Evolution [ for those who care ;-) ]

[Gen-X]

When I mentioned our ancestors creating us, I didn't mean in terms of conciously building a living system of cells, I was referring to your analogy of teaching computers like we teach children. My point is that if you are going to say a computer can learn in the same way a child does, then how is it unreasonable to say that they might learn something more than we know? If the initial knowledge it has is the same as that of the system's creator(s), then it may be able to reason something out of it that we don't know.


*sigh*

But doesn't "teaching" require that the thing being TAUGHT is actually on the same level?

Imagine me trying to teach a CAT to read and write. I could do it for a thousand years and probably still not get anywhere. That was my whole point.... If we are going to CREATE the thing we are going to teach we need to know now to make it as complex as we are.. because only making it as complex as a cat isn't good enough.

Knowledge doesn't MATTER... because knowledge is simply a storage of facts... its what is behind that knowledge that counts. Its about intuition, instinct, lateral thinking, problem solving and just pure blind luck. It can "KNOW" the same things as we do but if it hasn't been programmed with EXACTLY the same abilities as us it can never learn something we do not know.

And we don't understand how we do things so how can we ever hope of creating something that can!?!?


'Mutation is not responsible for evolution'. Well I'm glad you cleared that one up for us all But seriously, if you think it all makes that much sense, write a paper on it and get it published in a scientific journal. There are many people researching this area I'm sure, and if you have something valuable to contribute, then you should make your findings known.


There are several scientific journals on this, covering everything from what they call the "Gaia principle" to what I call "Natural Progression".


The concepts of self awareness, emotions and irrationality are pretty high-order functions and I'm not even sure if my cat is self aware.


Hence you will never be able to teach your cat to learn things above its in-built capacity.

Can you see the correlation now?


As I said previously, if we can understand neural nets then complex systems can be built up from them. I'm not saying it will be easy though. And your point about needing to understand the way the brain works in some of these areas is a valid one, although I don't imagine anything like this happening in the near future.


But are we sure neural nets is HOW the brain works? or is that just the closest thing we can "associate" it with because of our limited ability to discover things about ourselves?


You make a lot of references to the impossibilities due to our lack of understanding, but that understanding may come with time and research. This is a complex issue and I don't think anyone can state any certainties.


Roll a Dice. Get a 6. Roll it 100 times and get a 6 every SINGLE time. We know that "with enough time we can do it" but we also know that the probability is extremely small and therefor can appropriately apply the term "impossible" to it because its completely beyond our scope of recognition.

The odds of getting a 6 100 times in a row is 1 in 6.5e+77

Assuming that we could roll a dice 10 times every second, and assuming the law of probability saying we should be able to achieve it within 50% of the possibilities that means it would take :

1e+69 YEARS to reach half way.

Wouldn't you say something that would take longer than the earth as we know it has been around to come true is in the realms of "impossible"?


Well anyway, about the bat analogy: I agree that these traits are not particularly useful individually. However, I would ask you to consider the converse argument - Of what detriment is it to the bat to have any of these traits?


Exactly. They are of NO detriment, and yet the whole postulation of evolution is that the mutation of beneficial traits gets continued in the species. If those traits had no benefit (and no detriment) then it would require 1 million spontaneous mutations of members of that species to have the species as a whole now exhibit that trait.

Don't tell me that is possible as well ;)


Just because a bat does not prosper above its peers does not mean that it is worse off. Apart from that, these changes did not happen overnight. I shouldn't think one day a baby bat with jumbo sized ears, a fully functioning sonar processing system and an ultrasonic squeak was born. The changes were, according to evolution, many and various and very, very slow.


Mutation is instantaneous. When you talk about somethinig changing very, very slowly over a long period of time you are NOT talking about suvival of the fittest... you are not talking about evolution... you are talking about NATURAL PROGRESSION... which is EXACTLY what I believe is the cause of species advancing.

The bat was ALWAYS designed to develop big ears, screams and sonar processing brains.... it was coded into its DNA from the outset providing a certain combination of environmental factors occured and certain external stimulations took place.

That certainly has nothing to do with the theory that a white moth born to a race of black moths would proliferate because its in the snow and thus breed more white moths.
(Classical postulate of the evolutionists)


As for your definition of a god, erm, excuse me but who ever defined what a god was and what a god should and shouldn't be like?


The people who follow this God... they are the ones who defined what it would be like. "He is good, he is kind, died for out sins, etc,etc". I just refute THEIR definition


As always I am ducking the issue of whether god exists or not, but I object to people making logical inferences which are a product of their own made-up rules.


The only made up rules are the ones others define and use as "proof" of its existance and I use their OWN made up rules to show their proof is flawed.

But here is an intersting point. You and I can both agree that there is a possibility "god" exists... and that there is a possibility that god doesn't exist. We can accept both sides and refute both sides although we have our opinions as to which side we lean.

Religious people CANNOT. They say absolutely and categorically that God exists and that is that. Ask them to accept the "possibility" that he does not and they cannot. That shows blindness, a purposeful shutting down of an avenue of thought and thus shows that they are not looking at all eventualities.

We all do it... just not as much as these people do throughout their entire lives.


By the way, that word..*Searches for word*...'perspicacity' - I haven't come across that before, what does it mean please?


"Acuteness of perception, discernment, or understanding"

See : http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=perspicacity

By the way, that word..*Searches for word*...'perspicacity' - I haven't come across that before, what does it mean please?


Is a noun modifier of "perspicacious", meaning clear-minded

:) :) :) :) :)

[HarryW]

Yes a lot of what you say is very reasonable. I don't mean to say that you're wrong necessarily, I'm just a terrible sceptic and I don't accept anything anyone says easily. In fact I still haven't accepted what you say, but I'm open to the ideas.

I don't believe that any being/system/whatever would require identical abilities to us to be able to reason beyond us for instance. I think maybe I had slightly the wrong idea of what the theory of evolution is, though, since I have never studied it formally, I'm just speaking from general knowledge.

There are many different ideas of what God is, there is not one definition. Many religions see their God(s) in very different ways. One obvious example is satanism, clearly a very different idea of what God is like to that of most mainstream religions.

As far as I can see, neural nets seem like a good starting point if nothing else. The brain is built up from complex bundles of neurons is it not? So, at a microscopic level, I think neural nets should at some point relatively soon be able to perform better reasoning processes than current technologies allow, if those people who are researching the brain's structure can figure some of it out a bit better. How do you think the brain works then, if it's not based on simple electrical impulses through millions of little microprocessors?

I just hate the words 'never' and 'always' because I feel that you just cannot say what will or won't be for sure, because forever is just such a long time. It's like the reasoning that say that you can never truly know, say, the length of a nail. You can measure it yes, maybe to a million d.p. but how can you prove that the next decimal point will be a zero? So you end up saying that the probability that the length of that nail is exactly what you say it is is zero since you can simply measure it to a smaller scale, not to the smallest scale since there is no smallest scale.

The last thing I would say is: Don't be against religion. Whether or not God exists, religion can give people a sense of purpose and well-being, and most religions have a moral code which, if more people followed it, would probably make the world a nicer place to live. I'm not telling you to take it up, obviously, just don't complain about people having religious beliefs. If their being stubborn and sticking to a theory that suits them is the result, I don't mind.

[Gen-X]

Hello Harry,


Yes a lot of what you say is very reasonable. I don't mean to say that you're wrong necessarily, I'm just a terrible sceptic and I don't accept anything anyone says easily. In fact I still haven't accepted what you say, but I'm open to the ideas.


I understand that, in fact I am the same. The only theory of Science that works is "Proof by Disproof". Something remains TRUE until we can prove that it is NOT true and find something that stands up to scrutiny.

- "The world is flat"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)
- "The earth is the centre of the universe"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)

As for you being open to ideas... now its my turn to be the sceptic ;-) I find most often that people are unwilling to let go of their own beliefs and will come up with the most unreasonable facts to support their own beliefs. I guess only reading more of your replies will tell me if you are one of those people.

As for me, I too hold onto my beliefs.. BUT.. if someone can give show me something that disproves what I say (and does so convincingly instead of just hazy) then I will happily adjust my thinking.


I don't believe that any being/system/whatever would require identical abilities to us to be able to reason beyond us for instance.


Ok, would you agree that they would need "at least" our ablities in the area of communication, reasoning, logic, intuition, instinct, identification, lateral thinking, problem solving etc, etc ?

I hope you say yes to the above because that then begs the question... "Do we KNOW what goes into human beings in how they DO all of the above things?"

If you said No then I would ask you how something with less abilities in the above areas could "reason beyond" us when surely "reasoning" requires those things mentioned. That is why dogs cannot talk, nor chimpanzes or any other creature besides man... because their neo-cortex is not constructed with the above mentioned abilities.

So I have to restait what I said earlier... "If we are to recreate something to resemble human intelligence we have to KNOW what goes into making that intelligence AT LEAST to our level... and the Creator can NEVER make something better than itself".


As far as I can see, neural nets seem like a good starting point if nothing else


Actually the use of Neural Nets really isn't a good beginning point. The only thing the human brain has in common with a neural net is the fact that both of them are networks.

Did you realise that the human brain stores information based on "patterns"? Thats right, the knowledge we store in our heads is NOT stored in a sequence of references like a computer but based on certain patterns, likenesses and other such things.

So while we look at something and our brain processes that based on a likeness and comes up with the answer "A CUP", a computer must traverse an index and go to the direct memory reference 043E3:12EB4... which just happens to be a Cup. We are not even close to understanding the human brain in this sense.

Another thing is that the brain triggers neurons based on chemical levels with certain threshholds required to cause a trigger. It also triggers "related" neurons that don't necessarily give us an answer or are associated with the answer but effect the overall traversal of the pathways slightly. We haven't even began to understand how a single thought can trigger several million neurons simultaneously... replicating this in a computer at this stage is beyond our comprehension.


I just hate the words 'never' and 'always' because I feel that you just cannot say what will or won't be for sure


Are we not human? Is not everything beyond the length of our lifespan considered "never"? I only use those terms when in reference to lengths and measurements that are beyond human understanding or comprehension. Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say... therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.

If you want to start talking about scientific experiments and carbon-dating and all that stuff to determine things that happened in the passed I would suggest you read up on the quantum theory ;-)


The last thing I would say is: Don't be against religion
just don't complain about people having religious beliefs


*sigh*... Who ever said I complain about them HAVING religious beliefs?

I complained about them having the sheer audacity and blindness to say their THEIR belief is the ONLY belief and that everyone else is wrong... that they are completely INCAPABLE of even accepting the POSSIBILITY that they themselves are wrong.

I admit that I can be wrong and probably am from time to time... Its when people start running around thinking it is not POSSIBLE for them to be wrong problems start.

As for your theory that if more people were religious the world would be a nicer place to live... perhaps you should find out how most wars and conflicts have started on our planet... the number 1 culprit was RELIGION... funny that

:D

[HarryW]

Oh great this has been dragged up again.

Look, 'different' does NOT mean 'less than' or 'greater than' okay? That's not what I mean. I said different. I mean different. And I have not once said I think this is likely to happen even in the near furure, let alone now! Yes it's not known at the moment, that doesn't make it impossible to do ever.

What do you mean


Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say...therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.


?

How can you say that? How does that fact something occurred in a length of time outside our lifespan prevent us from knowing that it happened? And I'm quite well enough read on quantum theory thanks.

I have no doubt most wars have been based on religion, but to be honest I think it's just human nature to have wars. Religious or not. People (evidently) have a lot of trouble getting along, and in a lot of cases in the past religion has been an excuse.

[kedaman]

What I meant with emulating brain: Not a electronic simplification but a identical copy, atom by atom, molecule by molecule. Nanotechnique! I would class us as machines, if we wouldn't have "souls", noone answered me this.


quote:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say...therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

?

How can you say that? How does that fact something occurred in a length of time outside our lifespan prevent us from knowing that it happened? And I'm quite well enough read on quantum theory thanks.




Well, I suppose we can't know if it's true or not what happened, ie 200 years ago, what people tell us to believe. If we didn't see it, how can we ever be 100% sure. In fact, we cannot be sure on what happened yeasterday in London or better: behind my back just one second ago. There are just about 100-1E-9999999999999999999999 % we don't know. In other words we know almost nothing. However we can be "pretty sure" about of almost everything essential, and that is sufficient.


I have no doubt most wars have been based on religion, but to be honest I think it's just human nature to have wars. Religious or not. People (evidently) have a lot of trouble getting along, and in a lot of cases in the past religion has been an excuse.


Human nature means religion, different religions means war, Humans are different. Human nature means war. However we wouldn't be better without religion. Religion the great force that keeps people together without chaos and anarchy. The great rules that keeps a society, a nation and the whole humanity on track, could never be built without beliefs. Therefore changing human nature would be like withdraw ourselves.




I understand that, in fact I am the same. The only theory of Science that works is "Proof by Disproof". Something remains TRUE until we can prove that it is NOT true and find something that stands up to scrutiny.

- "The world is flat"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)
- "The earth is the centre of the universe"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)



There are still people that thinks "the world is flat", and you can never disproove them, not only because their belief is strong, but they always have an argument in reserve to dismiss yours. They think that science has never prooved correctly that world is round, and instead started to build new beliefs upon this, which degrades many well known phenomenons to simple not prooved theories. I'm sceptic about the existence of universe ;)


About analog values: There is a way to display and store imaginaire values (my TI83 does this), why can't we then create analog data types, next to the list of digital datatypes we have. They could be stored like this: 3/7*pi-4*sqr(5), no data loss during operations and in result you could display it in this form or convert it into a floating point or whatever.

