't think it's fair to state that he has been proven wrong
empirically; the experiment isn't yet over.
	Patrick

J. Matthew Nyman wrote:
> I agree with you - I don't buy this idea. Determinism only works when
> causality is present.  Once you start having effects precede their
> causes, determinism, by proxy, goes out the window.  For example, how
> would a deterministic universe "know" that the individual in question is
> now back in time so it must make a passing meteorite in that time period
> hit the guy in the face?  I know there is no answer to this - I'm just
> playing the devil's advocate here.
No, that's wrong. Determinism is a quality independent of causality.
When we speak of deterministic equations in physics it means that
given a complete set of initial conditions we can uniquely determine
*both* the future and the past of the evolution described by this 
equation. Determinism has little to do with causality; it is a more
rigid concept than causality. Causality is explicitly linked to the 
direction of time flow. Causality in the loose sense
simply means that effects cannot precede their causes. 
(In a stricter sense it would in addition mean that there are no
effects without causes.)
Quantum mechanics violates determinism but
some people argue it does not violate causality (and
they take the loose definition, of course).
Time travel would violate causality but need not violate determinism.
In fact, time travel does not lead to any paradoxes, if you accept
a determinism beyond our everyday-life perception, i.e. if you give
up free will. For the grandfather paradox this would mean, for 
example, that your traveling back in time would simply not allow
you to erase your own existence, either because of a series of
accidents that would stop you or because you just could not kill
him when meeting him. And of course, any "alterations" of the past
that you could achieve would already have been accounted for by
history. So they would not be alterations. In fact, your time
travel would become *necessary* for history to go its unaltered
path. And this would be another manifestation of complete 
determinism.

Edward A Gedeon wrote:
>   No, the "timequake" is sort of like the Universe's pruning shears.
> If I go back in time to try to cause a paradox, the timequake causes a
> change even *further* back in time, so that the whole situation never
> arises in the first place, and history goes along a differenct course
> that doesn't include you at all (or includes you in a manner such that
> you're not going to cause a paradox).
> 
>   Let's say I do go back to try to kill my grandfather.  The timequake
> I cause will go back in time to prevent him from being born, or cause
> him to die before I ever see him.  This can be a tiny stimulus -- a
> different sperm fertilizes the egg so that a girl is born instead of a
> boy, or that bullet that wounded him in World War I ends up killing
> him.  The cause of his death is something that already exists,
> therefore there is no paradox.
I don't think so. For what caused the timequake in the first place?
If my grandfather died for some other reason, I never went back to the
past, so there is no reason for a timequake to appear. I think the loop
is still there. The point it that you *had* a different course of 
history some "time". And if you change it by provoking a timequake
you have changed the past acting from the future, a future that in
the altered course of history never comes to pass. So you have 
changed the past from out of nothingness.

Dragonbane wrote:
: > If time travel was possible and you could go into the past and alter
it,
: > i.e. I went back and shot my grandad, Then I would no longer exist
to
: > kill my grandad, but if I did exist then I did kill my grandad. So
both
: > things have happend ( there would be an infinate interchange between
my
: > existance and nonexistance ) so a paradox wopuld be set up and the
time
: > relative to the universe would stop.  So it would be possible to
alter
: > history but at a great expense to where the alteration occurd.
>         Nah... you're still thinking that the universe exists as a wave
> function of an event, that there is also only a single state for the
> universe to exist in. If you ahve alternate timelines that branch off
> from the timespace junction at the point of the murder, then there is no
> paradox: the you that kill grandad could then move forward in time along
> the new timeline that was created to a future where you were never born.
> but since you  were born and traveled outside of you normal timeline,
> you still exist. You came from an alternate timeline where you were
> born, but, for all effect and purposes, just skipped over to a timeline
> where you were not born. From the timeline you self, you would have
> merely disappear, and your mother would be worried sick over where you
> were, who had kidnapped you, etc., but otherwise nothing would be
> different. In the new timeline you find youself in, since you were never
> born, you've got some explaining to do, like you non-existant father or
> mother, why there are no records of your birth, and how you expect to
> make a living if your time machine suddenly explodes for no reason.
>         Causality is preserved in this case, as long as you have a multiverse.
Right, but what would make you land in a *unique* past in the first
place?
If time had a structure like the one you describe, multiple pasts are
also
possible, and you might simply never succeed meeting your grandpa. 
Of course, you might have an additional control panel on your time
machine
that allows you to navigate in the two-dimensional temporal continuum 
described by yourself. In that case, you *could* kill your grandfather
*and* return to where you came from. However, you would not have altered
your past, but simply influenced an alternate "string" of history; in
the present to which you have returned, you would still find the 
historical records about your grandfather marrying your grandmother
and the latter giving birth to your father or mother...

Ilja Schmelzer wrote:
> 
> In article <328ce48f.11738955@nntp.erinet.com> kenseto@erinet.com (Ken H. Seto) writes:
> 
> >Now let see what is a theory and what is a mathematical scheme:
> 
> >GR and PG:
> >1. Both have equations that predict the path of travel of celestal
> >objects.
> 
> This makes them a theory, contrary to MM.
> 
> >2. Both based on a non-existing entity space-time. We can't even define
> >what is space-time because once we give it a definition we will need
> >to explain it and this is an impossible task.
> 
> Every theory is based on fundamental notions which is does not explain.
Right. And since Kant we have known that space and time are
*preconditions*
for experience, therefore ideas in the spirit of "there is no space and
there is no time" or "time and space are illusions" have a certain 
nonsensical flavour. The only point in which Kant erred was that he
presumed the property of being preconditions of experience would 
already fully determine the properties of space and time (and
guarantee their "Euclideanness").

In article <5738td$740@news.mr.net> jcamp@mr.net (John Camp) writes:
>What I was suggesting in my first post is that a lot of social and technical 
>advancements claimed by "scientists" were actually the result of 
>"science-like" activity, and were discovered by people without knowledge or 
>use of Science as a means of investigation.
>
>The fact that North American Indians used red-willow bark for centuries as an 
>analgesic, not knowing specifically that it contained salicylic acid, was a 
>product of intelligent observation and insight, not science; the production of 
>the same salicylic acid by Bayer, as aspirin, seems to me more akin to 
>engineering than science, since the desirable result had already been observed 
>and what was needed was technique, rather than any new insight.
>
>Where is the Science in this?
Well, you're hiding a lot of work between the Indians and the bottle,
as it work.  Let me pick the clearest ones :
First, what is it in willow bark that makes it work?  Bayer didn't
start selling ground willow bark.  Presumably, he had some idea, from
some form of analysis, that it was the salicylate that did it and not,
e.g., the DNA.
Second, once we know that salicylic acid is an analgesic, how can
we determine what *other* compounds are?  (Asprin, btw, is not
salicylic acid, it's *acetylsalicylic* acid -- one more group.  Why?)
Third, once we've figured out what substance we want, we've still
got to figure out how to manufacture it on demand.  You can call that
"chemical engineering" if you like.  But it wouldn't be possible
except as an application of the knowledge of chemistry -- Ch.E.'s
couldn't build molecules to order without, e.g., atomic theory.
	Patrick

In article , Ken Fischer  wrote:
>Edward Green (erg@panix.com) wrote:
>: The stimulation was the assertion that the absence of gravitational
>: field inside a spherical shell was "intuitive",  if you found the
>: divergence theorem intuitive.  Fine.  I grasp the arguement;  but it
>: still seems like a peculiar special case.  What happens if we break
>: the symmetry?
>
>       I see you believe in a gravitational "field" just like
>everybody else. :-)
Well,  let's just think of this a mathematical problem then...  :-)
>    But centers of mass do not move due to gravitation alone,
>relative to the inertial coordinate grid, so conventional thinking
>of "force fields" may not agree with observational facts.
You must forgive me...  I am kind of jumping into the middle.  I was
really only trying to understand the behavior of the classical field.
>       But if you break the symmetry, then the results would
>seem to become easier to predict.
>
>: Suppose we dimple in the surface of a spherical shell at one point.
>: Now go for a pleasant float in the interior.  The field from all other
>: points is as before,  but this dimple is now closer to you... so you
>: will be attracted to it from all points in the interior.  Correct?
>
>       Possibly not, you would have to try it to be sure.
Hmm...  if you were infinitely patient,  I suppose you could float
some charge oil droplets inside a slightly deformed charged sphere.
But I assume the mathematical question is well posed,  anyway.
>                               
>: this induce
>
>       Did your server drop carrier?
>
Now there is an interesting thing.  I am using primitive technology
-- the small and atavistic vi editor -- and what I see on the screen
does not always seem to be in synch with what is going to be written
to a file.  Provides a convenient excuse for all manner of errors,
though:  "It's the damn editor!"  :-)
With regard to your other assertions,  I have no input.  But then,  I
was really only asking about the classical model,  as I said before,
not the real world.  I think Brice Wightman had the correct intuition:
If dimpling in one point attracts you towards that point on the
interior,  then compressing the sphere along one axis attracts you to
either pole... the question being,  what is the relative strength?
Alright,  it may seem obvious that you will be attracted to the nearer
pole more,  but then it might seem "obvious" that inside an ideal
sphere you would be attracted more to whatever point on the shell you
happened to be closest to... but that is wrong,  so a better argument
is needed.
That argument is,  that the strength of the perturbation from moving a
portion of the wall inward...
                    1/(r - dr)^2  - 1/r^2
falls off ( ~linearly?) with distance,  so you are indeed attracted to
the nearer bulge more strongly.
Ed "long winded" Green
(Hey,  Mati and some of those other guys are whipping out their
Lagrangians and brandishing them about with great fanfare over there,
so *somebody* has to uphold the dignity of the How and Why book
set.  They broke my Lagrangian in front of the troop... :)

In article <572o1q$7kq@tierra.santafe.edu> jti@coronado.santafe.edu (Jeff Inman) writes:
>fi@oceanstar.comDeleteThis (Fiona Webster) writes:
>>I've been following this conversation with interest.  I notice
>>that for quite a few postings people have managed to completely
>>avoid using the word "truth".  This strikes me as odd, because
>>I always think that *if* (note the if) you value truth, then it's 
>>obvious that science -- by seeking truth -- does provide something 
>>valuable.  
>>
>>But I'm a babe in the woods in these matters: could someone tell
>>what's wrong with that reasoning? 
>
>Let me have a go at it.  Then the experts can straighten us both out.
>
>There are kinds of truth -- not fairly demeaned as whimsy or fanstasy
>-- which "science" (more properly: the technological, abstract, and
>reductive metaphysical regime which lays claim to "truth" these days)
>is poorly equipped to pursue.  In fact, perhaps "science" is best
>equipped to deny that such kinds of truth have value.  "Let's see you
>build an airplane" [with your alternative vision] as Mike Morris says.
I think you're being unnecessarily inflammatory in your characterization
of "science."  As has been pointed out repeated, by Mr. Meron among
others, "science" does not pretend to "lay claim to `truth'" -- quite
the contrary, most of the posters have been making the statement that
questions about "truth" are OUTSIDE THE SCOPE of science.  Science is,
of course, quite prepared to address and demonstrate falsity -- but
an absence of demonstrated falsity doesn't equate to truth, as is
taught in the first week of any statistics course.
This is not to deny that such have value, nor is it to assert it.
It's simply a statement of the limitation of a particular tool.
Does the fact that a flute plays treble deny the existence of the 
bass?
	Patrick

You're blathering, Ms. Weineck.
In article <575vj0$ml3@netnews.upenn.edu> weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
>: You seem to be confused.  There is nothing problematic about getting
>: evidence of people's intentions.  For example, that someone has queued
>: up, token in hand, is evidence that they intend to take that bus.
>
>Often, even most of the time, but certainly not all of the time. And if 
>you have a scene in a novel where a man queues up, token in hand, you 
>cannot assume that the author's intention was to convey that this man was 
>about to take that bus.
Why does it suddenly cease to be evidence?  Evidence doesn't have to
point at a *correct* conclusion, it merely has to point at a conclusion.
If I were to stop and question a student immediately after she read
that scene as to whether the (fictitious) man intended to take the
bus, she'd probably respond "yes", regardless of how the next few
pages turned out.
Similarly, if I asked her whether the AUTHOR intended to convey that
the man intended (yes, I noticed you shifted ground to a nested
intention) to take the bus, she'd probably also say "yes."
>And then there's always the question about why 
>the token is already in hand instead of still in the purse, or why 
>someone is the kind of person that has tokens rather than cash, etc. etc.
Which is completely irrelevant to the question of evidence-of-bus-taking.
	Patrick

In article <5702l6$nmt@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>
leeson@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Mike) writes:
> I think the fields can be logically described as such:
> 
> Biology is applied chemistry
> 
> Chemistry is applied physics
> 
good so far
> Physics is applied mathematics
> 
Terribly wrong here. In fact, mathematics is but a physics experiment
that draws little of the world around us into its experiments. The
proof of the Prime Number theorem is a physics experiment of not much
more than pen and paper for lab equipment. On the other hand, the
Quantum Hall Effect experiment is a mathematics job that draws into its
experiment a lot of the physical surroundings.
  The best way for you to see the relationship of math to physics is
the idea that pi and e are merely a result of the fact that the
universe is a physics entity. The universe is 231PU and this one atom
has a circumference divided by diameter of 22/7 in rational form 22
subshells in 7 shells and it has grown at a rate of 19/7 where the 19
is occupied subshells in the same 7 shells. Those rational numbers are
the rational approximations of both pi and e. 
  Why is pi 3.14.... and e 2.71..... ? They could have been something
else. They could have been 3.00 and 2.5 respectively. The answer as to
why they are 22/7 and 19/7 in rational form is because the physical
universe is an atom of PU. And in the future when the universe is a
element 150 Atom Totality, the pi and e to the lifeforms in that last
electron space will think that pi and e are numbers far different from
our pi and e in PU universe.
  There, phsyics determines even what numbers are and how they fit
together with each other.
> Mathematics is applied logic
> 
Not true because logic cannot yield geometry and Lobachevskian geometry
is a counterexample. But this is true. All physics is Quantum Mechanics
if you are given PU Atom Totality.
> Logic is the most general type of science and all
> others are more specific applications of logic.
> Without logic there is no math, physics, chemistry
> or biology...etc. etc. etc.  To say that logic is
> a subfield of physics makes no sense.  Logic can 
> encompase all of physics while physics cannot begin
> to encompass all logic.  All of mathematics is not 
> contained within physics either, but all of physics
> can be contained in the field of mathematics.
> 
> None of the above order implies a value judgement.
> Being more general does not make a field "better".
> 
  You are enamored with Logic, sad to say it is a wrong picture. Here
is a better way to look at this (your) type of scheme.
Biology is applied chemistry
Chemistry is applied physics
Mathematics is a physics experiment of paltry use of the surroundings
Psychology is a part of biology
All ideas are hence chemistry
All ideas are hence physics of the atoms
If humans with their science, logic and all their ideas were not around
there would still be  biology, chemistry and physics
Therefore, if no humans, no mathematics, no human psychology, no
high-flutin science, and no logic.
So, what does it all boil down to? To physics.
 Can you see Mike, that the brain , the mind is a physical entity and
that mathematics, and your precious logic are dependent on there
existing a mind capable of thinking about math and logic. But that
physics, chemistry, and biology existed long before a mind capable of
producing a mathematics or a logic was ever around. Because of the
dependency of mathematics and logic upon a brain, a physiology of a
brain to have a mind powerful enough to make a mathematics or logic.
Surely, Mike you must agree that mathematics and logic fall far below
the merits that you place upon them.
  Physics was here at the beginning, billions of years ago
  Mathematics and logic appeared only in the Pleistocene , some
thousands of years ago
  If you place the subjects on a time line, then you can visualize the
relative importance of the subjects.