[Gen-X]

Oh great this has been dragged up again.

Look, 'different' does NOT mean 'less than' or 'greater than' okay? That's not what I mean. I said different. I mean different.


I think you might be confusing yourself. You were talking about a creation of MAN that would surpass him. Your exact words were "then it may be able to reason something out of it that we don't know."

In order to do this we need to at least be "similar" when it comes to understanding of concepts otherwise the thing he might reason out "that we don't know" could be:

&^*&^#$&^!&%$#*&%^$%^$#

Now NEITHER of us can understand that... So we are talking something that is NOT different, we are talking about something that is close enough to us for us to be able to at least ACKNOWLEDGE that they have reasoned something out that we didn't know..... and to be able to do that comes back to exactly what I have been saying all along.

Isn't that clear enough?

If you have studied Quantum Theory you would know VERY WELL that observation CHANGES what it is you observe. If we try to determine anything that happened in the passed (ie carbon dating to tell how old something is) then we have effected our results by actually observing them. So as Kedaman said... how can we REALLY be sure that anything our eyes did not witness actually happened? How do we know the earth has been around 65 million years and NOT 65 billion?

Oh and I loved the way you suddenly dived AWAY from religion when pointing out that it started most wars and tried to point the finger at humanity... nicely done, but it does show what I said before about you being objective.

Kedaman:

If we copy it atom by atom then we have done sub-atomic cloning... we haven't made artificial life we have simply used the Star Trek transporter technology ;)

If you copied it atom by atom but replaced the organic tissue with innorganic tissue then it wouldn't work.. the whole point of having intelligence is that we are DNA and to date it has not been possible to replicate protein chains in inorganic material. You would find making a copy like this would cause certain "properties" of our human brain to simply not function, the levels of chemical balance and electrical conductivity would change and the whole thing would be thrown out of balance and it would fail

BTW, You can "DISPROVE" the earth is flat. Simply take that person, head in one single direction and show that you reach the place where you started from... OR drill directly through the centre of the earth until you come up the other side.

What you CANNOT do, (and I said this before) is PROVE anything!!!! Science can NEVER prove something true... it can only DISPROVE something false.

[Sam Finch]

All this talk of new forums I think we need a philosopy forum. I don't think an atom by atom representation of the human brain is possible as it would require a complete knowlege of physics, including the wave/particle Ideas of quantum mechanics which is currently belived to be random but I would dispute this, considering instead the posibility that the QM laws are governed by a chaotic equation that is as yet undiscovered, assuming this and going back to the randomness Idea, can anyone give me an example of something truly random, beacause I can't think of anything that is truly random if we are saying that VB random numbers are not random on the grounds that they are derived from a chaotic system on the CPU timer.

Oh yes and as for the idea that you can't prove anything you yourself have just given a proof that the earth is not flat. Just in case you go off on the whole Idea that anything containing a -ve is not a proof I remind you that every equation in the entire of mathematics has been proved from 10 basic axioms which define basicly how to count, and these can be proved by looking at different amounts of blocks.

ie imagine (n=a.b) blocks arranged in a rows of b blocks, then rotate this group of blocks 90 degrees so you are looking at b rows of a colums, I can't remember the exact definition of multiplication but from this it is easy to show that a.b = b.a.

On this grounds I dispute your argument that AI cannot be created due to a lack of computer generated randomness.

N.B. Here is a proof that things can be proved.

Imagine I create an AI machine, I have thus proved that AI can be created, However I cannot prove that AI can be created as this constitutes a proof.

That was a proof that AI cannot be created.

So I have prooved that things can be proved.

luvly luvly.

[HarryW]

What the hell? Dived away from religion? I said in general religion helps people to act morally, and then I said that I think it's human nature to have wars! What's the big contradiction there? Jeez. It's not that complex.


So we are talking something that is NOT different

I beg your pardon, I'm confusing myself? No no, YOU are talking about something that is not different. What makes you think you're so special (by you I mean the human race) that you are already the most complex system possible? You keep making these big statements about the impossibility of some things, but you make these statements having first assumed something else, in this case that any more advanced system would need to be similar to the human brain. That's an assumption. Where did it come from? You've just made a sweeping statement to back up your side of an argument you're determined to win. I'm not trying to say that any of this is going to happen, or is even likely to happen. I'm just saying that I think it's possible.

Your comment on the possibility of it reaoning that string of characters - you already said yourself that the human brain deals with patterns, something you say a computer could never comprehend. Well who's to say that some kind of data like that might have some meaning to the system? You were looking for some kind of abstract data storage.


Isn't that clear enough?

You seem to be hung up on this idea that the reason people disagree with you is because they haven't understood what you've said. I quite understand what you've said, I just don't necessarily agree.

[Mongo]

Cognito ergo code?

[Sam Finch]

As A point to note It isn't human nature to wage war, war was invented by the mongols at about the same time as horseback riding( The mongols discovered that sitting on a horse swinging a sword gave you a considerable combat advantage over a farmer brandishing a sack of corn. They used this knowlege to kill the farmer, steal the corn and run away. War is a product of our intellegence, it is in fact what separaes us from animals.

I don't actually think we're that far off decent AI, give it 20 years or so. we should have something we can hold a decent conversation with, look at furbies, OK they aren't exactly rocket scientists but they display some form of intelegence.

[Gen-X]

Sam :

What a double negative ;)

"Prove it WASN'T flat"

That is "disprove it WAS flat"

Hence what I said was right... you can never prove something is TRUE... you can only ever disprove something.

Look at all of our great paradigm changes... ALL came as as a result of DISPROVING something we thought was absolute at the time.

As for your mathamatical axioms you have simply stated a set of RULES that we decided to adopt that can be found as some of the basic rules of nature... it doesn't PROVE that it is correct... its the INNABILITY to DISPROVE those facts that make them true.

1 + 1 = 2

I cannot PROVE that is so... but because I cannot DISPROVE it we keep it as fact.

As for AI I believe we may have the equivilent of a "Talking Parrot" with some niceties that "resemble" human idioms and behavioral traits... but it will only be that, it is still a LONG, LONG way off from something that thinks for itself.

Harry:

You started to say how religion would make us live in harmony. I then showed you how most wars were started by religion thus being the antithesis of harmony. You realised this and then pointed the finger at humanity and attempted to reduce the visibility of religion in this. A smoke screen. I am sure others would agree with me, Kedaman already did, Sam pointed out human nature is not war.

So I repeat... nice divergance. I would assertain from this that you are a person who believes in God... Am I right?


I beg your pardon, I'm confusing myself? No no, YOU are talking about something that is not different. What makes you think you're so special (by you I mean the human race) that you are already the most complex system possible?


This statement confirms your confusing yourself.

Who EVER said anything about US being the most complex system?!?!??!

I simply said that "WE CANNOT CREATE A MORE COMPLEX SYSTEM THAN OURSELVES"

That you misunderstood this shows that the original points are something you are no longer discussing.

Our original discussion was like this :

- Humans creating AI
- That AI knowing something we dont

How on earth did you ever get out of all that an assumption that we are the most complex of all systems!?!? I do believe you are placing your own views on this which was exactly my scepticism in the beginning.

Did I not say "The CREATED can never outdo the CREATOR"?

Try to explain how what you are now saying fits in with these simple statements which were the whole basis of our original conversation and I will accept you are not confused

[Sam Finch]

The whole point of "proove the earth isn't flat" is to show that your statement contradicts itself and therefore disproves itself, about the mathematical proofs, we do not assume anything, we merely define an operation, which is a perfectly valid method of proof. you Idea that the created can never outdo the creator, this goes against the whole Idea of evolution, which is pretty widly accepted as ideas go.

what you failed to address is the Ideas of randomness which was central to your argument and the proof that proof was possible.

oh and 1 + 1 = 2 is a definition of the number 2 where 1 is defined as the identity under multiplication.

[HarryW]

Well I don't really think my religious standing is really relevant, but since you ask, I don't hold strong views either way.

As to your neat little explanation of my supposed 'dive', (by the way thank you for 'showing me' the error in my ways *Laughs*) I think you'll find that I said religion can be a good thing because it encourages a good system of morals. You've plucked 'harmony' out of nowhere. In fact Kedaman then reiterated this in his own way. I still stand by what I said - religion generally encourages a good system of morals. The problem is that people have differing opinions and argue, as you should be able to tell by now.

Okay so I got slightly the wrong end of the stick, you think we cannot create something that knows more than us (the human race obviously). Now before you start telling everyone how we don't know this and we don't know that, what if we find out? And then again you are assuming that the best system we could create would be based on our own brains.

Just out of interest, if you think that it is impossible for a creator to create something 'greater' than themselves, who or what is it that you think created the human race?

[Gen-X]

Sam:


The whole point of "proove the earth isn't flat" is to show that your statement contradicts itself and therefore disproves itself


I disagree.


POSTULATION : The earth is flat
PROOF : Cannot provide
DISPROOF : Curcumnavigation


Where is the contradiction in that?

Show me ANY example where science has PROVED something to be true?


you Idea that the created can never outdo the creator, this goes against the whole Idea of evolution, which is pretty widly accepted as ideas go


Sam, Sam, Sam.... Since when is Evolution considered the same as Creation!?!?!?

Evolution is a force of nature, it doesn't NEED to know how things work because they simply react to the environments around them... thats why water boils, ice melts, rain condenses, clouds form...

Not because someone has PROGRAMMED them to do so... simply because that is the net effect caused by the application of external forces to the atomic structure of the item in question itself.

That humanity gives BIRTH to new children doesn't mean we CREATED those children... we simply procreated!!!

Surely you see the difference???


what you failed to address is the Ideas of randomness which was central to your argument and the proof that proof was possible


How would you like me to address randomness?

To say that the terminology of "random" is only given to something which we cannot currently understand a pattern for? That we dig a deeper level and again it is random until we develop tools and methods to explain its actions.

Here is where my personal opinion comes in. I personally think that we can continue to delve deeper and deeper into randomness, peeling away layers and exposing them to have very DISTINCT patterns and order... BUT, at some point we cannot go further and STILL there will be randomness... and it is THAT randomness which houses the ultimate consciousness of sentience. That is why I personally believe we can never create an Artificial Intelligence that is nothing more than a big computer following OUR rules.

Harry:


I think you'll find that I said religion can be a good thing because it encourages a good system of morals


Does it?

- Mass Murder (French Inquisition)
- Elitism (OUR religion is the TRUE religion)
- Xenophobia (You are Heathens)
- Control (We must avangelise to the natives of islands)

I could go on ALL day about the attrocities done under the banner of religion and NONE of them have to do with a good system of morals.


religion generally encourages a good system of morals.


Hehehehe.... Funny how you have now added that word "generally"... so are you sticking by what you said or now tempering it with the understanding that it wasn't as absolute as you had first said it?


And then again you are assuming that the best system we could create would be based on our own brains.


Am I? I was the one that kept telling people AI using our brains as examples wont work... I am concerned that you keep finding things that I dont say and "assume" that is what I am saying when my words themselves show otherwise.

I want to ask you a question... one that is more important you answer than any other...

"Do you accept that I have always said using the human brain as the base is NOT feasible and that your assumption that I have is incorrect?"

Your answer to this question will tell me if conversation is even worth persuing if you even get the most basic facts of what I say wrong. (I know you will see this as me trying to "show you"... but it is your prejudice against my often hostile approach of scientific analysis and not the fact that I think I am any better than anyone else... I said in the beginning that if you can't show me something that stands out as being obvious then I wont believe you. I know my methods come across as aggressive, that is a flaw of mine but please don't misinterpret them)


Just out of interest, if you think that it is impossible for a creator to create something 'greater' than themselves, who or what is it that you think created the human race?


Why does it need a "creator"???

If you read above we exist because of the universe. Factors came into play, a perfect set of environmental factors etc, etc such that the existing matter moulded to compensate for those factors and humanity was produced.

Its the complex strands of proteins and DNA that contain all the information required to react to any event that effect it... Some would cause it to die, some cause it to evolve... but ALL of its requirements are already self-contained... its NOT mutation and its NOT survival of the fittest... evolution as people know it is wrong as far as I am concerned.

[kedaman]

Hence what I said was right... you can never prove something is TRUE... you can only ever disprove something.

You can proove and disproove nothing here people! The only thing you can do is suppose and guess. Maybe Science has built an enormous illusion on a another even if there is a 100-1E-9999999999999999999999 % chance that it's not.

AI is going to be the next step, even if it is completely simulated. You won't notice the difference, because randomness is not how this world works. As we might not create AI that is better than us in intelligence, why bother? We can always create AI that is million times more effective in doing the brainwork, we're doing, the "true intelligence" part is not what they need, because it will only slip out of our control, endangering humanity. True AI is as impossible to CREATE as it is dangerous. To evolve true AI is possible, but that's my beliefs in that were not random.

I believe in god, but I disagree with stating religions to split us apart, causing wars. Sam - taking a farmers corn is not war, it's robbery. War is when two components fight each other. Human nature is, yes what causes war: We aren't only fighting each other to get food, like animals do, we fight because we wan't power (and religion means power)


POSTULATION : Earth is flat
PROOF : None
DISPROOF : None

POSTULATION : Earth is round
PROOF : None
DISPROOF : None

Why : There is not proof that Earth exists.


Ok, don't start yelling at me now, The only thing we know is that we are. Everything else have at least a chance of being a illusion. No-one did again respond to my question of "souls". I guess nobody have any good arguments to this. I don't care. Just wan't to know your opinions about this.

Evolution is creation, as an illusion, i don't know Sam, what you believe in, but i agree... BTW Gen-x, What is force of nature?

Anyone? Gen-x you have loads of arguments to stay in your beliefs, then why can't you disproove even something in my theory? By the randomness, we're the opposite.

Lain17: Were not creator of each others, we can modify each very other but not create.
Cbomb: how do you know that is a true story? Anyway, I agree, Human nature tells us to explore, find explanaitions. Our needs is to know. What we can't explain, we take for supernatural, according to our needs. God is bound to appear everywhere. But then religion gives us the false picture of him.

[Cbomb]

I have no proof what-so-ever that the story is true. Just the word of my teacher/friend. In all likely-hood the story could be/was fabricated by an ex-pope during one of the enlightenment periods, to spark intrest.

[Sam Finch]

I doubt it's actually true but it's a good story.

I used the existance of god as a way of disproving Gen-X's idea that the created cannot outdo the creator, I didn't say got didn't exist I just said that we couldn't prove that he Exists (I think Beatrand Russel proved that we can't prove the existance of God)

[Gen-X]

All:

Ok. I think the first thing I have to do is define what I mean when I say "CREATE". The thread has shown me that what I am talking about and what you have been talking about are 2 different things....

When I say the word CREATE... I mean it like when we build a computer. We work out its schematics, where everything goes, what everything does and we put it together.

We ARE after all talking about the CREATION of an Artificial Intelligence... which means to CREATE it we need to work out exactly what it does like a computer....

So when I say the Created can never outdo the Creator I am talking in this context.

Questions of giving birth to a child, or educating someone or in any other way effecting an ALREADY SENTIENT being is NOT what I mean when I say creation.

Now perhaps I should use the word "CONSTRUCT" instead... Would that make it easier for us to both be talking about the same thing?!?!

Sam:

YOU were the one that asked me to explain randomness... Why then do you jump to the conclusion that my whole argument from the beginning was about randomness when it was YOU who prompted me for this!?!?

Think about it for a moment. Human beings are either 1 of 2 things :

1. A creation of God

This means we will NEVER be able to create TRUE AI because God won't let his little creations start tinkering with his job.

2. A Random occurance... One in a Zillion!!!

This means that if it took a Zillion tries for the Universe to create Sentient Life, WE would take a Zillion tries to get Artificial Life.

Once again... BOTH of them suggest that there will never be a TRUE creation of "Human-Engineered-Artificial-Intelligence" that replicates our own sentience.

Can I spell it out any clearer than that!?!? Or do you have something new to add to the mix?


But as this is out creator it is obviously more intellegent than us.


Oh now THIS I love!!!

WHY does it have to be more intelligent? Why does it have to have intelligence at all? You whole contradictory argument here falls completely on its face at this flaw.

Humanity was created by the universe... NOT as a carefully constructed entity but simply as a reaction to its own environment... a one in a Zillion occurance. There is no intelligence involved. The universe is NOT a CREATOR because a CREATOR is something sentient that DECIDED to make the creation....

That would be like saying that the wind CREATES the waves, that it thinks to itself "Mmmm... I think I would like to SHAPE this water to be what I shall call a WAVE". Now I am sure you will say that it DOES "create" the wave... but I remind you to look at the definition of creation again.

Sam, I would suggest you speak with a few scientists... their methodology has always been about disproof. Theories ONLY gain credibility when they have stood up to scrutiny NOT because someone has come up with a self-satisfying proof

Lets take your 1 + 1 = 2 for example :

Is that PROOF? Is it even REAL!?!?

I say NO.

1 lump of Clay + 1 lump of Clay = 1 BIGGER Lump of Clay.

What's this!?!?

Have I found that your 1 + 1 <> 2!!!!!

But then again... 1 + 1 = 2 is only a mathematical "DEFINITION"... a "RULE" that we have come up with. Rules are NEVER proved or disproved because there is nothing to prove them against.

Cbomb:
Belief in a higher power is a mental deficiency. At some point *SOME* Human beings are incable to intellectually functioning unless they can place the responsibility and PURPOSE of their existance to a higher power. Of course it must be DISPROVABLE!!! If it wasn't then they couldn't use it as a crutch now could they.

Kedaman:

we fight because we wan't power (and religion means power)

Religious people ALSO say "Power Corrupts". Does this mean that people who are religious actively "FIGHT" because they WANT to be corrupted!?!?!

Be careful in your words, you say you believe in God and yet what you are saying here is that Religion is something to be "WIELDED" and not something to BELIEVE in.


BTW Gen-x, What is force of nature?


There are 4 Forces in the Universe... and ONLY 4. These are what controls and governs EVERYTHING within our universe.

1. Magnetism
2. Gravity
3. Weak Chemical Bond
4. Strong Atomic Bond

It is the interaction of these forces that cause atoms, molecules and particles to behave in relation to each other... These are the "forces of Nature".


then why can't you disproove even something in my theory?


Which theory is that? Give me one clear and consise theory with your postulations and I will point out a flaw in one of those postulations if it exists... if it doesn't that means your theory will hold (until some point in the future when MORE is known about it... after all, the earth was the centre of the universe for over 300 years)

[JazzBass]

Hi guys,
Yikes!

I would like to add my two cents in this.

About the earth being round. We do have proof. Man has been to space and has seen the earth. Before that, the Bible spoke of the "Circle of the Earth." Science has proven that the earth is round.

Gen X,
I personally take offensive in your statement to Cbomb that:
"Belief in a higher power is a mental deficiency."

I don't think it is a mental deficiency. Humans were not the product of the universe. They were created. Much like a chair is not the product of a house. A house was built, created. A house will not come up in the middle of a forest after a zillion tries or years or whatever. That's silly.

A house was constructed by someone and all of the furnishings were constructed by someone too.

The universe was created by a supreme, intelligent being. That being is God. You can see the wisdom and power in creation. Take the forces of the wind, storms. Also, take the water cycle. The earth replenishes itself with this cycle. Take the sun. It puts out a nuclear explosion like around 100,000 million megatons (I don't recall how often), whereas with atomic bomb only but around like 57 megatons.

Even some scientists have pointed out that by the way the universe functions, with it's laws and how everything is just so, means that a supreme, intelligent being created it. (Newton, and others) It was wonderfully designed and created, not thrown together by chance.

I can go on and on, but as to your argument that there's a mental deficiency in believing in a higher power; There is no mental deficiency

Jazzbass

[Edited by JazzBass on 04-28-2000 at 05:50 AM]

[kedaman]

Universe is

1. Creation of God, not Random, has beginning and end.
2. Created by don't know <-- Why?
a) Big bang
Random
has end
has no end
Not Random
has end
has no end
b) PreIllusion
Not Random
has end
has no end
3. Have always existed
Random
has no end
4. An illusion
Not random
has no end
has end


There are 4 Forces in the Universe... and ONLY 4. These are what controls and governs EVERYTHING within our universe.

I don't believe in that. But as I have learned them on physical lessons, i take them almost as granted.


Which theory is that? Give me one clear and consise theory with your postulations and I will point out a flaw in one of those postulations if it exists... if it doesn't that means your theory will hold (until some point in the future when MORE is known about it... after all, the earth was the centre of the universe for over 300 years)

Universe is not RANDOM. Clear enough? One in a zillion makes no sense, it's enough for me to take universe not for random.

Not so religious people want to have power, by using religion. This way it also advance by changing the religion and diversify, splitting religions apart.

JazzBAss- theres no proof that you saw Earth.
Mental deficiency? Yeah, that can't be, we're human beings, and it's human nature that we believe in god. Then is it mental defiency to be human beign? Mental defiency must define something abnormal.

[JazzBass]

Kedaman,
I don't understand your statement to me. There's no proof that I've seen Earth? Not trying to be smart, but I've seen pictures. I've heard of Astronaut's eye witness accounts and science has documented it. Including with what the Bible says, that's enough proof for me.

Is that what you mean? That I have not gone out in space and seen the Earth with my two eyes? Just trying to make sure I know what you're saying.

JazzBass

[John]

I would like to thank you all for keeping this thread so good mannered, especially since there are obviously a lot of different views. I would like to stress though, that people are only expressing their opinion. If that is what they beleive then so be it.

I am going to move this thread to the chit chat forum as I feel that it would be more appropriate there.

John

[Fox]

Mmh, this is a really long threed... well, I didn't read the whole thing (some parts are a bit difficult for my spare english ;)) so I just (try to) tell you what I think:

[My opinion]
First let me tell ya, I don't believe in god.

-Now about the universe-
I think it's random coz random can be everything (because it's random ;)). Well, my mind is't big enough to understand where the universe comes from, when the time did start or such things. But I don't care... I know that I'm here and I live my life. I only do what I want or need to do and that's what I call Life.

-AI-
Well, to create an AI we must first define what's intelligence and that's probably impossible. I'd define intelligence as a reaction to the actual situation based upon collected informations like experience and knowledge, limited by the self-preservation (or maybe instincts?).
Well, to make such a thing we need to define what's knowledge and how would you store experience... *shrugs* I have really no idea about these things...
[/My opinion]

[kedaman]

John! make a philosophy forum!

[Sam Finch]

Gen-X

WHY does it have to be more intelligent? Why does it have to have intelligence at all? You whole contradictory argument here falls completely on its face at this flaw.



Sorry, I thought You's be Familiar with the Idea of proof by contradiction. what I did was this.

I took your statement
A the Created cannot outdo the creator
and the statement
B God does not exist.

I then used these 2 assumptions to show that the source of heat that created us is more intellecent that we are, which is obviously false.

as there was no flaw in my logic, one of the 2 starements A or B must be False.

Bertrand Russel Showed that it was impossible to show statement B to be false so statement A must be false because if it is true then we have a proof that statement A is false.


1. A creation of God

This means we will NEVER be able to create TRUE AI because God won't let his little creations start tinkering with his job.

2. A Random occurance... One in a Zillion!!!



I dispute the Idea that it is a zillion to one chance that sentient life came about on earth and anyway, that's pretty irrelevant because we're here.

The Idea that God wouldn't let us create something more intellegent that us is completly unfounded.

you I don't know If you have seen examples of AI through Artificial selection but some of them are showing sign's of intellegence although I doubt they're self aware. and by your definition of creation(which you change every post) we arn't creating them so that's alright.

I don't quite get where you're getting this Idea that nothing can be proved. going back to the example of the earth being round it was proved to be round by Plato, who pointed out first that

A The moon must be round as if it were a disk we would see it change shape as it went round the earth and we saw it from it's side.

as the moon is round we can see that the earth is round as again if it were a disk we would see it's shadow differently on the moon.

He backed this up with lot's of drawings about how the shadow would look for diffent shapes of the earth and moon but it was a proof, by logic that the earth was round.

I get what you're saying about nothing being proved only disproved but it is completly irrelevent. Ok Plato didn't proove the earth was roung, he disproved that it was flat, but in systematicly disproving every possible shape of the earth he proved it to be flat. This is called proof by elimination.

Things are not proved by a self satisfying argument, they are proved from an indiputable argument.

oh and your lovely idea that 1+1=1, go and look up the + operator.

[kedaman]

Plato didn't proove that earth is round, there's no proof that Plato ever existed, there's no proof that moon is round alos theres no proof that moon exists at all, and for that 1+1=1 there is no proof like for 1+1=2. There is no proof that God exist or not, there is no proof that evolution exists, there is no proof that Gen-x exists neither HarryW, Sam Finch, Fox, or all others that have posted to this thread or the Grey vbworld thread. There is no proof that vb-world exists, there is no proof that Earth exists. Theres only a proof that i am. As there is always that possibility that parts of or more likely everything of this universe is simulated. My consciousness is the only thing I can thurst.

Hope you people got it. Science is built up on air.

[b]Back in the old days, people couldn't explain things well so all they said is that God did created the universe. Think about it, that's the simplest solution there is to everything. People are just too lazy to find the truth and they say that God did it.

Keep in mind that I DO believe in God, the above is just a thought.

[Cbomb]

You expressed on of my views perfectly! Cool!

In addition, people maybe afraid of what the truth might actually be. What if the truth is so bizarre and unheard of that people's minds just regect the answer in fear of the dramatic change. Imagine that we discover our world is actually a virtual plane with limitations just like that of a computer. Gravity, Light, Love is all just a bunch of switches that are on or off.

(Obviously a plot taken from The Matrix....but still a very thought provoking idea!)

Oh PS: I used the word 'people' as the general inhabitants of our little planet :)

[kedaman]

Planet and planet, we just are a childs imagination, a computer program, dots in the matrix, lemmings in that old game lemmings or just passengers in a plane that run out of fuel, An atom in a complex molecule. I think were god's creations, individually, and if AI is going to be the next step, God is creator of that too.

God is simply the most simple answer to the question. It's because it's meant to be. Believing in 1 in a zillion theory, or a "we are not what we think what we are" is just not likely. God solves every question

Sub God_Load
Dim x as new universe
x.add time
x.add space
x.add matter
x.add energy
x.run
End Sub

:) You displayed the creation well frm a VB Programmers point of view.