Bob Casanova (casanova@crosslink.net) wrote:
: On Fri, 22 Nov 1996 05:36:23 GMT, saved@heaven.edu (Saved Soul) wrote:
: >ksjj@fast.net (ksjj) wrote:
: >
: >>In article <571428$ppj@news.islandnet.com>, scowling@islandnet.com (Jim
: >>Cowling) wrote:
: >
: >>> In article , saved@heaven.edu (Saved
: >>Soul) wrote:
: >>> >
: >>> >That is the same question I have been trying to get an answer to!  They will 
: >>> >just say "It happened, we don't know how, it just did, with TIME
: >>anything can 
: >>> >happen!"
: >>> 
: >>> You've been given the answer:  WE DON'T KNOW YET!
: >>> 
: >
: >>Yet you believe it and except it as fact. Your whole theory is built on sand.
: >
: >>> -------
: >>> Jim Cowling, moderator, rec.arts.comics.info
: >>> Editor, IN CHARACTER, An Electronic Journal about Games
: >>> http://www.islandnet.com/~scowling/inc.htm
: >>> -------
: >
: >>-- 
: >>see ya,
: >>karl 
: On Fri, 22 Nov 1996 05:36:23 GMT, saved@heaven.edu (Saved Soul) wrote:
: >ksjj@fast.net (ksjj) wrote:
: >
: >>In article <571428$ppj@news.islandnet.com>, scowling@islandnet.com (Jim
: >>Cowling) wrote:
: >
: >>> In article , saved@heaven.edu (Saved
: >>Soul) wrote:
: >>> >
: >>> >That is the same question I have been trying to get an answer to!  They will 
: >>> >just say "It happened, we don't know how, it just did, with TIME
: >>anything can 
: >>> >happen!"
: >>> 
: >>> You've been given the answer:  WE DON'T KNOW YET!
: >>> 
: >
: >>Yet you believe it and except it as fact. Your whole theory is built on sand.
: >
: >>> -------
: >>> Jim Cowling, moderator, rec.arts.comics.info
: >>> Editor, IN CHARACTER, An Electronic Journal about Games
: >>> http://www.islandnet.com/~scowling/inc.htm
: >>> -------
: >
: >>-- 
: >>see ya,
: >>karl 
: >>*********************************************
: >> The Bible says dust. Not evolution.
: >
: >Yup Karl, and they mock us for accepting OUR beliefs on faith, faith
: >in God, which makes more sense.
: Since neither you nor Karl seems able to grasp the difference between
: abiogenesis and evolution, nor between the observed process of
: evolution and the theories which attempt to explain it, you're hardly
: in a position to criticize, or to define "sense".
I think this is a valid point that always turns up in discussion
with crealoonies.  The evidence for evolution is simply overwhelming,
evolution in the sense of how new species, eh, well, evolve from
old ones and how there is a continuous refinement and adaptation to
environment.  I don't even think anyone in his right mind can simply
discard the evidence.
However, concerning the *origin* of life - strictly speaking,
this is not evolution anymore - this is a lot trickier.
Of course the simple proposition that there was a god zipping by
and placed that very old ancester of ours, the first bacterium or
whatever it was, in the soup of organic molecules which was present
on the surface of the earth is not entirely unthinkable.  But
from that point on, *evolution* is simply a fact.
The scientific foundation of the *origin* of life is not as well
established as the fact that once it got here, it evolved into
the species that were and are inhabiting this planet.  It is not
because science finds itself confronted with absurd inconsistencies,
it is because it is a hard problem to solve, with few if any records
of what has happened.  There are a few reasonable proposals of how
certain chemical structures that are "easy" to devellop, could have
started reproducing.  Crealoonies often think that what is proposed
is that by chance, suddenly a whole cell was assembled and then go
on about the near impossibility of that happening.  But that's not
what is proposed of course.  There are proposals of how amino acids
(which ARE easy to make starting with simple component) polymerised
into self-catalysing enzymes that make copies of themselves.
There are proposals where certain droplets of lipids (also easy
to make) started to devellop a "metabolism" (fill themselves with more
stuff) until they grew so large that they split into two pieces.
The whole genetic machinery was "invented" much later in the "struggle
for survival".  There are lots of other, reasonable but speculative,
proposals.  It is simply not clear yet which mechanism, if any of these,
actually happened.  And it is a very interesting and hard question
to solve.
However, I'd like to address another point: maybe life came from 
somewhere else.  This doesn't solve the problem of the origin of life,
of course, as the next question is: and where did that life come from ?
But I've never seen any *scientific* discussion about the other
possibility that, say, an extraterrestrial "bacterium" got onto a virgin earth
with lots of organic stuff to be eaten.  The "Martian meteorite" comes
to mind.  Even though I have problems accepting this analysis as proof
that there is life on Mars, let us, for a second, think that their
suggestion is right and that life develloped on Mars, and a meteorite 
containing still a few living bacteria, fell onto a virgin earth.
I have never read a scientific discussion about such (or analogous) matter
except for Fred Hoyle's transgalactic sperm theory, or how was the thing
called again.
Anyone any idea ?
: As for your claimed faith: If you have faith, you have no need of
: evidence; the two are not compatible.
I think that is a very valid point: faith is by definition accepting
propositions as being true without evidence.  From the moment there
is evidence, it is not faith anymore... mmmm, reminds me of the
Bable Fish :) Gods, watch out for those puffs of logic !
cheers,
Patrick.
PS: I know that sci.physics is not the right group to discuss this, 
but hey, nobody's discussing physics there anyway :)
--
Patrick Van Esch
mail:   vanesch@dice2.desy.de
for PGP public key: finger vanesch@dice2.desy.de

We've got rational units of measurement of space, although most of the US
clings to inches/feet.
Why, oh why do we put up with the arcane hours/minutes/seconds?
We need metric time!
--don engdahl

mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
> Jeff Inman (jti@santaclara.santafe.edu) wrote:
> ]this, it seems to me.  In this regard, I view Malthus as a rare
> ]visionary. Not as a pessimist, because if you read the whole thing,
> ]he isn't a pessimist.  What he is is someone with a brilliant insight
> ]into the irony of "progress", and what seems to me to be an
> ]interesting spiritual take on things. 
> 
>  Malthus has been proven wrong empirically. It is the fact that
>  production of food per capita in the world has been rising for two 
>  centuries, and continiues to do so. (for example, an installation of about
>  an acre in size can produce currently a ton of food, enough
>  to feed a thousand people). 
Michael, what are you trying do? Win first prize in stupid statements?
A little bit of thought and reference of your statements before you post
would behoove you well.
1) First of all Malthus was wrong in the sense that his assumptions were
wrong on agricultural and population development and therefore his time
frame was off. But the principle of his idea was right on. The main
reasons we have been able to enhance production so dramatically in the
past is:
a) putting more and more land to agricultural use. That is reaching its limits.
b) Since the development of the Haber-Bosch-Method for the fixation of
atmospheric nitrogen, global nitrogen fixation (anthropogenic + natural)
has been more than doubled since 1920 (mostly since 1960) for fertilizers,
using fossil fuel. This has also peaked out, more fertilizers bringing
only minor gains in productivity. 
2) World grain production (the main human food source) per capita peaked
in the mid 80s at about 340 kg/person and has fallen steadily (except
slight rebounds in 90 and 91 due to bumper crops) to 290 kg/person last
year. 
Furthermore the outlook is quite bleak since:
a) World grain production has stabilized around 1 600 million tons/year
since 1990 while the population continues to grow exponentially
b) world grain reserves (carryover stocks) in terms of days of consumption
have fallen from about 100 to 49 at the beginning of this year.
c) availible grainland per person has shrunk continually from 1950 when it
was a little over 0.2 hectares/person to about 0.1 hectares/person now.
That's about a quarter of an acre/person. Availible grainland is shrinking
due to erosion, lack of irrigation water, salination, contamination,
urbanisation and nutrient leaching.
d) agricultural land and areas of population growth are very
heterogenically distributed.
To think that an acre of land can support about a 1000 people seriously
warrants a reality check.
As some reading suggestions I offer:
Brown et al. (1996). State of the world 1996. W.W. Norton & Co. N.Y. ISBN
0-393-313935-5
USDA (annual reports): World Agricultural Production. Production, Supply
and Demand. Wash. D.C.
Gardner, G. (1996): Shrinking fields: Cropland loss in a world of eight
billion. Worldwatch Paper 131. ISBN 1-878071-33-5
Brown, L.R. (1995): Who will feed China? Wake up call for a small planet.
W.W.Norton & Co. N.Y.  ISBN 0-393-31409-X
Tom.