CBomb, I wouldn't be suprised if something like that is true, we only know about 0.0000000000000000000000001 about
our universe itself. There are many other wondering out there. For example, time travel, do you think it's possible? The laws of Special Relativity say so. What about the size of the universe? How big doyou think it is? If it is a finite size, then what is beyond it?

[kedaman]

Megatron, I really love you're coming up with those classical Q's

First, we know "nothing" about about universe, according to THGTTG, because we know a part of it and universe is unlimited so we know relatively nothing. That's true if we just round it to any value, an integer or a floating point or whatever, we will get to the value 0%. But we will get a value if we have an analogue. So you kindo have a bit harder to express this value.

Timetravel: I have not so far any point, but I have made a big mysterious about this in my book, there's a timetraveller that confuses the world, but actually the theories all are about illusions, and then again it's possible, and keeps oscillating between possible and not.

Size of universe: I think it's unlimited, no walls no nothing, just unlimited space without matter (vacuum) to all directions. We're (refering to all galaxes) just a spot of matter in the middle of it. IF we're expanding forever, we will be slowly dematerialize until everything's so outspread that there's 10000 parceks between every elemental particle. (This isn't my theory, just don't remember who i'm refering to) otherwise were going into GIB GNAB (refering to THHGTTG)

[Fox]

Erm, what is THGTTG?

I believe that the universe is like a fractical. For those of you that don't know what a fractical is, it's sort of this. Picture a round ball with smaller round balls orbiting it. Now picture the samller rounds balls with balls orbitng them etc. etc.

Anyhow, I am getting waaaay off topic here but here's a little thought. When someone dies, thier soul drifts up into space and gets sucked in a backhole and ends up in "the other side" which is right here! This goes back to the fractical i explained earlier. No matter how big, or how small you are, no matter what dimension you are travlling in, you always end up in the same spot. If you've seen the movie "The Sixth Sense," that's somewhat what I'm talking about. There could be dead people right beside you right now but you don't even know, because they are living in the other dimension, not ours - yet we are still in the same place. Get my drift?

What does this have to do with the universe? Well I believe that the Universe is a fractical. It could be a little atom in another universe (obviously much bigger) and that universe is an atom of another universe and so on and so on.

[kedaman]

Megatron, u have some huge explanations of how universe works. Actually ure just messing up the word "universe" with something else. I have say that i had some similar thoughts when i was younger going from atom to galaxy, and from that into more and more and more bigger things. I just made my own names for the really big ones. And for smaller things than atoms i had about 15 more smaller in order, that was one big thought but it stayed in this universe. I was already into this kind of math when i was 10 year old boy, so i created my own prefixed down from attometer (10^-18) to 10^30 to explain my how my fantasy-world worked.

Now back to the topic. u told me about dying, and then we go a level up in the universe scale? Did i get u right? How do we see that level down universe from here? In atoms?

Look down at your keyboard. It's composed of many small atoms. Each atom could be a whole different universe.
As you gradually exit your universe into another parallel universe, I don't really know what you'd see. I like the idea of atoms because as the black hole sucks you in, you are also being blown out into the parallel universe. If you are the same size as you were in your old universe, you would incease at a dramatic level in order to retain your original size. So I guess for a split second, you might see the world as a bunch of atoms.

[Sam Finch]

Hmm, I'm objecting to the new Ideas even more than I objected to the old ones, let's see.

How Big In is the Univese?

The universe is a big shere with radius cT, where c is the speed of light and T is the age of the universe. what's beyond it doesn't have a meaning because there's no way of getting there and you can't see it because light must have got there and bounced back for you to see it.

The Universe as an atom in another universe
thios is a lovely idea, I thought about it a coulple of years back and it's implied in the end sequence of Men in Black, It's perfectly possible and there's no way of proving for or against it(see above, what's outside the universe)

TimeTravel

In my view, (and this is very much just my view) time travel is not only possible but happens all the time(don't get petty about the definition of time here). it's quite hard to explain it exactly, first some rules about Relitivity. if we imagine a sort of 4 dimentional view of the universe with one of them being "time", now just imagine something moving through space, what would it look like in our SpaceTime? It would be a line, with "Now" as a point on that line, the future as everything to one side of that point and the past as everything to the other side, relitivity says thet "Now" is in fact everything perpendicular to the line at that point(this is a lot easier to imagine if you think of space as 2 dimensions of space time and "Time" as the other one) what is "Now" acording to this definition is everything that the point can see, I can't see into the future because my future self is in the way.

Ok I hope that's in your head, now imagine 2 particles, a matter particle and an antimatter particle which wander around as 2 seperate lines and then hit each other and destroy each other, imagine this on the spacetime diagram, it's just one line that changes direction and goes back in time.

Hope that's cleared everything up.

[Cbomb]

Once again you express my opinions perfectly!

I'm going to round up some general beliefs of mine, so all can comment:


1. I belive time travel is possible, I belive someone (most likely Alien) is already messing with it.
2. Your fractal universe is exactly what i think.
3. Upon exiting OUR universe (3rd Dimension) you enter the fractal just 'above' ours, which leads me to belive that would be the 4th Dimension.
4. Ancient Intelligence - I belive in some aspects the ancients, such as the Greeks, and the Egyptians knew more about some things that we aren't bothering to explore. Such as telekinesis. (just an example)
5. The Great Pyramids are to massive and complex to be tombs. Thats just following my logic. I really dont know what they are, but I've read theories about them being a water pump or a battery, both make more sence than a tomb to me.


Ok thats all of the ones I can think of at the moment. Megatron do you share any of these beliefs?
Everyone, attack or agree with some of my thoughts here..I'm interested in what you all think!

-----Later-----

Oh, as for death I dont think that a person is even aware of their own death. Imagine an infine number of parallel lines. Each being the timeline in a diffent universe as they relate to you. (this is very hard for me to explain so hold on) I'm driving in a car in one of theses universes and suddenly I'm hit head on and killed instantly. My theory: somehow your 'consciousness' knows this is about to happen and you are ejected into another timeline where this event is a "near miss" and you live on...you are never aware of the transiton though... Interesting no?

[Edited by Cbomb on 04-29-2000 at 05:00 PM]

[Sam Finch]

CBomb, this is really wierd, but the Idea that every possibility could coexist as a parralell universe as you're suggesting is in fact impossible, it's a relly hardcore mathsy argumentwhich I'm not even going to tyr to explain but basicly even if you had an infinite number of infinitley large dimensions to hold all these parralel universes there would not be enough room to hold them all even if they were infinitley close together.

as for what happens when you die, did you know that when you're asleep and you have a dream that seems to last for an hour it only lasts four seconds in real time (those numbers are probably wrong)

If we extrapolate this I reckon as you get closer and closer to death and become less and less concious we can fit more thought into less time, so It seems that your second to last second seems like it lasts an hour, your second to last half second seems to last 2 hours and so on so it seems like your dying moment goes on forever, this gives you a lot of time to think, if you were a bad person then you feel guilty about it and just spend an etertity being guilty, if you were a good person you spend an eternity feeling pleased with yourself, which is a fairly rational explanation of heaven and hell.

This is sort of what I mean when I say that god exists and doesn't exist it's the same way hell doesn't exist but you still go there when you die.

[kedaman]

FOX:
Sorry, forgot your qwestion,
Well THGTTG is The bookseries of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, one o my favorites (by Douglas Adams)
GIB GNAB is the reversed thing to BIG BANG


SAM:

How Big In is the Univese?

U don't know if we can exceed c yet! Think about Warp engine, The definition is not trekky fantasy, pushing space forward while moving in it you will relatively exceed c, however I don't know how the heck we would accelerate to that speed in a reasonable time.

The atom is another universe

Wait an c. Science may have some more to tell us in those x years we have left.

TimeTravel
This is also something Science yet haven't prooved/disprooved.


CHOMB:
It's a bit hard for me to Disagree or Agree with you, but i have some comments and questions
1. What makes you believe in aliens? If they were messing it, are they ignoring us? Have u seen an alien?
2. It seems that this is one hard to proove/disproove and have comments on, For me, it's based up on so much air, I'm leaving this behind
3. Same thing. This theory really doesn't explain much, but it surely impress all
4. Telekinesis - Bullshit. I don't want to go into this either, it's a big area to explore for such a, for this universe, incompatible idea
5. Gives me thoughts about 5'th element. Also in the game Civilisation, a granary in every city.

The parallell universes thing is a interesting area. But it requires another definition for universe than i have given in my theory *ambiguous name detected* HEhe. Well I had this theory that everything is possible, as soon as you go to the correct universe. Like a prism divide up light in colours, universe splits up in infinite amount of parallell universes which by the dx of time again splits up in infinite amount of parallell universes raising in amount after bigbang, we could just have a remote control to jump between these and have a universe where everything is exactly as you want. This theory is huge.

[Sam Finch]

OK, if we're going to use this warp engine idea then what's pushing the deformation in space along, there's 2 reasons why you can't go faster than light, but the main one is there just isn't enough energy in the universe

[Cbomb]

Sam,

Well im not a hardcore math loving person ;) there for just answer me these questions three:

What do you mean room?
Are you saying that there is a finite space in which every reality/time/etc exists?
And is this (i assume) equation proven or (for the sake of the entire post) disproven, or is it a theory?

Kedaman,

Do you mean telekinesis is incompatible with our reality? (Our system doesn't have the correct drivers? :) )

As for the belief in aliens...The Drake equation. It just doesn't make sence that we are alone in the universe. A mighty big waste of space dont you think? Or maybe the aliens are us...just in the future. I'm sure you'e heard of UFO's? Most I belive are hoaxes, some are military related, but then again you never know.

And what is THGTTG?

Everyone,

(Very dumb and out of the blue question)
Does any one here work for JPL or 'Skunkworks'?

[Edited by Cbomb on 04-29-2000 at 07:52 PM]

[Sam Finch]

The Idea is that some infinities are bigger than others, 2 infinities are the same "Size" if there is a way of matching every item in one group with every Item in the other, for example you can show that there are the same number of even numbers as there are numbers.

1 goes with 2
2 goes with 4
3 goes with 6
...
n goes with 2n

because there is no even number not in this list and no number not in the other list you have mached every number with an even number, so there must be the same number of numbers as even numbers.

This Idea was put forwards by a guy called George Cantor in about 1400 and nobody has come up with a resonoble objection.

I actually got something wrong, they would all fit in an infinite number of dimensions, just nut in any finite number of dimensions, but if there was an infinite number of dimensions then 2 points could be in the same place, a finite distacne apart and an infinite distance apart at the same time (try doing pythagoras in infinate dimensions) which is just silly.

you can show that evry point on any number of dimensions can be mapped to a unique reality, if we consider the number of decisions made, but no matter how many dimensions you have there are not enough points to mach one with every possibility of things that could happen.

[kedaman]

Sam: I have thought about that, but how do the do in startrek then`? Can you explain that one? An how do u expain those aliens we have seen so often? Ok, i give up on that one, until they have come up with one new. BTW how much energy are we talking about? eW? 10^21W? If we minityarize into a molecule size, how much energy would we need then?

Chomb: Read my last post about THGTTG. I think there's infinite space, almost all of it vacuum. the matter have just not had enough time to expand over it all. only 16 billion years, and that is c*16*10^9=48*10^17 which is 4.8 exameter in radius according to Sam. I'm not sure if have the values correct, correct me if not.

That's a big waste of space, 0% of it is vacuum. Why would there be aliens in vacuum? There's not a chance that there are aliens, if God didn't want there to be. I think if there were aliens, then we would be brothers, like related by somesort of microbacteria that spread out over universe and then accidentally landed on earth and the other(s) alien planets.

[Cbomb]

I do belive that we must have some kind of cosmic tie that relates us (if they are there). But why would Earth be the only planet with life on it? Can life be so rare that it is only blessed upon one planet in any given reality? I dont think so. What do you say?

Cbomb, we think alike.

There is o way possible that Earth is the only planet with life on it. One scientist predicted that there was 10,000 sources of intelligent life in our galixy alone.

Think about the size of the universe compared to even our own galixy. There must be some sort of intelligent life out there. Even if it's 10^1000 lightyears away.

I believe that there are aliens around. They could even be humans living in a distant planet far far away. Scientists say the you need heat the support life and you need oxygen to support life, but what the hell do they know about other life. Other life may not give a care for oxygen. They may not care about heat either.

Another thought about Aliens
I also believe that the ancient Egyptian pyrminds were a realted with aliens in some way, that had links or something. As far back as 5000 BC, the Egyptians had etchings of UFO's in their pyrminds. Here's another astonishing fact: In the ancient pyrmids, they had carved an aircaft out of solid gold. Scientists didn't know what it was until the 1940's when it was identified as the Delta Wing Jet. This EXACT modal was made about 4000-5000 years before the craft was invented. This means that they egyptians had contact with an advanced civilization or even an ancient advanced civilization on earth that was wiped out.

[Cbomb]

And, like you said, that 10,000 is only counting the possibility of Carbon based life. What about Silicon? Imagine a distant planet with an atomosphere of Methane (ick!) the life there could be huge crystal structures that hardly ever grow and have life spans of over a thousand years. If we did discover something like this on a visit to some planet we wouldn't recognise this as life at all. We would think it is just some rocks.

Or how about electromagnetic life? I'm not sure how this would work but it seems possible. (I took this one from Virus)

[kedaman]

Exceeding speed of light

I just come up with the thought about making warp technology possible in smallscale at nanometer level. If there's no way to speed up space large as spaceships would need to exceed c, then why not at smallest possible scale. You may think we cannot minityarize ourselves, but (i have watched too much on trekkies) we can similar to teleporter technology, just break down into particles and go trough a starlane of warped space. To keep the starlane online we just need to put it cycling between some points ie some planets in our nearby starsystems and we cant go trough that starlane consuming no energy at all, and while the starline is not producing any friction, it's not consuming any energy either. This maybe sounds dramatically strange and impossible, so give me you thoughts about it

[Sam Finch]

I don't think it makes very much sense

[Gen-X]

There is too much here to reply to...

So what I thought I would do is paraphrase for you all some currently held scientific beliefs which I have read from science journals at University.

1. How big is the Universe?

This is determined by the total sum energy of the universe. It has 3 possibilities :

+ve
The universe BENDS space such that it is a hypersphere that turns in on itself. You can travel in ANY direction and end up where you started from. If this is true then the Universe is NOT infinate and asking "what exists outside that?" is an invalid question because the term "outside" has no point of reference here. As a result of its inward bend it will reach a threshhold where its matter cannot sustain an outward motion and will collapse in on itself. (Repeated BigBang theory)

Zero
The universe is actually FLAT. Space is neither bent in or out. We don't KNOW what lies beyond it but it would be assumed that it is a void of some kind. The universe may not have been created by a big bang but by a reaction of positive and negative plasma (Plasma theory)

-ve[/]i
The universe BENDS space outward, like a hyperbola. As a result of this it is continuously expanding (internally that is, increasing the distance between everything NOT expanding into a void) and eventually everything will be so far apart eventually the universe will die a slow death (Entropy theory)

2. Can we travel faster than light?

Scientists have actually found particles that travel faster than the speed of light. As the theory of light travel is based on the MASS of an item (thus making it infinately massive at the speed of light), these particles which have ABSOLUTELY NO MASS travel beyond the speed of light with ABSOLUTELY NO TIME DISTORTION.

3. Possibility of Time Travel

It is true that time dilates for entities with mass travelling closer to the speed of light. This effect however is RELATIVE and only directed FORWARDS. The example was given of a 20 year period where one person is travelling at light speed. One ages 20 years while the other ages only 3 years. Nobody has time travelled!! Nobody has gone BACKWARDS in time... they have simply changed the flow of time (it is STILL forward) for them

4. Silicon Based Life

Recent scientific evaluation has suggested that Silicon based life would be impossible.

Why? As carbon based life forms our main substance for survival is WATER (H20). This interaction with our glucose chain produces Carbon Dioxide and Water. In a silicon based form of life the process would create Silicon Dioxide and COULD NOT produce Water as a constituant.

This it would have to use another liquid instead... BUT. Water is such a VERY special substance in our universe.

1. Water is the ONLY liquid whose SOLID form is lighter than its liquid form (Ice floats).

It is because of this that it is possible for life to exist. In cold areas (which MOST of the universe is) ice forms on the surface and FLOATS. This provides a unique environment where no further freezing will occur (like at our polar cap where the water below the ice sheets are FAR below zero but do not freeze).

If it was ANY other liquid element it would freeze and sink to the bottom, thus allowing the top layer to freeze again and the cycle would repeat until the entire planet is completely frozen. And we all know life cannot form if it cannot even MOVE!!!


Now here are some of my own opinions based on some things people have said :

a. God is the simplest answer (kedaman)

You are telling me that the simplest answer to our existance in the universe is that a sentient extra-universal entity made the decision to create an entire universe and "PROGRAM" every single physical law, chemical reaction, sub-atomic interaction, intellectual thought, pre-destined eventuality and sentient inhabitant????

That is NOT simple at all!!!

The most SIMPLEST answer is that WE JUST ARE.

b. Us being 1 in a Zillion is just silly

When you ARE 1 in a Zillion of COURSE you think its silly... because as far as we are concerned we are a 100 in a 100 chance of being here and NOT 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance of being here. Our tiny and feable human minds cannot COMPREHEND this and so because we think we are a 100% chance of existing we postulate that SOMETHING must have created us.

We become egotistical because we think we were MEANT to be here and that we have a PURPOSE in being here.

It took the wright brothers SEVERAL tries before flying... does that mean we were not MEANT to fly because it didn't happen the first time? How do you know that the Human race hasn't started up several HUNDRED times before and only NOW have we been successful?

c. Proof by Contradiction (Sam)

This is a MATHEMATICAL proof only. It has no place in the real world or in science. You have to stop applying mathematical principles to our world... WE designed mathematics... WE came up with the rules... and we refined them to our own specifications.

Is there anywhere in the universe where there is the magical number [i]i Which is the Square Root of -1?

Of course not. We made it up, and then applied our OWN rules of validation to prove it. Science doesn't work like that.

Proof by Elimination. Oh please!!! We don't know ALL the possibilities so eliminating a couple hundred doesn't mean the 101st one is correct!!!

d. Religous people have a mental deficiency.

I think ALL life is an abnormality. It certainly isn't the most common thing in our universe, in fact to our knowledge to date it is the ONLY time it has existed in our universe.

That makes us "in opposition to what is normal"... otherwise known as ABNORMAL.

We are NOT natural... that has been proved by the fact that we no longer abide by the laws of nature. We don't die when we were meant to, we change our own genetics, we live in environments that are not hospitable. Everything nature defines for everything else we ignore.

So when I say religious beliefs is a deficiency I am not being cruel or insulting (yeah I know it doesn't look that way). What I am trying to say is that when a sentient being has to credit its existance, purpose and direction to a "Higher and intangable, unprovable and PERFECT Creator of the Universe" it does suggest due to the extremely unlikely focus that the person would be considered mentally deficient

If you went to a psychologist and described ALL of the things you believe in... but said it was a Rabbit you were talking about and NOT God they would lock you up and throw away the key. It is only because our politically correct world says "NEVER doubt religion" that we allow beliefs in such far fetched things to continue

e. God exists outside of time/space etc, etc

Kedaman, you wanted me to disprove your theory.

1. Man was created in God's image (The Bible)
2. God's image is therefor bipedal, air breathing etc
3. If God exists OUTSIDE time/space then

a. Why were we created in his image?
b. Why is his image that of a planet walking, air breathing biped?

f. Time Travel ala Sam

There is a flaw in your theory. For particles to collide they have to be in 3-dimensional space. If they were only in 1-dimensional space they would never even intersect.

Time is ONE-DIMENSIONAL!!!

Therefor no particles from "parallel" timelines would ever collide with others.

PLUS. Time has only ONE direction. It is a VECTOR just like our first-dimension (funny how the 1st and 4th are the same in properties with one being physical and the other temporal).

It is the 4th-dimension that allows US in the 3rd-dimension to actually exist. Thus to answer Cbomb, you CANNOT exist within the 4th-dimension just like you CANNOT exist in the 1st-dimension.

g. Idea that every possibility could coexist as a parralell universe as you're suggesting is in fact impossible

Sam! Are you saying "impossible" ;)

If the area it is contained in is infinate, then an infinate number of infinates COULD exist in infinity. Heck!!! The whole definition of infinity is that it is the biggest thing there is.

You CAN'T use mathematics again here. If you WANT to I could use it against you ;)

0 + 0 + (0 x infinate) = 0

Therefor I have PROVED that an infinate number of possibilities CAN exist in the same place next to each other

[Sam Finch]

Gen-X - the time travel thing can't really be explained without diagrams, i'm sure there are thousands of objections you could come up with but that isn't one of them, that's what happens when you try to explain a wierd Idea about 4D space in 2 short paragraphs.

I can see your side of the argument that you can't prove anything at all in the real world but using maths to prove things makes sense if you base the logic on what is currently belived to be a good model of the real world, otherwise you might as well give up on science altogether, here's a nice simple mathsy way of proving something.

I am in London.
It is 9 'o' Clock in the morning
Leeds is 200 miles from London
I can't run Faster than 20 miles an hour.

it is easy to proove that I can't get to Leeds in time to meet my freinds at 5:30.

Now you can say

ahh but you can take the train, or drive.

but given the rules I started with I know I can't get to Leeds before 6, If you suggest something and I use a logical answer to prove it wrong,either it is wrong or the laws of physics are wrong, OK, it's not 100% but who cares, it's more likley to be you that's wrong than the laws of physics, using formal logic to argue is called philosophy, which I can only assume is what were doing here.

Studies of infinity are very valid, they are used to prove some mathematical tools that we can use to establish physical laws, a simple example is escape velocity, we couldn't have this concept without a good Idea about infinity, the fact is if we were to try to assign a point in space to every single possibility of the way things could happen you could not do it, it's impossible, no matter how many dimensions you have, how close together you squeeze them, you just can't do it. It's a bit like the Nike Slogan with the word Can't inserted.

The whole God thing.

Stop arguing about it, youre never going to prove anything either way you're just going to offend someone.

[Gen-X]

Sam:

It doesn't matter if it cannot be explained in 2 paragraphs. If you say something like "When I breath water tomorrow" you don't need diagrams to know that the original statement is flawed.

The 4th Dimension is a VECTOR, it is a singularity within itself and if you utilize the existance of additional dimensions to allow "width of time" the vectors themselves will NEVER cross because at those higher levels they do NOT share the same space.

So once again. Particles on different time lines CAN NOT EVER COLLIDE.


I am in London.
It is 9 'o' Clock in the morning
Leeds is 200 miles from London
I can't run Faster than 20 miles an hour.

it is easy to proove that I can't get to Leeds in time to meet my freinds at 5:30.

Now you can say

ahh but you can take the train, or drive.

but given the rules I started with I know I can't get to Leeds before 6


Your "rules" don't say that the mode of transport that MUST be taken is running.

And so given the "rules" I CAN get to Leeds before 6 by RUNNING while standing on a train. Thus I am still running at 20 miles an hour but that is in relation to the speed of the train.

You continually try to use maths to PROVE things in the real world... when it JUST is not possible.

Maths is DEFINATE. It is a collection of attributes and KNOWN properties. SCIENCE is a collection of the attributes and properties THAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW AND UNDERSTAND.

This means that an experiment may not work a second time because we failed to understand a certain property. Mathematics cannot do this, because it relies completely on the fact that all factors are known.

I wish you would start understanding this!!!!


You said to me before. "Look at the definition of +". I did. It means to add, combine, include, put together... and a lot of other things.

So tell me WHERE in your own definition of the mathematical ADDITION : 1 lump of clay + 1 lump of clay <> 1 BIG lump of clay???

Again I show you that the REAL WORLD provides a factor that Mathematics did NOT take into consideration and that you have to place a NEW rule on it that says "You cannot Integrate the 2 items you are Adding"... Once again you have now QUANTIFIED something to make it fit mathematic principles.

Do I really have to explain to you again how every time you use a Mathematical formula to describe a real world situation you will ALWAYS FAIL, because there will be factors beyond your control?

How can studies of infinities be very valid!?!!??! Nobody has ever SEEN or EXPERIENCED an infinity!??!!? We use mathematics to QUANTITY one, and mathematicians tinker around with those THEORIES... but no human being has ever experienced infinity in its LIFE.


As for the God thing... Why can I not be offended??!?!

Why is it always the religious people that are offended by others saying God does NOT exist... and not those people who do NOT believe he exists being offended by those who do?

I find it completely offensive that anybody tells me I was created by some higher power, I find it offensive that I am TOLD the universe I live in was constructed.

I dont see you telling those people to not offend me!

Our world is far too politically correct... always protect the religious, allow them to have their beliefs but also let them stand on street corners raving to people who dont want to listen... THAT is offensive.

[Sam Finch]

Gen-x, this is a very easy point and you understand it already so I don't know why you're objecting.

Maths Works if you don't change the rules.

ok, in my train thing I left an argument out, you know what I meant. Maths is about taking assumptions and extending them into laws, and taking the assumptions back to use fewer assumptions, Maths will always hold if the assumptions don't change, you are essentially saying that maths is useless for real world situations because we are not 100% sure that our assumptions are correct.

what we know about the real world is a model, it's not what actually happens, it's out way of understanding what we see, at the moment i'm having a nice glass of water through a straw(I'm not really but pretend I am) my 4 year old nephew(who I invented for the sake of this argument) asks me how I am drinking the water in the glass, I say that I'm sucking it, pulling it up throught the staw.

Now you know this isn't true, the air around it is pushing it up through the straw, as the pressure is lower in my mouth and the air outside it exerts an equal force in all directions directly proportional to the pressure, this causes a movement in the liquid (F=ma and all that) and the liquid chooses the path of least resistance up the straw.

Now you know this isn't true, Air doesn't exert an equal force in all directions, air is made of particles flying about and colliding with other particles and knocking them about, there are more particles outside the straw than inside it so the particles outside the straw give those inside enough energy to travel up the straw and into my mouth.

but you know this isn't true, particles don't collide, they have an EM field around sutch that as the particles get close to each other the field gets stronger and the repellant force increces.

but you know this isn't true, there's no such thing as a particle, they're waves as well, and I don't understand the physics at this level but something else happens, and what ever happens it's probably not true.

how much of this does my nephew need to know before he can claim to understand what's happening, all he needs to know is he can suck some water up the straw and he becomes less thisty, he knows if he sucks harder he get's more water.

from my second model I can work out exactly how hard to suck to get the right amount of water (if I have lots of information about the circumstances, tempriture air pressure, etc) I can use this information to prove a law that if the pressure in my mouth is P then the water will flow up the straw ar a rate F(P) Nobody will dispute this just because I havn't backed it up by experiment.