This is what rango1@ix.netcom.com says:
 >  Creationism is not a science, however science is the study of what
was
 >created. Unfortunantly many in the field of science have an agenda. It
 >is unscientific to hold a theory true then set out to prove it. This
is
 >exactly the case with evolution.
Wrong.  Evolutionary hypotheses have been advanced over the years and
then either accepted or rejected based on the data.  The agenda of a
real scientist is to search honestly for the truth and base conclusions
on the observable facts.  Arguments from authority in this context are
worthless. 
 >   As the various fields in mathematics, biology, chemistry, etc.
grows,
 >the argument for evolution looks dimmer and dimmer, not the other way
around.
 >Let's look at the comments of Dr.Harold Urey, a Nobel prize winner in
the
 >field of chemistry. "We believe as an article of faith that life
evolved
 >from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so
great,
 it
 >is hard for us to imagine that it did." This illustrates the
prevailing
 thinking in
 >the scientific community.
Wrong headed.  I don't know where you got that quotation but - if it is
accurate and is not just lifted out of context by someone who would lie
for God - it is a really stupid comment.  The fact that he has a Nobel
Prize makes no difference.  You would think this is a significant
argument only because you find it so easy to accept scriptural writings
as literal truth.  The fact that Urey said something contributes nothing
to your argument.
 >   The simplest life form contains over 500 amino acids. For these to
link
 >up by chance has been calculated to be about 10 to the 123rd power. A
 >staggering figure. However, amino acids is not all that is required to
have
 >life.
Wrong again.  You may wish to check on the number of amino acids.  As
for your reference to probability, right or not, the generation and
coupling of simple amino acids in what is postulated to be the
primordial environment is quite *possible* over long times.  Did it
happen by such a mechanism?  We can't be sure.  Scientists, however, are
prepared to accept or reject that hypothesis based on the data as it is
discovered.  Are you?
 >The proteins in the amino acids must link up in a presice sequence in
order
 >for the life form to live. This pairing up has a chance out of 10 to
the
 >200th power.
Wrong again.  Protein chemistry really isn't your strength, is it?
 >   The formation of life requires even yet more. DNA creates a genetic
code
 >to form the building blocks of life itself. Scientist have calculated
the
 >odds of a single DNA gene forming by chance to be about 10 to the
155th power.
 >   No wonder scientist have still been unable to duplicate life,
trying all
 >the known elements! 
Where do you get the idea that scientists are trying to "duplicate"
life?  Trying all of the known elements???? You seem hung up on
probability arguments but you haven't got a clue about the basics.  Get
the facts right first.
 >These are TREMENDOUSLY huge odds to overcome. And
 >it doesn't even begin to address the more complex life forms or
conscience.
 >   So you see it isn't so unreasonable to question the lack of a
devine
 >creator.
So - we finally come to *your* agenda.  But I'm still not sure whether
you are questioning the "lack of a devine creator" or affirming your
faith.  The former requires that some "authority" figure has established
the "lack of a devine creator" while the latter depends only on you.
Let me ask you something.  Why is it so necessary to believe in the
literal truth of scripture?  Do you really wish to sacrifice your
natural curiosity and intellegence in exchange for that certainty?  Is
such a thing really required by God?  Where is that written?  What are
you afraid of?
Chuck Szmanda
chucksz@ultranet.com

[NOTE: 'Followup-To:' has been set to 'sci.physics.relativity, 
which is specifically chartered for discussion of such topics]
In article <32967EEF.593A@pc.jaring.my> lim 
crossposted the following msg to seven newsgroups:
> Why is everybody talking about time travel instead of faster than
> light travel?
Because one consequence of special relativity (SR) is that the 
Lorentz transformations of space and time plus the existence of 
a ship traveling FTL in one frame would =NECESSARILY= imply travel
backward-in-time by said FTL ship from the viewpoint of observer
in any frame moving faster than  u_crit == c^2 / V_ship  in the 
same direction. Since SR lacks any prefered rest-frame defining 
``absolute'' time, most people who believe in cause-and-effect
relationships become rather skeptical of the possibility of FTL
after seeing this conclusion... :-/
(Note that if V_ship > c, 'u_crit' is LESS than 'c' --- and the
faster the ship goes, the slower 'u_crit' is...)
--  Gordon D. Pusch   
But I don't speak for ANL or the DOE, and they *sure* don't speak for =ME=...