I can also use maths to prove other Laws, Engineers use maths to prove that they're brige will stay up, as long as the laws of physics are the same as he leant at engineering school and the bridge is accuratley constructed from his diagrams and is subject to the conditions that he has specifed, ie it might fall down if it is an earthquake but he's stipulated that it won't unless the earthquake is above a 9 on the richeter scale.

you can't just dismiss mathematical arguments because they rely on assumptions.

The whole time travel thing, you did not understand the argument because I didn't explain it very well, try dropping something, I bet it collides with the floor, it's this sort of collision I'm talking about, just with the floor and whatever you dropped destroying each other and looking at it from 4D space.

You're not going to accept the infinity argument, It took me 2 years to accept that this was how infinity worked, It's right, trying to fit all the posibilities of how things could happen is impossible, there's not enough points in space, any space no matter how many dimensions.
it's like trying to fit 6 apples into 5 boxes each of which holds one apple, you can't do it, no matter what boxes you put what apples in there's just not enough boxes, (and don't change the rules by cutting the apples up) Just because nobody's ever experienced Infinity doesn't mean we can't understand it, I've never had the pleasure of being shot but |I know it would hurt

[kedaman]

Sam, i wrote this before your last thread, so i havent readen it yet.
Gen-x, glad your back here, i started to lose faith about this thread.
Te theory is simple, for god it maybe was like 73420972340320724897 years of 2397459734 peoples works, but if he had time, or correct to say, if he didn't have any time to worry about, why not? God are not like we humans, thinking about mircomanaging everything and then get tired of it and leave it. Maybe he just "said" things, maybe he just said it to happen, because had made his own programming language before he started to work with universe, so that he could just "say" a thing and it would happen. This isn't logical put it's outside universe logics, not going to explain this because i will never know. You can't proove or disproove it.

The most SIMPLEST answer is that WE JUST ARE.
-------------------
Our tiny and feable human minds cannot COMPREHEND this and so because we think we are a 100% chance of existing we postulate that SOMETHING must have created us.

When you said "Something must have created us" you must refer to universe? Do you mean that there was no beginning in our universe, we're just in a continous loop or something? Why stating this while posting the 1.How big is universe telling us that universe can be FLAT", that tells universe may have been created by a reaction of positive and negative plasma. The more confusing it gets when you tell that possibly Universe continously expands which means that we must have a starting point when universe is zero size.

1 in a zillion, i just used it for your and others beliefs, i think like you we have 1 in 1 chance of being here, because we're not random at all.

How do you know that the Human race hasn't started up several HUNDRED times before and only NOW have we been successful?

I will never know, but possibly i will be sure when science "proove" it. I'm still theoretical, aren't you?

Is there anywhere in the universe where there is the magical number i Which is the Square Root of -1?

i=sqr(-1), but it's not logical until we declare two dimensions.


I think ALL life is an abnormality. It certainly isn't the most common thing in our universe, in fact to our knowledge to date it is the ONLY time it has existed in our universe.

That makes us "in opposition to what is normal"... otherwise known as ABNORMAL.

What makes you think that we're not normal? We have defined normal, it's our word! Then what is normal and why is it not we that are normal?!?! Normal does not mean perfecT!

a. Why were we created in his image?
b. Why is his image that of a planet walking, air breathing biped?

Don't pull the bible into this, i already said that i haven't taken the bible word for granted.

Time is ONE-DIMENSIONAL!!!

How do you know that? Can you dirsproove parallell universes?
I also think that mixing time with room making theories based on 4-dimensional timespace, cannot be compared to be like 4 dimensional room.


Stop arguing about it, youre never going to prove anything either way you're just going to offend someone.

I can't proove nothing, but i can avoid not logical disproofs. Also I can tell why we shouldn't leave the possibility of God. I havent offended anyone yet, or? I will withdraw it immedeately if something i said offend someone.

SCIENCE is a collection of the attributes and properties THAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW AND UNDERSTAND.

There's much that WAS science and that has been disprooved. If we know something, do you mean that we are sure on it is true or that it is true and that we know it?!?

I find it completely offensive that anybody tells me I was created by some higher power, I find it offensive that I am TOLD the universe I live in was constructed.

I am theoretical, just don't take this for an offence, I'm still talking about possibilities. To not do that would be stupid and offending at the same time.

Our world is far too politically correct... always protect the religious, allow them to have their beliefs but also let them stand on street corners raving to people who dont want to listen... THAT is offensive.

I agree, That is stupidity. and offence. and human nature

Gen-X: Time is NOT one dimensional. It does not flow in one direction. When you exceed the speed of light, time will reverse. It's as simple as that. Therefor, time can flow both backwards and fowards.

Gen-X: I believe your theory that WE JUST ARE. If all the stories of god were true, the Greek say that it's Zeus that causes thunder, but really in fact, it's a charge of electrons that cause it.

Another thing (and I pointed it out earlier) that saying God did something is the most simpelist answer for everything.
Saying that a mixture of atoms etc. etc. is a complicated answer which people didn't know a long time ago.

man all this information is mind bogleing. i cant comprehend some of the stuff said here, but im surely listening. there are some very intresting theories i have never heard before, and even though i dont agree with most of them, i am always open minded enough to listen. anyways im just saying im glad this discussion is started because it makes you think about life in a whole different way.

about time traveling, i do not understand how someone can travel back in time. i cant fully comprehend how time can be a dimension. i understand what you guys are saying about parallel universes and stuff, but i just dont believe time is a factor that can be changed. actually think of time in this matter, imagine a normal man and a man who can walk the speed of light. so the normal man does things normaly, it takes him about 20 minutes to drive to the market and by some food, while flash (the man that walks the speed of light) can do what that man did in less than 1 second. so look at it now, both men have aged 20 minutes but just one of them has done more things in that 20 minutes then the other guy. while the normal one just bought food in 20 minutes, flash bought food, took out the trash, vacuumed, took a shower, did whatever the hell he pleased in those 20 minutes but he still is 20 minutes older. do you get what im saying? just because you move fast as hell doesn't mean you stop time, it means you do more in the same period of time then someone slower than you. unless there is something coded in your DNA that says if your moving the speed of light, then dont age, then i dont understand how you wont age. time is a measurement we invented, what if some very intellegent alien species doesn't even keep track of time, because it doesn't exist! time is just a measurement of what has been done. you cannot take back anything you have done just because you are running the speed of light. picture it as a wheel that will ALWAYS rotate in the forward motion, nothing can touch it.

so maybe its just me, but i cant comprehend time traveling. what if i shot the president and killed him, but then i felt guilty so i run 20 zillion times the speed of light. what has happened here? nothing! im just way the hell out in outerspace but the president is still dead. movement doesn't do anything to time, i dont even understand why people think that. also i dont believe one bit that the speed of light is the top speed anything can move, i am sure there are some weird ass particles out there that move very fast and do very weird things that doesn't happen on earth. remember, the universe is pretty darn big and we know practically nothing about it.

thats just my 2 cents, please reply and talk more cause this is intresting.

have you guys ever thought this? i have read some stuff in a magazine that talks about NASA being a total hoax (however you spell it). some think that NASA is BSing everything that it knows and these rockets and stuff are just props. all those pictures are made on some computer and etc. i dont believe that theory but i thought it would be intresting if it was true. just bringing up another topic to talk about. so you guys think that NASA is BSing a lot of things?

[Sam Finch]

Here is what I Believe

NASA Is A real Organization That sends things into space and sends back pictures that could only have been taken from space.

Aliens Probably Exist on other planeds but none have come to earth.

There is some higher power controlling the universe in ways that we don't, and probably can't, understand. most easily explained as God, Wheather it is concious or not is not mine to say.

that which I percieve.

[kedaman]

Megatron:

Gen-X: I believe your theory that WE JUST ARE. If all the stories of god were true, the Greek say that it's Zeus that causes thunder, but really in fact, it's a charge of electrons that cause it.

Another thing (and I pointed it out earlier) that saying God did something is the most simpelist answer for everything.
Saying that a mixture of atoms etc. etc. is a complicated answer which people didn't know a long time ago.

What stories are you talking about? Simply put, i'm not dragging up any religious stories here. Assuming that we name the creator of universe, "GOD" It doesn't mean that he sits on a cloud and throw lightnings on us. I said God is the simples answer, and i meant the most logical. The most clear. Now go read the whole thread before you post something. I bet you find all interesting

[hdem2]
[b]Relativity theory[/]

If we suppose that there were just about 1 lightyear between Helsinki and Washington. You shoot the president get the hell out of there, you travel to Helsinki in about 4c so it takes about 3month for you to arrive at Helsinki airport. So you look back at Washington with your binoculars. You see that the president is still alive. You live a while (about 9 month) in Helsinki and before you go to sleep, you look at Washington and one day you see yourself with the gun pointing at the president.

If you now travel back to Washington with the speed 4c, time wont go fastbackwards this time (relatively to Washington of course) Instead it will go fastforward because you're travelling at -4c. You arrive just 15 month after thre presidents death. My point is that realative time means nothing the reality. Absolute Time is not responding to travelling in speed, Relative time is your own illusion.

So making this clear I suppose if two fotons pass by in opposite direction, the other will travel at 2c relatively to the other. If this is not enough for you then we can select a center point, an absolute point of universe. We select our sun, suppose it's morning and earth is moving upwards the sky relatively to sun, a street light emmits fotons that goes directly upwards relatively to earths center. Each foton from that light will travel at earths speed+c, relatively to sun. So that's all about relative positions. As there are no relative limits, why can't we travel faster than speed of light? I think there are no such limits, just us thinking we will go backwards in time if we do, time is constant and the fotons are making the illusion of being at another time.

[Gen-X]

Sam:


Maths Works if you don't change the rules


And how do you know what the rules are to start with?

Your example of a straw :


!!!!!!!!!!!!
State for me exactly ALL the conditions that go into determining the amount of energy required to obtain 10ml of liquid in your mouth.
!!!!!!!!!!!!


What you don't know!?! Then if Maths works if you don't change the rules I assume it DOESN'T work if you don't KNOW all the rules.

I cannot understand why you are completely blind to this concept. You said yourself Maths is only useful when you know everything involved. That fits your belief that AI is possible... just like maths.

But now I have DISPROVED all of your theories on the usefulness of maths AND the development of AI by using your OWN statement that Maths cannot function if you do NOT know the rules (or all of them).

Time Travel
Actually Sam, I do understand your example. But what you are failing to understand is the NATURE of the 4th dimension

Think about this for a moment :

1st Dimension (Length)
Vector, directed, travelling from some known/unknown point towards a known/unknown destination

2nd Dimension (Width)
Extension of Length in another plane. Allows for the Vector to now move on a different axis. Items in the 1st dimension no longer exist. Intersection can occur now in the 2nd dimension ONLY.

3rd Dimension (Depth)
Extension of Length/Width in another plane. Allows for Multi-directional Vectors to now traverse laterally. Items in the 1st AND 2nd dimensions NO LONGER EXIST. They are now representations with minimal Depth. Existings in "Reality" becomes possible (our universe) but it doesn't function. It is FROZEN.

4th Dimension (Time)
Vector, directed, travelling from some known/unknown point towards a known/unknown destination

Reality now becomes mobile, existance is no longer an eternal instance. Items can now move as a result of taking TIME to do so.

What's this!?!?!

Time has exactly the SAME properties as LENGTH but chronologically instead of metaphysically? Time itself actually ACTIVATES the 3rd dimension!!!

BUT, It is still a vector, it STILL travels in the same direction. It might be able to be SLOWED but it cannot be reversed.

5th Dimension (Width of Time)
Now TIME no longer exists on this plane, Time can now have multiple existences running side by side, timelines if you will. But they cannot affect US in OUR time because the 4th dimension DOES NOT EXIST in the 5th dimension.

6th Dimension (Depth of Time)
Now the 5th dimension becomes only a representation in the 6th dimension. The 5th doesn't exist any more. Time now has the ability to EXIST within its own reality... BUT IT CANNOT TRAVEL BECAUSE IT IS NOT ACTIVE.

If you want to talk about time travel you have to understand and work out what the 7th Dimension is that actually activates the ability to "MOVE" through the Chronal Reality.

I know its a theory, in fact I haven't heard anyone but myself ever mention this theory... but it certainly does fit a lot of things and until someone can show me something that DISPROVES it, I'm happy to take this for my views.

Infinity
Of course I am not going to accept the infinity argument. Because real infinity and mathematical infinity are 2 seperate things. I completely and totally agree with you mathematically... but that insn't the point we were making.

Fitting 6 apples in to 5 boxes utilizes the mathematical principle that says.

6 - 5 = 1

And that If 6 - 5 > 0 We cannot fit them.

But try it with infinity...

inf - inf = inf (its infinate so the answer is the same)

OR

inf - inf = 0 (if you EVER take something from itself its 0)

You are comparing 2 seperate things here and the "assumptions" of maths can be looked at from 2 different sides.

kedaman
Universal theory can be any one of those depending on what we discover in the future. Any one of them is possible and none of them MUST relate to any point in time where existance started.