From brunelle@vivanet.com Sun Nov 10 15:06:40 1996
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.psychedelics
Subject: S. divinorum experience
From: Kevin Brunelle 
Date: 10 Nov 1996 06:06:40 GMT
Une expérience de Sauge.
--------------------------------------
I would like to transcribe my experience with Salvia divinorum, in
hopes that we can bring about some intelligent discussion on this. I
would like to know what other folks' take on this novel psychedelic
are. I am still a tad awe-struck from it and trying to reall=
y determine exactly *what* happened. It may take some time, or more
experience with the herb-- probably both. But it is fascinating
and,since you might be interested, here goes.
I packed a regular tobacco pipe with just about two good-sized dried
leaves I obtained from HoTi Products in Honaunau,
HI.(hoti@ilhawaii.net). By the by,this is absolutely the greatest
price I have come across, at 10 grams of rapidly-dried (obviously)
leaves for $15. I bought two pouches.. Their service was fantastically
quick, and I wish they dealt with more exotic botanicals than they
currently do!
Knowing that I should not pack it too tight, but wanting to get a
whole load in there, I left enough space for what I thought would be a
nice, easily-burning experience. It was filled to the brim, and I lit
it and proceeded to take in huge hits exactly as one would with
cannabis. Of course, with a tobacco pipe instead, but hey. 
First hit, I felt a little bit. I felt something reminiscent of a
marijuana buzz. It was greatly physical and quite relaxing, like
alcohol without any inebriating, dummying-down, or dizzying,
stammering effect. Felt as if it hadn't crept up from my body to my
skull.Kinda said, Let's do more. I felt a little more the second hit--
these were *huge* hits. Monstruously so, that I amazed myself that so
much could be taken in and expelled from my nose and mouth with such
flowing delicacy. It has been some time since I've toked on much of
anything, but I seem to have taken in twice my maximum amount in my
marijuana days. I thought that this was farily mild going down,
actually; easily controllable. After the second hit, I started to feel
something coming on, thought quite different from the cannabis parade
that walks across my limbs and leaves me feeling heavily drugged.
There was absolutely none of this. I felt myself being pulled int and
pushed out of the chair. Also, I felt as if something were trying to
penetrate my thick head--something saying Get the hell out and open
up! This is wonderful! You don't want to miss anymore!..... Third hit,
I really was able to take a lot in, and I felt my body be pleasantly
lifted from the chair
(Cela ressemble à l'entrée dans un rêve conscient) as I was filling
myself with this smoke. I actually felt myself sinking into the chair
at the same time as I felt incredbily light--as if I weighed nothing
any longer. Very nice.
This third hit was magnificent. And I held it in for about 20 seconds
or so, feeling it pulled deeper into my lungs, or so it felt, 
the whole time. I felt my senses transform in a way that was quite
interesting, in that there was really nothing I could pinpoint as
 "different." Then I realized that I was seeing the world for the
first time, in a quite real and convincing way. But it was harsh: it
was a flash of sensory overload. It was as if there were a certain
barrier that this salvinorin passed through, and then, there I was,
immediately: in a completely different place. (Rappelle une transition
onirique consciente!)It pushed me through some kind of membrane, and
it happened in the blink of my mind's eye. Feeling the whole garage (I
know, what a setting) become brighter than anything I have ever
imagined, very unfamilar because it seemed so real. It leapt from the
usual mundane view to something so frighteningly *in-my-face* that it
was as if I had never
 known it, seen it before. Never seen ANYthing. As I exhaled this
smoke, so deliberately and slowly, I realized that I could freak
out--this was a complete shift in reality. This was like having new
existential eyes. 
I mean, it was the same me, the same place, the same eyes, senses, and
feeling--but there was something shockingly ineffable about it. And
wasn't I supposed to feel *fucked-up* if I was on this intense a trip?
It was as if I had been born again. But it was not exactly so, because
I didn't feel really "different." What was it???? 
Well, as if to answer my question, a whole layer of reality ricocheted
out of space into my head. A sound: a voice, and a whole bunch of
some-sort-of-smurf-elf-like creatures that seem to comprise DMT
hyperspace. I swear to you, there were entities there, and they=
 were playing! They were dancing and swirling, laughing and living in
complete, unadulterated bliss! I could glance at them, astonished and
with my eyes probably as wide as the gap between my chin, as it lay on
the floot, and my upper lip. Real animals came out of
 nowhere and all of a sudden I was on the verge of their
village!(encore comme une transition onirique usuelle...) It was like
this, I was watching one of those jukeboxes, except that it is an
experiential jukebox, and the records are not just phonographs, and
they are not recorded sounds of us humans and our music, and they are
unreal, in this respect; these *are* layers of reality, and one of hem
just flipped out from the astral pile in my
 consciousness (or was 
it really just my consciousness??) and played to my mind in vivid
detail. It was as if I was the needle, as crazy as I know this sounds,
and the life of a whole fucking cosmos was being played to my Soul, as
encaptured by some layer/disc of reality. That is what it
seemed like. 
These things, they flashed so quickly before me, they said "Come play
with us! Come on and join us! Come here and rid yourself of all your
worrying and your shit! *Dammit* come on!" And they were flying before
my open eyes, as if to wash everything else out. They 
did look like smurfs,(=schthroumpfs!) yet they weren't blue and they
weren't  annoying. They were more like elves, gnomes, yes, and they
were
, well, quite paradoxical. Like enlightened children. Like a totally
different representation of cosmic intelligence than you would 
expect. (I did not think God was in an elf! but, alas, there was a
spirit of that very character in them.) And it was almost cartoonish
it was so colorful. The "derealized" cartoonish take of this quite
freaked me out, as it was SO real, yet SO foreign to anything I had
imagined. This was some sort of truth. This whole galaxy that was
flipped over so I could see it, I could leap into. But something was
keeping me back. I was scared to the core that I would never come
back. 
This was so real, for a moment I wholly forgot that I was "tripping." 
I hate that term, it is hackneyed and insufficient. This was a
"journey" and a consciousness dance, but nothing short of
mind-blowiing and quite real in spirit. There was no sense of
inebriation, and when I stopped to grab a hold of my normal scope of
reality--as if it was always palpable, if need be--I could be
normalized. And then I noticed that there was a difference. I slipped
out of this flash, it was like. I was slipping out and this voice,
half androgynous, half feminine, said "Come back..." in a whisper that
was both warm and insistent-- over my left shoulder and floating
everwhere. I tried to see her, turning my head like a fool, or dog
trying to chase his tail; she is Elsewhere, yet always aside me. (I've
had the sense of a third party before, stone-cold sober, and felt it a
spiritual overseer, or guardian.) Seemed like some sort of angel who
wanted to get things done and wanted to Truly, finally
communicate(comme psilocine) to me. I said to it, "I have to go let
people know that I am going to be leaving for a while. They'll come
back and I'll be gone!My mom will come out and I will not have warned
her that I was going to a whole different universe and she will be
freaked that I look as if in a coma!" I was seeing so many different
things come to me at once, and I felt my body overload. I was at the
point that I thought I could do anything I wanted, simply
effortlessly, but the sheer overly-puissant Power of this was too much
for me. I could barely walk to the door to the house to yell, "Mom!
Dad!" quite rushed and insistently, myself. "Just so you know, I am
tripping
 hard!" They were my sitters for this. Quite nice. (Needless to say,
they are quite interested in the potential of psychedelics, as they
have shown great promise to help their son out of a series of
psychological and spiritual setbacks that have left me largely
paralyzed and in need of "healing", in whatever forms work...) 
"Really!?!?" my Mom returned. I said, Yes, that I needed to go sit
down 
and be comfortable, this was coming on much more quickly than I
thought. 
I sat back in the chair, and I still heard the mutterings of the
creatures I had neared--whose activites I really only saw from a
distance and into whose world I was not able to take a leap. I still
saw kind of ghostly, transparent and existentially-fleeting
hallucinations of their activity, and the angel in white whose
presence seems to have never left my side, including my life before
this cabriole.She was the Center *and* the cicling orb around me, at
the same time: I was ego, and she was there to take me; and she was
the Host Whom I should worship. And I actually spoke to something, out
loud, yet as the words came out of my mouth I wasn't sure if
it was to Her....And I still can validate that I corresponded with
something; I said that I would come back, and that I wanted them to
make it easy for me to sink on through to the other side. Could they
please not make this a disaster and me a catatonic schizophrenic....I
told him that I like holding on to "these eyes, this ego." And that I
appreciate the beauty and endless wonder that they hold.I kind-of
said, Be patient with me, too. I had the power to conjure them, or
have them *cooperate* with me. 
I had not yet realized the significance of open-eyes versus
closed-eyes. At this point, my eyes had yet to be closed. I was
experiencing enough dimensional shifting without going inward. 
Letting my Mom know that I thought I was about to be going someplace
very alien, I proceeded to take yet another large hit. No effect. I
was already departed from the otherworldly reality. Very
interesting--it was as if I had had one chance with this smoking
session and it was decided that I was not equipped or ready to go
through with it. This hit was astronomical, too. Yet, no dancing with
the friendly-from-afar and highly imaginative creatures. Damn, I had
barely seen but a slice of the world of the Veiled Lady's, and her
seeming governship of divine elf-like gnome-like playthings. I was
certain, and still am, that I saw but a snapshot of a whole powerful,
energetic, quite-real dimension to our lives. I went inside to close
my eyes and see what remained of this dimension. 
Lay down, closed my eyes, and asked some questions to myself, like,
What do I make of this, Am I nuts, Isn't this only supposed to happen
on Dimethyltryptamine, How do I feel free and secure enough to let
go??? Visions and predominantly warm emotions danced spectacularly
around and about me. I was seeing a good chunk of the things I've
imagined, from dragons to demons to mermaids to god to wildlife to
every dream I've ever had, and all with enough beauty and
overwhelmment to occupy my whole Soul as I lay down and went with what
was left.
 (This was only about 12 or so minutes after my first toke.) There was
a stream of mild and seemingly still sexual imagery, and emotions was
running from all sorts of hope, and amazement, and excitation, to
calmness, contentment, and also some dejection that the ex=
perience seemed to have been "cut off" and I was not really "going
with it."
I could open my eyes and return to 85% of reality around me as I knew
it. Then I could shut up, shut out the things around me, and enter a
dream. This was very peculiar and genius for me! I realized that I DO
have a fear of letting go, of being free, if you will, 
and of truly succumbing to the *whole* effects of this. And then many
implications hit me about my life, and what real problems I face, and
that same old "stuff." I as amazed that there seemed to be Answers, if
I could only take that huge "leap of faith." I realize now that this
leap of faith is truly a dying and rebirthing experience. It truly is.
Anyhow, I digress....The salvia divinorum showed me that there is
something waiting beyond the realms of our normal human imagination,
and that it "takes you places..." 
This was a feeble attempt to capture something that I still cannot
believe flew into my head, and smacked me across the face. The
effulgent image that I am left with, that I spoke of as my own mother
watched me "watch" the abstract goings-on in my mind, is of me being
sucked from this world, which I really feel I have yet to truly enter.
Am dissociated from myself....and this stuff picked me up out of this
and left me dangling, saying *over* and not just *to* me, "You are
nowhere! I can put you in two places at once and you can live both,
more really than you are here now, when sober!"
And it dangled me, this Force, this Shepherdess, and presented me this
world--multiplied by 100--at the same time as it presented me its own
special and unique, transdimensional world. It said, "You can do much
better than this! You have no idea!"
And so I was shown that perhaps what we have been enculterated to
seeing is not necessarily "real" after all. Especially if we can go
places and come back with this endlessly enriched by the journey. What
a vacation! That is what this is like--a ticket that I have=
 to be reassured deep within, is two-way. I still am at the gate and
window, waving to energies and entities which are flying by.
I hope you found this interesting. I am truly turned-on to this beast.
I have some shamanic journeying to do, and I believe that it needs to
be done with as much collective information and help from other
people, various sources, and experiences, and experts, as possible. I
appreciate the site, and wish you the best on your own plans! Til my
next note, (it is too damn late to go on and it has 
been quite a long day)
All the best,
Kevin