Where do you think all the Quarks go? They have proved that particles appear in a vaccum as Quarks (which are believed to exist in some extra-dimension) collide to form atoms. Perhaps this other dimension has no time and therefor this universe has existed for eternity as a result of leaking quarks into our universe.

Of course you think we have a 1 in 1 chance, and that we are not random. Could you cope with the fact that we ARE random? Do you agree its a possibility?

The word Normal is something used based on a point of reference. Your right, when we are talking about other human beings we use NORMAL to describe what we have decided is common.

But what I was talking about is what the Universe considers NORMAL, not what WE consider normal. The most abunant materials in our universe are hydrogen and helium. Anything other than that is an abnormality. Planets, asteroids, water, LIFE... it is ALL abnormal to the universe


a. Why were we created in his image?
b. Why is his image that of a planet walking, air breathing biped?


I'll ask you again. If you cannot explain this then HOW can you accept it as a religion?


There's much that WAS science and that has been disprooved


Funny that :D
Does that mean that we consider something to be true until we prove it is wrong? Well blow me down and spank me sideways... Isn't that what I have been saying all along?!?!?! SCIENCE CAN ONLY DISPROVE. SOMETHING REMAINS TRUE UNTIL WE PROVE IT IS NOT SO.

Thank you for agreeing with me kedaman :D

Megatron
Have a look at my theory about about TIME (the 4th dimension) being 1-dimensional. You might find it good reading.

But I do have to stress... That you cannot go BACKWARDS in time... you can ONLY slow down time relatively (due to exceeding the speed of light) which means other people will see you as "appearing" to go backwards in time but the great distances you travelled to do it means you have only DISTORTED time... you haven't actually travelled backwards.

This is the SIMPLEST theory of relativity... why on earth do you think its called that!?!?!? because its RELATIVE

While the simplest answer 2000 years ago was to say that some supreme outer-dimensional being decided to create a weak and frail inferior form of life on a backwater, nearly non-existant galaxy.... we know better now, the "simple" answer has changed so we can drop all of this religious support and start thinking like sentient beings.

Sam (Late breaking post)

"God moves in mysterious ways"

Thats basically what you are saying right? Funny how people only ever say that when some young child is horribly killed in a senseless and pointless accident.

To use computing :


If Bad Event Then
MsgBox "God did something we dont understand"
Else
MsgBox "Stupid humans did it themselves"
End If


Perhaps you need to look up the word "crutch"... it explains perfectly this belief people have in higher powers who do mysterious things that are ALWAYS for better reasons we cannot fathom.

[Cbomb]

hdem2,

You are correct in a way about your theory of time. The way we measure time is totally made up. We measure vibrations of Cesium (spelling?) atoms. And then divide that up into hours days, years...and somehow manage to make it all work with our calendar.

Here's how I see actual time (that is if it is even real...)


Type Any3DObj
Time As Integer
Hieght As Integer
Width As Integer
Depth As Integer
End Type

Dim MyObj As Any3DObj


Consider that snipet the 4 basic properties of any object in our universe. We know what Height, Width, and Depth are. But Time is the measurment of an objects duration of existance. This is set to usually infinity because when an object is destoryed is is actually just broken down. So MyObj.Time cannot equal 0 because if it did then MyObj existed for zero time so it never existed in the first place!

Thats pretty much my view regarding time.

i dont know if this can be true, but i have heard this many years ago when i was 7 or 8. i have heard that in like a zillion years (or whatever very large number) the universe will run out of energy to keep expanding. and when this happens it will start to shrink untill it reaches the same point as the "big bang" then it will have another "big bang" thus a never ending cycle. but i have heard, the universe might not have enough energy to collapse back into that original point from where it started growning from, and when this happens, all matter just freezes in its place. as if everything has reached absolute zero. but if this happens, doesn't that mean ALL life has ceast to exist? if that is so, what will happen? does it mean nothing will exist ever again? piture that for a second, picture EVERYTHING in existance in every galaxy frozen forever. what will happen? if nothing moves, then nothing happens. that means nothing exists period! isn't that unimaginable! i cant think of it, its too crazy. think of nothing for eternity, i cant, i always picture something is going on.

anyways, i know that is a whack theory, but i thought i would share it with you guys cause i thought is was interesting.

it always bogels my mind to think of nothing is going to exist ever again because of that universal collapse...

[kedaman]

Of course you think we have a 1 in 1 chance, and that we are not random. Could you cope with the fact that we ARE random? Do you agree its a possibility

I agree that it is a possibility, a one in a zillion possibility. If you don't like it, then tell me something that replaces evolution. BTW did you change sides?


But what I was talking about is what the Universe considers NORMAL, not what WE consider normal. The most abunant materials in our universe are hydrogen and helium. Anything other than that is an abnormality. Planets, asteroids, water, LIFE... it is ALL abnormal to the universe

What if we have aliens, what if we have so much aliens in all other galaxies, but just not in our? How can you then state that LIFE is not abnormal to universe?

a. Why were we created in his image?
b. Why is his image that of a planet walking, air breathing biped?

My only religion is that GOD IS. If it doesn't support all catolic, lutherans or ortodox, i don't give a **** about it. Why are we so scattered? It's because of bullshit. Ecumenical thinking is just a step towards my beliefs. I think people if they believe, they will believe like me in distant future.


Does that mean that we consider something to be true until we prove it is wrong? Well blow me down and spank me sideways... Isn't that what I have been saying all along?!?!?! SCIENCE CAN ONLY DISPROVE. SOMETHING REMAINS TRUE UNTIL WE PROVE IT IS NOT SO.

I have stated once that science is based on air. I have also stated that we can proove and disproove nothing. Disproove one or both of these before you post anything like that.

[Gen-X]

hdem2
Have a read of my posts in this... I think about page 3. It tells you exactly about the theory you mentioned.

Kedaman
No I haven't changed sides. See other post. Just because I use the word "evolution" doesn't mean it is DARWIN's theory of evolution. Don't confuse the concept with the author ;)


I agree that it is a possibility, a one in a zillion possibility


You think its a one in a zillion possibility that god does NOT exist? Explain What that 1 in a zillion is then?


What if we have aliens, what if we have so much aliens in all other galaxies, but just not in our? How can you then state that LIFE is not abnormal to universe?


Oh come on kedaman!!! That is like saying... "What if there were more humans than particles of air". Think about it for a moment!!!! Hydrogen fills up MOST of the known universe, Life (even alien life) requires to exist INSIDE the known universe. Therefor something which fills the ENTIRE universe will ALWAYS outnumber something that has to exist INSIDE it (and probably on planets or in ships or something)

You are talking about the number of beings outweighing the building blocks that MADE them.

Perhaps this explains your logic behind God having only 1 in a zillion chance of NOT existing.

Let me ask you something :

1. If GOD is so omniscient why create us?
2. If he exists outside of our space/time why create it?
3. If the "rules" don't apply to him why make them apply to us?

Surely you would WANT to create something equal to yourself in order to be entertained/kept company or whatever... but you wouldn't set out to make something that was completely and totally inferior to yourself and then control everything that happened inside it.

Oh and one last thing. If God is responsible for everything and can micromanage everything then he is repsonsible for MY disbelieving in him.

So God is actually disbelieving in himself... therefor he doesn't even think HE exists... so why would we?

Thousands of years ago we believed the Gods created lightning. Some man with a white beard actually STOOD on the top of a hill and threw bolts of lightning at the people because he was "angry".

We have now grown up and realise this was false.

We used to think that the Earth was the centre of the universe... Why else would God create us his chosen ones and then place us in an obscure corner of the galaxy.

Now we know better

We used to think that God created plagues and swarms, turned water into wine and did all these miracles...

Now we haven't seen those kinds of things in 2000 years.

Funny that... miracles have now gone "covert"... they have suddenly become the things you only see if you look REALLY closely (and believe... which in itself means you already will say you see them).

We have spent the last 2000 years coming out of the dark ages of religion and the absolute attrocities it has wrecked on humanity... Its time we did like the famous quote suggests :

"Its time to put away such childish things"

We are grown people now, we are our own race... we don't need to believe something is "watching over us", or that we have a protector in order to survive. There is no need to think that something ELSE is responsible for us or our world. What is it going to take to convince people that there is no such thing as God and even if there is he certainly doesn't give a rats arse if we live or die...

Perhaps destroying the earth through environmental disaster (or religious war) will convince people...

What a price to pay for being so damnable egotistical in thinking we are a SPECIALLY CHOSEN CERATION of an Omniscient super-being.

well gen-x, you said exactly what i said on my first post of "about creation and AI". the first thing i said is that we should drop religion because it gets in the way of scientific progress and other things. but i dont mind others believing in god as long as they dont try to shove it in my face. and just like they say i offend people buy saying there is no god, well they offend me by saying there is. i know you said that already gen-x but i always thought this and i decided to support you on this.

[Sam Finch]

what do I need to calculate the straw thing, it's not the easiest experiment as it was just one I thought up that could be explained in a few different levels

OK, I think I can Make do with this

The air pressure in the room
The Time I wish to suck For
The x-sectional area of the straw
the height of the straw
g - a constant for the accelaration due to gravity in the room, aquired by experiment
k(1 - n) - some constants for the experiment aquired by n similar experiments under similar conditions.
the x-sectional area of the glass
the height of the glass

(the last 2 assume we are using a prism like glass, if not we may have to know more about the glass. I'm also assuming the straw is held verticly, a constant pressure is maintained in the mouth and other assumptions)

I can't remember the physics of all this, the water having fallen back down into the glass when I stopped sucking doesn't help matters but With this information I should be able to come up with a good model and an answer more accurate than if done by experiment as an experiment would have errors in its measurements.

I don't understand where your objection to maths comes in, science is about making a model of the universe, a set of rules that we think holds, if we have a model we can use maths to extand that model and the predictions will be correct within that model, I'm sure you've used dimensional analysis before, what's that if it's not using maths to prove real world situations, you are continuing do dismiss maths on the grounds that it bases itself on some obscure assumptions, which is pretty meaningless considering that we cannot understand the universe, only make better and better models, I'm not saying maths can prove something 100% I'm just saying that it's our best tool for understanding th universe, and it's predictions are as right as the information it's given.

The time traval thing

You Did not understand my origonal argument, you couldn't have understood my original argument because what I wrote didn't make sense. I'll try to explain what I was trying to say.

it is a well established Idea, central to the Ideas of special relitivity that there are 4 dimensions of space, one is easiest to think of as time, however it isn't time, it's just another dimension of space. ( We Call these Dimensions X, Y, Z and T) any object is simply a line throught this 4 dimensional space (known as minkowski space) and what we are to percieve as now is a point on this line, the future is those points on the line in one direction and the past is those in the other direction. one second is represented by 3x10^8m (the distance light travels in 1 second in a vacuum) on this line

are you all with me so far.

now this is easiest to imagine using a minkowski Diagram.

we assume that any particles we think of all move backwards and forwards on a single straight line, like beads on an abacus) This means that they can be drawn in mincowski space ignoring 2 of the dimensions (Y and Z) so they can be drawn on a peice of paper. this is called a minkowski diagram, it's basicly a graph of the path of an object with distance along the X axis and Time up the Y axis(which we'll call the T axis) we also need a "Frame Of reference"
this is something that is not moving in respect to the X axis, ie a straight Line in the T direction whith x=0, all measurements are taken from this.

OK, you've all drawn your pretty Diagrams, something not moving is a straight line up the page, something moving at the speed of light is a line at 45 degrees to the T axis, a low speed, like the speed of sound or something can hardly be seen on this diagram, it's just a very small angle, so the effects of travaling at a high speed are not something you are going to have experienced, and what time is is a bit wierd.

"Now" is a point on the line right, but that's only a point, we need a line representing all points in space that we percieve as now, for the stationary object that's easy, it's a line parralell with the X axis, as you would expect, for the object that's going at the speed of light it's not what you would expect. The line goes at 90 degrees to the object's time line. so at a point in time that which is now for the stationary object includes a point t on the moving object, but at that point t what is now for the moving object includes a point in the future of the stationary object.

as long as the lines are straight lines this is the basics of special relitivity, all the equations just pop out, actually getting to the speed of light is general relitivity, which I havn't studied so I can only accept what gen-X says about small particles breaking light speed.

up till now that's all established physics and right, up to a point somewhere in the depths of quantum physics

:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

now, what happens if as I said an antimatterparticle and a matter particle colide, well, draw it, remember, when the particles get close together the gravitational, electro-magnetical and Strong forces get stronger and stronger, and the particle can break light speed for a very short amount of time due to heisenbergs uncertainty principal. they can even go at an Infinate speed, as long as they don't spend any time going at it, ie when they collide they are going at an infinite speed, but not at any time before that.

this means when the particles collide they do so head on as far as the timelines are concerned, ie the 2 lines seem to join together to make one line, draw this on you're minkowski diagram and it looks like there is just one line and that line hase turned 180 degrees and is heading the other direction in time, to turn back th oposite must happen, 2 particles must create themselves out of thin air, this does happen, again Quantum mechanics says it's due to the heisenberg uncertainty principal.

so, to go back in time there must be 3 versions of you, 2 of them create themselves out of thin air(or thin vacuum) a matter version UA, an antimatter version, UB, and another matter version UC which is the original version of you.

at some point, say 1983, UA and UB create themselves, UB is going backwards in time and just does things backwards for a few years to the amazement of his freinds, UA goes and buys some mirosoft shares, then 17 years later in 2000 UC and UB see each other and combine to destroy each other, thereby starting the time traval get rich quick scheme.