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: In article <575v2n$ml3@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: >: In article <575gtj$p41@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >: >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: >
: >: >: Well, looking through the the rest of Feynman's quotes (or reading 
: >: >: some of his popular books) you'll find that he cared very little for 
: >: >: those "philosophical" notions of "wrongness".  
: >: >
: >: >So what? Why should he? He's not a philosopher. However, he seems to 
: >: >agree with philosophers on a point that was debated amongst us jolly 
: >: >people here.
: >: >
: >: No.  He seems to agree on "philosophically wrong" which is quite 
: >: different from "wrong" and not something he cared about much.
: >
: >Again, whether he cares or not is utterly irrelevant; philosophy can't be 
: >judged by people who don't care about philosophy --- as I'm sure you'll 
: >readily agree. If a philosopher says "wrong" in the context of 
: >philosophy, one does well to assume that he is talking about 
: >philosophically wrong. But I don't want to push this any further, since I 
: >don't want a thread on "Is moggin a philosopher?" etc.
: Whether moggin is a philosopher or not is certainly non of my 
: business.  When a post appears on sci.physics, though, the context is 
: assumed to be physics unless explicitly stated otherwise.  I trust 
: you'll agree that this is a reasonable assumption.  Mind you, I really 
: don't care what's posted on this subject in other groups and I'm 
: certainly not going to check.  I do intend, however, to respond to 
: anything posted to sci.physics from the point of view of physics (as I 
: see it).
: >
: >: >What he did care 
: >: >for : was "does it work", which is the notion some people here find so 
: >: >: odious.  Still, you shouldn't take it as gospel, as I've said many 
: >: >: times, opinions of scientists are just opinions, Feynman included.
: >: >
: >: >Doxa are doxa, but some are still better founded than others... again, we 
: >: >are not talking in the realm of science; to you, I assume, all of 
: >: >philosophy consists of "just opinions" -- wrong?
: >
: >: That's for you to judge, not me.
: >
: >No, your attitude towards philosophy is something only you can clarify 
: >for me. So, again, do you think that philosophy, on the whole, consists 
: >of "just opinions" or not? 
: It is a good question, which I've no intention to answer, however.  I 
: got involved in this argument from the side of physics, for the 
: reasons stated above.  Philosophy I discuss only with friends.
: >
: >: >: As a side notion, regarding the "someone who's in physics comes along 
: >: >: and says the same thing" bit, I trust you can see the slight 
: >: >: difference between "wrong" and "philosophically we are wrong".
: >: >
: >: >Certainly; I've never argued for anything but the latter, and neither has 
: >: >moggin even though it seems to give him pleasure to get your goat around 
: >: >this matter.
: >
: >: We are simple folks here.  When somebody says "wrong" we take it for 
: >: "wrong", period.  And we argue with what's being said.  If somebody 
: >: says something, then qualifies his statement, there is no problem with 
: >: it.  If he refuses to qualify it, the rather clear implication is that 
: >: he means it as it stands.
: >
: >yeah yeah... I know what you mean, I know what moggin means, and I all 
: >get for my exemplary conciliatory stance is rude insults from physicists 
: >like those newest additions to the "science" camp (you should appreciate 
: >the scare quotes here) that have just crawled out of the woodwork...
: Scared me, for sure :-)  But, rude insults were traded around in quite 
: a quantity lately.  If somebody wishes to compile all of them and 
: check who insulted whom and how many times, he/she is welcome to do 
: it.  I've no interest in such childishness.  Nor in camps, for that 
: matter.  After all, I don't hold you responsible for moggin's style, 
: now do I?
: >
: >Btw, did you see the Plotnitsky quote I posted? Any comments?
: Can't add much to what I said before.  The moment we start playing the 
: game of "lets assume that when so and so said such and such, what he 
: actually meant was (substitute you favorite phrase here)" 
as in, when someone says "space-time," what he actually meant was 
"space-time"? You're right, the arbitrariness is just too much...
Btw, I'm not convinced by your argument "it's on s/p therefore it must be 
physics;" after all, it's also on rab, therefore about books, or on ap, 
therefore about postmodernity, etc. etc. So by dint of your own argument, 
you've commented on philosophy even though you don't count us amongst 
your friends (sniff).
Greetings,
Silke
the game is 
: so wide open as to be meaningless.  That's the beauty of vague and 
: obscure phrases, you can make out of them whatever you wish.  I'm sure 
: that some of the Talmudic scholars among my ancestors would've been 
: fascinated, but I'll pass.  In honesty, if I were about to take the 
: issue seriously I would start with getting the full text of the 
: exchanges at the conference from which the quote we're talking about 
: came, trying to see whether given the full context one can narrow down 
: possible interpretations.  But, dealing with just the single quote, 
: the way we do, I consider the argument to be not very meaningful.
: Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
: meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

Patrick Juola (patrick@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk) wrote:
: You're blathering, Ms. Weineck.
Nice talking to you, too -- I'm still waiting for a few answers from you 
to a number of very simple questions...
: In article <575vj0$ml3@netnews.upenn.edu> weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >: You seem to be confused.  There is nothing problematic about getting
: >: evidence of people's intentions.  For example, that someone has queued
: >: up, token in hand, is evidence that they intend to take that bus.
: >
: >Often, even most of the time, but certainly not all of the time. And if 
: >you have a scene in a novel where a man queues up, token in hand, you 
: >cannot assume that the author's intention was to convey that this man was 
: >about to take that bus.
: Why does it suddenly cease to be evidence?  Evidence doesn't have to
: point at a *correct* conclusion, it merely has to point at a conclusion.
: If I were to stop and question a student immediately after she read
: that scene as to whether the (fictitious) man intended to take the
: bus, she'd probably respond "yes", regardless of how the next few
: pages turned out.
Silly me for insisting that we are still talking about literary criticism 
rather than about means of transportation... Your argument above doesn't 
say anything about the author's intention in depicting the scene.
: Similarly, if I asked her whether the AUTHOR intended to convey that
: the man intended (yes, I noticed you shifted ground to a nested
: intention) to take the bus, she'd probably also say "yes."
And would you and she imagine you had said anything important? Your 
concept of literature seems to resemble my students' concept of the daily 
newspaper... 
: >And then there's always the question about why 
: >the token is already in hand instead of still in the purse, or why 
: >someone is the kind of person that has tokens rather than cash, etc. etc.
: Which is completely irrelevant to the question of evidence-of-bus-taking.
But we are talking about intentions in representation, so your response 
is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Regards,
S.
: 	Patrick

Evens --- has it ever occurred to you that the rude, supercilious,
point-by-point ad-hominem attack style of your replies might alienate
even people like me who _accept_ the validity of SR ???
Or are you simply trying to singlehandedly prove that there exists at
least _one_ Canadian who _ISN'T_ polite ???
While sarcasm is an acceptable mode of communication on the usenet,
rudeness is just plain _rude_. 
Frankly, I feel your current attitude helps the Opposition, NOT science.
*Please* try to start behaving like a rational scientist, instead of a
cross between the former U.S.Sen. Joe McCarthy and a prosecutor for the
Spanish Inquisition... 
--  Gordon D. Pusch   
But I don't speak for ANL or the DOE, and they *sure* don't speak for =ME=...

Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>Michael Kagalenko (mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>Silke-Maria  Weineck (weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>>Read a  book or something, as Kagalenko would say. By Plato, on Plato, 
: >>>>>>>something related. I've worked on Plato for five years straight now, 
: >>>>>>Gorgias' followers just wouldn't leave the Teacher alone.
: >>>>>You're _still_ trying to pretend you've read Plato? Kudos on your 
: >>>>>persistence. Listen, it's rather simple: the logos/mythos distinction is 
: >>>>>post-Platonic, and you cannot even begin to understand Socrates if you 
: >>>>>don't understand why he stood still before he joined the Symposion.
: >>>>How keen of Plato to have insisted on this post-Platonic distinction
: >>>>in _Phaedo_ 61b, _Timaeus _26e, as well as countless other places!
: >>>>Your aptitude for creative thinking would be most welcome at the
: >>>>Institute of Historical Review.
: >>>And when you get old enough to move away from soundbites, you may want 
: >>>to consult Robert Zaslavsky's _Platonic Myth and Platonic Writing_ 
: >>>(Wash.D.C.: UP of America, 81) about the relevance of the above. 
: >>>Meantime, you might want to acquaint yourself with the variety of 
: >>>meanings given to both logos and mythos throughout Plato's oeuvre and 
: >>>proclaim again, with a straight face, that Platonic logos equates to 
: >>>science.
: >>The relevance of the above is to your claims (a) that "[you]'ve worked
: >>on Plato for five years straight now" and (b) that "the logos/mythos
: >>distinction is post-Platonic".  In view of the said distinction being
: >>explicitly articulated by Plato, your arrogation of expertise implies
: >>a moral responsibility for your erroneous rebuttal.  In other words,
: >>having lied about Plato, you are now trying to cover up your egregious
: >>lie by appealing to your critical authority.  
: >It's called scholarship. Welcome to the concept.
: Appealing to your critical authority is called scholarship?
: Silly me -- I thought it was called preening.
: >>                                            Sorry, that will not do.
: >>As I said elsewhere, that wilful overinterpretation of the classics
: >>can arbitrarily arrive at any desired conclusion does not make for a
: >>critical breakthrough.  As regards your positivistic conception of
: >>science, it only betokens your crass innumeracy.  
: >Give us an argument for science establishing values, and we'll 
: >talk. So far, you're blowing smoke, as usual. Commit yourself to 
: >an argument.
: The best positive argument is that science establishes truth, and
: truth is a value.  On the negative side, there is the argument that
: ought implies can, and all possibilities are determined by science.
: Most undergraduate philosophy majors learn this much in introductory
: ethics classes.
You may have just inadvertently put your finger on what's wrong with 
introductory ethics classes around here. Science establishes truth, but 
not the value of truth. That truth is a value gets established elsewhere.
: >I will,  if it makes you happy, reformulate my initial assertion 
: >that the "logos/mythos distinction is post-Platonic" to "the 
: >logos/mythos distinction as it would apply to the context of this 
: >thread is post-Platonic."
: Since you brought up the logos/mythos distinction in the first place,
: it is up to you to explain how it applies.
You introduced "logos" as synonymous with "science" -- I pointed out to 
you that that usage of logos is Post-Platonic (or I have now), since 
Plato uses "logos" to denote a variety of discursive acts, some of them 
non-compatible with scientific inquiry.
S.
: Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
: Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye:   "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
: itinerant philosopher -- will think for food  ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com 
: ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)

weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) wrote:
> Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
> : The best positive argument is that science establishes truth, and
> : truth is a value.  On the negative side, there is the argument that
> : ought implies can, and all possibilities are determined by science.
> : Most undergraduate philosophy majors learn this much in introductory
> : ethics classes.
> 
> You may have just inadvertently put your finger on what's wrong with 
> introductory ethics classes around here. Science establishes truth, but 
> not the value of truth. That truth is a value gets established elsewhere.
Could you tell me where or what the elsewhere is?
And why or in what way science has no part in and appears to be
mandatorialy excluded from that elsewhere?
Both science and ethics are exercises of the human mind. Why should there
be an a priori duality?
Does our awareness of both not development in unison?. If not on the
individual level than at least on the population level?
Wondering,  Tom.

In article ,
moggin  wrote:
>
>   Verses from _The Scientist's Book of Common Prayer_.
>
I think for spiritual sustenance physicists turn to
THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK. "What I tell you three times is true."
is the bedrock of scientific values. 3/4 :-)
Lew Mammel, Jr.

Edward Green (erg@panix.com) wrote:
: I happen to think overpopulation is them most serious issue affecting
: future quality of life on the planet... everything else kind of
: follows from it...  Well,  maybe the next most serious after nuclear
: weapons... nuclear what?   Yeah,  I know,  we don't worry about that
: anymore,  but they are still there,  in their silos and submarines,
: and they are still pointed at major population centers,  and rogue
: states are coming closer to building them every year.  They are a
: chronic disease which is merely currently in remission.
Eh ?  You're too pessimistic.  You see:
1) Overpopulation
2) lotsa nuclear weapons pointed at major population centers
as 2 hard problems.  You're underestimating the regulatory power
of nature !  2) is simply the solution for 1)  :->
cheers,
Patrick.
--
Patrick Van Esch
mail:   vanesch@dice2.desy.de
for PGP public key: finger vanesch@dice2.desy.de

tejas@infi.net (Ted Samsel) wrote:
>Ken MacIver (nanken@tiac.net) wrote:
>: "Michael S. Morris"  wrote:
>: 
>: >Friday, the 22nd of November, 1996 
>: 
>: >moggin says:
>: >  Of course not --but the outfit that you're wearing is a fashion
>: >  catastrophe.
>: 
>: >Well, you and I read it differently, then. I am of the
>: >opinion that the outfit I'm wearing (not just science, 
>: >mind you, but the whole program of Enlightenment liberal 
>: >political philosophy)
>: 
>: Chain mail!
>"You know how to do it, now let's make a chain"
>                                    The LOCO-motion.
>"Chain, chain, chain,
>Chain of fools."
>"Chains, my baby's got me locked up in chains"......
>"wish I was tied to Berth, instead of this ball and chain"
>so this is solipsism. the wonder of it all........
Not to mention Little Eva, whom I saw sing and *do* the Locomotion
years ago at Old Orchard Beach, Maine.  A great show!
ken

In article  gonser@eawag.ch (-Tom-) writes:
>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) wrote:
>> Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
>
>> : The best positive argument is that science establishes truth, and
>> : truth is a value.  On the negative side, there is the argument that
>> : ought implies can, and all possibilities are determined by science.
>> : Most undergraduate philosophy majors learn this much in introductory
>> : ethics classes.
>> 
>> You may have just inadvertently put your finger on what's wrong with 
>> introductory ethics classes around here. Science establishes truth, but 
>> not the value of truth. That truth is a value gets established elsewhere.
>
>Could you tell me where or what the elsewhere is?
Generally, it's in the discipline called "philosophy."  At the
University of Colorado, that was in the Hellems building, just
west of Fine Arts.  Why?
>And why or in what way science has no part in and appears to be
>mandatorialy excluded from that elsewhere?
Largely by science's choice to deal only with things that can be
"objectively" and "experimentally" verified.  Science was originally
an outgrowth of natural philosophy that happened to find that the
experimental paradigm was productive and useful, so it's self-selected
for experimental work.
>Both science and ethics are exercises of the human mind. Why should there
>be an a priori duality?
There isn't.  It's simply a question of chosing to play by a set of
rules or not.  If you play by the rules of science, you're doing
"science" (a branch of natural philosophy).  If you choose to play by
other rules, you will *probably* be doing another form of philosophy.
	Patrick

virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com  writes:
> In article ,
> moggin  wrote:
> >virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com (Mahipal Singh Virdy):
> >[...]
> >
> >>>>If you
> >>>>still *refuse* to get it, here's some advice. Remove sci.physics from
> >>>>the header and say whatever the explicative your brand of religions and
> >>>>philosophies want to hear. I doubt if many *actual* physicists would be
> >>>>bothered by what you say about Science then. It's just the way
> >>>>partitioning of the newsgroups works. We'll *all* deal with it.
> >
> >moggin:
> >
> >>>   While here it's unclear what you're saying, if anything.
> >
> >Mahipal:
> >
> >>What I stated is extremely clear and nearly singular in meaning. My
> >>intentions are even there in plain black&white; ASCII. Perhaps I should
> >>point out that partitioning by names of newsgroups is a way of separating
> >>topics and views of people who follow such topics. Nah --- ignore this
> >>sentence. Keep only the first two of this paragraph.
> >
> >   What you said is hard to make out --  remember, you're not making 
> >any claims to coherence.  I'll take a guess, though.  "Sci.physics:  love it 
> >or leave it."  Is that your point?  But if you don't want to hear from me,
> >why did you begin this conversation?  Not that I mind, one way  or the
> >other -- it just  doesn't seem to make much sense.  In any case,  I doubt
> >that many  "*actual* physicists" would be bothered by what I've been
> >saying.
> 
> Logically, if I wasn't coherent then you wouldn't be talking with me.
> So, let's get over mutually insulting eachother because that certainly
> isn't going to lead to the place I want go --- Progress. And being as
> proficient as you are with language, you should've realized that I
> specifically wrote "I never claimed to be coherent". A reasonable Being
> wouldn't have to go around _claiming_. But it's nice you clung to that
> otherwise forgetable trivia of Reality. You are certainly too quick in
> trying to intimidate your debators with unfounded personal attacks. Do
> you really think that's helping your case --- assuming you have  
> a point to offer?
> 
> If I had to edit your guess I'd say "Sci.physics: love it!" and I'll try
> address why. Since man's recorded history, men have noticed patterns in
> physical phenomena. You know why Galileo dropped those balls so many
> times? Well, besides not having the Internet to distract him, I'll bet
> he was hoping against hope to just see *once* if the ball wouldn't do
> the same thing. I can hear him praying in Italian before dropping the
> balls "Please O please do something different!". Finally Galileo
> realized that praying wasn't changing the outcome of what the balls were
> motivated to do. So he made the best of it rather than deny the
> experimental observational fact. We praise Galileo accordingly. As such,
> by extrapolation, other men have realized that it's better to love
> physics than to leave it. For men can't actually "leave" physics. There
> is no physics-free-place to go. And don't feel imprisoned --- for that
> would be to miss the fascination entirely.
> 
> [...]
> >moggin:
> >
> >>>   Oh, I see -- you're another member of the scientific illiterati.
> >
> >Mahipal:
> >
> >>Yes. Indeed. You've wounded me Sir. But, pray tell, how did you conclude I
> >>was a member of the scientific illiterati cult without having access to my
> >>membership card? [...]
> 
> Now that's not fair editing on your part. You leave in calling me
> "scientific illiterati" and commit to the epsilons me calling you
> "Unscientific LiTTerati". You're not biased in any way, are you?
> 
> >   It was simple -- I noticed that you asked a question ("The terms 
> >"pragmatic" "utilitarian" escape your comprehension?") which
> >my  recent posts already answered in the negative.   In other words,
> >I was commenting on  your reading skills -- not your education.
> 
> My apologies for having missed your recognition of these useful
> concepts. All I can say is that you write too much and do yourself
> damage because readers don't have patience to seek out your points all
> the while personalities are clashing. But if you had said my education
> sucked I merely would've agreed and said that's because I studied in
> America. ;-) 
> 
> [trim]
> >Mahipal:
> >
> >>You need to justify your claim that my request is "unreasonable". You or
> >>no one else holds any supreme position of declaring what are/not (in)valid
> >>pronouncements. Justify your thoughts. If a scientist said "philosophy
> >>is shit", then you too would want a rational debate before accepting the
> >>scientist's proclaimation. Regardless of how much you personally agreed.
> >
> >   You're right, I would, but I didn't get up and make a claim -- I just
> >gave you my answer to the question you asked.  That doesn't obligate me
> >to anything.  However, out of a spirit of good-fellowship, I'll add a bit
> >to what I said.  What I'm thinking, basically, is that while scientists 
> >as a group are undoubtedly better than philosophers and theologians at
> >doing science, there's no reason to believe that they're well equipped
> >to _think_ about it.  Most scientists, I'd say, are more concerned with
> >practicing science than reflecting on it -- and more talented at it, as 
> >well.
> 
> Thank you and I too shall sustain the spirit of good-fellowship. Name
> calling can only be entertainment for so long. It gets nowhere though.
> 
> From my personal experience, most scientists are concerned with having a
> decent paying job within Science than worrying about reflecting on it.
> Though this may seem funny to you, it's far far from funny when you have
> no money.
> 
> Philosophers and theologians may be better equipped, IYO, about thinking
> about science. Where scientists get bothered is when science is
> misrepresented, otherwise devalued, or told by outsiders that science
> decisions are trivial (Case in point --- Silke's comment regarding the
> estimation of airplane fuel requirements). What's utterly ironic inspite
> of all this, everybody from lawyers to palmists will unquestionably and
> unerringly claim that their works are somehow "scientifically sound". 
> It's enough to make you laugh --- forever. I mean I love to point out
> hypocrits as much as the next guy, but groups like the Christian
> Scientists, et. al. take the cake. Though it's unbelivably funny, all
> these people take themselves way too seriously and want to get --- as it
> were --- equal billing in respect, politics, and classrooms. 
> 
> However, unquestionably, there are pure philosophers and theologians who
> are not motivated by self-serving misguided (political) reasons. But I
> doubt that they are the outspoken vocal ones.
> 
> [...]
> >Mahipal:
> >
> >>You are going to have to do better than that.  How many philosophies are
> >>falsifiable and testible? Do help me out. If there is no objective
> >>Reality out *there* --- and I've been misled by the scientific camp ---
> >>then I want the knowledge. I'll exact revenge on those science bastards
> >>then! C'mon --- save me/us.
> >
> >   The science camp is having trouble making up its mind.  Most of the 
> >science campers I see on the net can't run away fast enough from the
> >idea that science reports on "Reality."  I'm not sure they don't believe 
> >it -- they just don't want to be stuck trying to defend the damn thing. 
> >On the other hand, there are people like Sokal, who leap to its defense.  
> >I'm not the one you should be asking for a science  report,  anyhow --
> >aren't you one of them scientists?  Physician, ask thyself.
> 
> I well understand the pitfalls of Self-Deception. Trust me, that's why I
> leave the door open. That's why I read these threads. Real time people
> with real time thoughts. I learned from everybody though I've come to
> hate a few for their style and idiocy. But for the most part, I'm glad I
> chose science. I might have exceled at deconstructionism and _that_ scares
> me! I really did in truth enjoy reading Zelany. Fact is, you're
> arguments brought his and a few other's to my attention. So not all bad
> goes unrewarded. But I'm a certified optimist. It'll get me one day. ;-)
> 
> Let me be the next to inform you, there *IS* an objective "Reality" and we
> humans are an intricate part of it. If one's philosphy doesn't allow for
Well, now that we've been informed.  I'm satisfied.  How 'bout
the rest of you?  Moggin?  Fellas?
> the determination or merely the acceptence of such physical reality,
> then the philospher really isn't doing a very good job. There are very
> simple facts of human's observations that confirm the existence of an
> objective reality. Whether it exists for any "purpose" or not is a
> secondary issue --- from the scientist's perspective. From *THIS*
> scientist's perspective. Why is the issue secondary? Easy, because the
> first issue is to manage to survive in this proovably hostile
> environment! Having succeeded at surviving, then the philosophers and
> theologians and palmists can all live under the shelters science helps
> make and LITERALLY bash on science to their heart's content. If that is
> what they desire.  Scientists will defend themselves. But why battle?
> 
> I like Sokal. Seems like a well-meaningful individual from what I have
> read of him. If that too is a *hoax*, then infinite kudos to him. :-)
> 
> The point about true Science is that since it is independent of social
> prejudice, it is immune from both criticism and praise. However,
> scientists are humans and humans depend on Society for mutual
> coexistence. You can bash the scientists --- and they will not like it
> of course --- but the Science remains the same. Kepler is the classic
> case in point. He lead a miserable life personally. Financially broke.
> Death and desease. Witch hunts and what not. Despite all this madness in
> the society around him, he found stability in the patterns of the
> "wanderers" around his Earth. Though we praise him now, it doesn't
> change one iota the misery that was his personal life. We modern
> scientists don't want to live miserable lives and social movements that
> are antiscience will get us to stand up and REASON.
> 
> [trim]
> >>Without all these fancy evasions and more... Tell me this
> >>If "Newton is wrong" then how would moggin make the Universe "right"?
> >
> >   Righting the universe is beyond my ability.
> 
> If you resolve to believe this, then so shall you achieve.
> 
> Why set yourself up for the failure? Perhaps you're being rational and
> just comprimising with the Nature/God-Given limitations of your ability?
> Anyway, it does not matter as far as either Nature or God is concerned.
> 
> See, scientists can be inspirational. The point you and Society at large
> are raising is that scientists have failed at communicating about their
> work --- which influences every life directly or indirectly. That's what
> I gather and it's only valid in the domain of one man's opinion.
> 
> What you are saying is that Science needs to be addressed from religious
> and/or mystical, even literary, perspectives. I sincerely doubt you've
> encountered any scientist that would restict your privilege to do so.
> It's only when you persist bitching (for lack of a better word in our
> Era) that "Newton is wrong" and by extrapolation all Science must be
> wrong because there exists no such thing as numerical (Platonic)
> perfection that Physicists feel the need to defend Science's ideas. And
> when Science&Scientists; are saying that the Laws of Science are
> ultimatley independent of the beliefs of the discovers, you all need to
> accept this by "understanding" it. It ain't hard Barbi! Trust me. Please
> don't turn this comment into something sexual. I know what rigid is. ;-)
> 
> moggin, your particular point appears to be that a specific religious
> mystical mindset inspired Newton to succeed despite being Universally
> wrong in the light of later observations. Problem with this is that it
> is not true that a specific religious mindset guided him --- no matter
> how religious he personally may have been. Darwin too was a religious
> being but the evidence was more overwhelming than scribblings of ancient
> texts! And since the final product these individuals discovered is
> independent of the personal Beings these men were, it's reasonably true
> that their mystical beliefs are irrelevant to Science.
> 
> In sum, Reality shapes our perceptions.
> All our perceptions combined
> couldn't make the Sun geometrically square
> No matter how hard we prayed
> Or how throughly we brainwashed ourselves.
> Somethings just ARE.
> The Laws of Physics are a result of seeking out these objectivities.
> And the search continues because we don't have any final answers==truths.
> 
> How do I convey that scientists would not discover anything if there was
> nothing to find? Preexistence is a prerequisite. If I have now entered
> metaphysical territory, don't worry for me, I ain't lost.
> 
> Mahipal |meforce>	http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3178/
>