This has lost of strange metaphysical implications about causation (the cause happing before the effect, taken to be true in this universe, but never proved)

That's my time travel theory, this happens at particle level near black holes, it's called Hawkin radiation,, I don't think it's ever been put forward as time traval before however.

OK Gen-X that is what I meant, I have to stress that up the the row of confused looking smileys that's all true, the rest is just an observation. I don't know how possible this actually is under quantum mechanics or how you would go about doing it, apart from jumping into a black hole and hoping for the best.

It was Just an Idea, I didn't expect the spanish inquisition.

[kedaman]

1. No I haven't changed sides. See other post. Just because I use the word "evolution" doesn't mean it is DARWIN's theory of evolution. Don't confuse the concept with the author
2. You think its a one in a zillion possibility that god does NOT exist? Explain What that 1 in a zillion is then?

1. Have I mentioned Darwin ever in these posts? It's at least second time u mention it, im sure.
2. That is a a world where things happens randomly, a world where evolution or something else caused our existance, a world where god not exist. A world where we're probably doomed to death, but it's a world where we are the kings.

Oh come on kedaman!!! That is like saying... "What if there were more humans than particles of air". Think about it for a moment!!!! Hydrogen fills up MOST of the known universe, Life (even alien life) requires to exist INSIDE the known universe. Therefor something which fills the ENTIRE universe will ALWAYS outnumber something that has to exist INSIDE it (and probably on planets or in ships or something)

Do you want me to dig deeper again? Then I'll tell you, all matter is abnormal, actually nothing is normal, in other words vacuum, that is what just about 100,000000000000000000000000000000000% of universe consists of. Therefor what you have explained what normal atoms in universe. If we have so much aliens that it would possibly be natural to find them in a 1000 cubicparceks then i would call life normal. I think quantity and in this case quantity in such small and simple things like atoms, cannot be compared to quality of life.

If I would be religious, i would answer in the word of bible on these question, but i'm just completely sure on just one thing so, i give you my own answers.
1. If GOD is so omniscient why create us?
Why do we do things? why are we not sitting and wait for death. Meaning that God created us in his image, maybe meant that he created us to be as creative as he is himself. I'm didn't say that God is God because that he can do everything, i said that God is God because he created us. I coud replace the word "God" with "Creator" if I want, but that will only confuse stupid people out here.
2. If he exists outside of our space/time why create it?
Because space and time is a creative thought if you never heard about time or space, i would be damn sure that you would never invent it. I think God meant us to explore, expand, advance and evolve, and all this neads space and time.
3. If the "rules" don't apply to him why make them apply to us?
Same anwer as above, Life is meant to advance. Without rules, we would be just like God, and be perfect from the first beginning. I thing you have asked this qwestion alread once.

Oh and one last thing. If God is responsible for everything and can micromanage everything then he is repsonsible for MY disbelieving in him.
So God is actually disbelieving in himself... therefor he doesn't even think HE exists... so why would we?

The bible says that he had to give us free will to do things, they can go to hell or to heaven or something like that. But i'm saying like before, the answer is the above. But at this point bible have something. We can't actually think that he would control or wills either? Have you ever feeled like you've loosed control of yourself?


Thousands of years ago we believed the Gods created lightning. Some man with a white beard actually STOOD on the top of a hill and threw bolts of lightning at the people because he was "angry".

We have now grown up and realise this was false.

We used to think that the Earth was the centre of the universe... Why else would God create us his chosen ones and then place us in an obscure corner of the galaxy.

God still is creator of lightning, but he don't stand there with lightning bolts, he invented the rules of lightning. How do you know that the centre of our galaxy is the centre of universe? How do you know that there's no centre at all? If we were Gods only intelligent creations then we surely are the centre of universe.

I don't believe in miracles, in your definition. Human nature is to lie, I suppose we had easier to lie before than now, when people knows so much.


We are grown people now, we are our own race... we don't need to believe something is "watching over us", or that we have a protector in order to survive. There is no need to think that something ELSE is responsible for us or our world. What is it going to take to convince people that there is no such thing as God and even if there is he certainly doesn't give a rats arse if we live or die...

We are not. We're still stupid and childish, lying when we can, need to believe in things, BTW how do you explain the majority of people have a religion? Time is going to take, Science, Genetic manipulation, AI, Brain-computer integrations and all the wonders of future will make us grow up, more than ever before. We are already in a growing up stage, look behind us. Now we have the same thing ahead, growing up. In future we will believe a little as possible and be as intelligent as possible, we will go towards a perfect human ideal. Not weak people your talking about Gen-x. Destroy the world is really childish. Your last comment sounds like you really hate humanity.

hdem2, i totally agree with you, religion is damn in the way of science, religion is in the way of the way to the perfect human. We need to grow up. Keep in mind hdem, that im not telling you that God exist, so I assume you wont offend me because im not offending you. But telling me that god exists or not wont.

Gen-X: Okay, I'm starting to see your point. Maybe time cannot be reversed literally, but it will appear to an observer that you are moving backwards. I will stick with my point that time can be slowed down.

[Gen-X]

Sam I have to agree with you there...

I think we are in a round about way saying sort of the same thing... Perhaps the only disagreement we truely have is that we are using the same terms but each have different meanings on them.

So yes, I can agree that we are not going to get any further on that point.


Secondly, I agree with you that a cup of tea will make you "feel" cooler but not actually drop your body temperate. I would have thought that obvious as you are increasing the temperature of your central body mass thus causing an inverse "feeling" in your extremities.

To my way of thinking its like getting into a hot bath when you are absolutely FREEZING or when you are already luke warm. One feels like it is scolding while the other feels a bit warmer... but the temperate is NO different. Only our bodies perception of the difference between itself and what it contacts.

As for the time thing... I am confused on one point of issue.


A particle moves at infinate speed but only for a brief moment


How can something move at an infinate speed but only for a moment. Surely the "concept" of "A Moment" means that it has a beginning AND an ending... And if something has an ending then its speed isn't infinate. Of course it may be higher than we can calculate but if the timeframe is FINITE then the speed must ALSO be finite.

I am sure there is some mathematical formula or something you can run passed my eyes that tell me otherwise... but like you said... it only works because you have ALREADY assumed the details are correct. In this instance we DO NOT KNOW if the details are correct to be able to use that formula.

As we have never seen or touched or observed an infinity outside of Maths, we cannot be sure that the assumptions are correct.... Don't you agree?

[Sam Finch]

The cup of tea argument ran on for so long because the question was does it cool you down, which half of us interpreted as does it make you feel cooler, and the other half as does it lower your body temperature, it went on for a long time before we clicked what was happening.

The infinite speed idea, OK, draw your Minkowski diagran, and draw a line smoothley curving through 108degrees and then smoothley curving back, like I said about giong back in time. Now look at this from the 3 partcle point of view, when the 2 particles collide they are going at 90 degrees to the direction of your line, they must be. this is translated as in infinite speed. also imagine the 2 colliding, the eq for the force is k/(r^n) for each force, k being GMm for gravity, r as the distance between the 2 particles and n a constant for each force, 2 for gravity.

when the particles colide r=0 which implies the force,( and if you work it out the speed)are infinite. (in maths we'd avoid the whole infinity issue by liberally spreading the idea of a limit but it makes things quite hard to read) again the ideas fuse nicley. and quamtum mechanics probably allows it, you'd have to do some serious eqns to work out if it is allowed but the idea is we're trying to work out is if the infinite speed multiplied by the zero time allows it according to the uncertainty principal. I suspect it will allow it for very small particles but not for large ones.

Ths Idea of infinity is completley different from the other Idea which forbids the parallel universe, it's much easier to swallow if you think of it like this

say I have a plane, and I want to express a point on that plane I need 2 numbers, an X and a Y, or a Radius and an angle, but I need 2 numbers, I can't express a point on a plane in just one number.

with the possibilities of what could happen in the universe, how many numbers do I need to express one uniquely, I can't do it in one, nor can I do it in 2.

It turns out that I'd need an infinite amount of numbers to express one uniquley. this leads on to say that if we wanted to store them we would need an infinite number of dimensions of them. This I cannot agree with.

[kedaman]

Oh and "we are all kings" is purely religious fantatic propaganda designed to influence the politically correct people who have been brow-beaten through out the ages to think any faith in your own self is dispicable.

Sorry, but i'm born in Finland, and English is my second language. Also i don't know what dispicable is and what i meant with "we are all kings" was that we control ourselves not being predefined to do things. I'm not religious fanatic, even if i'm fanatic member here. I don't know what brow-beaten is either. Don't try to push me over the edge if i can't express my self accurately.

Also, my god-guru uncle just phoned me and telled that he has both scientific and philosophic proof of that god exist, I'm going to wait, he will send me his theory as soon as he writes it down.


Incorrect actually. There isn't much of space that is actually a vaccum. In fact most of space is FULL of photons (light), gravatons (gravity) and many other sub-atomic particles.... So unfortunately your "theory" is flawed.

Gravatons? Just tell me what that is???????????????? Do they have any weight, any particular speed?
Fotons can't get outside the radius of tc where t is time since bigbang and c is speed of light. So this will make fotons so rarely in universe that they just about 0% of universe. Gravatons? Gravitation seems not to be any particles to me, because if so, the whole universe would be spangled with gravatons, even when t was 0.000000001 seconds. Even one single foton would have a field of gravatons that goes trough every spot in universe. Then we wouldn't have place for matter, so i assume there is no gravaton particles.

Bottom line, all space between all particles is actually vacuum, so you're wrong. If you have a a glas of air and fotons, it doesnt mean that there's no vacuum in it. between the atoms, molecules and fotons, there are so much vacuum that it would be normal even inside the glas.

i said that God is God because he created us

I'm quoting my self here, but thats only because you misunderstood me Gen-x. When I say God, it doesn't mean that there is a God. I say God because it fits the theoretical "creator of universe" definition to me, not any other. I will read that book, if have the possibility to get it, and time for it.

God created the Universe because it was a creative thought

What's wrong with that, or should I say funny? Laugh on, I wont mind. When youre done with it, tell me if you see anything unlogical with it? "The creator of universe" must be creative.
Whats a corker?

Life is meant to advance. Without rules, we would be just like God, and be perfect from the first beginning. I thing you have asked this question alread once.

Quoting myself again because you totally pissed me off and misunderstod me at the same time. Thats 10 point to you and a lot of chocolate and nothing at the same time.
1. We are not and will not be gods
2. "God is perfect" you did say, I didnt. I said that we would be perfect, refering to humanitys ideal, at the "about creation and AI"-thread
3. We're not breaking any rules at all. We are just exploring them. See science as this "advance" and you will get it, but actually i meant life.
4. All other things you came up under this topic, is based on these misunderstandings.

No I can't say I ever have. Control is an ILLUSION, it doesn't actually exist... therefor you cannot lose something you didn't really have. Perhaps if you studied some Taoism you would start to understand these principles

I can't tell you if control is an illusion or not, I have similar theory on that to, and I wont even bother to tell you that you shoudn't state that, you can't proove it. You just told about "souls" being , are they illusions? Actually you answered on that retroactive question, not the actual "We can't actually think that he would control or wills either?" And i meant not implementing free will. the "soul" you were refered to.



The same way I know my house isn't in the CENTRE of the street. We look to one side of us and see LOTS of stuff, we look to the other side and see VERY LITTLE stuff. This tells me that I am NOT in the centre.

If you believe the Universe is expanding then you accept the validity of the methodology used to "QUANTIFY" this expansion. Those are the same methods used to determine our position in the universe. So you cannot agree with one and deny the other

One thing we DO agree on is that we need to grow up... While I think leaving religion behind will be a step towards this end...

What do you think it will be?


We have only one centre to the position, and that is in timespace at 0,0,0,0. After that point, there's no particular centre of univese because it's unlimited. And taking the bigbang point for the centre is wrong because we don't have any actual absolute values validating positions, everything is relative - Einstein.

I haven't said that I believe that universe is expanding. Althought thats logical to me.
I agree leaving religion, is a way to grow up. But i think religion will follow us as it is human nature to believe, and that is also a way, probably the correct one. Your is absurd, to achieve
I think we should grow up by science, refering to my last post at this thread.

Going back to the dark ages where we burned witches at the stake for talking heracy?

Why bother to ask? You have read my posts since Vb-grey world, so you should know that I hate religious stupidity. Gen-x you really are good at being sarcastic, I'm jealous.

[b]I'd like to ask you guys a question about Ghosts.

Do you believe in them? I know people who have never lied in thier life and they swear to god that they've used an Ouija board and it worked.

[Gen-X]

Sam

I read what you wrote and agree that all of it sounds logical and all of it probably works out very well mathematically.

However, like you said it is only a model and until they can actually do what you are talking about I think I will hold onto reality a bit more than mathetmatics :)

Kedaman
First I want to say Hello from Australia. I guess with our different languages and different cultures understanding some of the slang and words is a little difficult. Appologies if that difficulty in communicating caused problems, its the one flaw of humanity to NOT have a clear and consise language we can all speak.

I'll be interested to hear what PROOF your God-Guru Uncle has to put forward... I wont hold my sceptisism back though as I am almost sure that whatever he comes up with can be seen in 2 different ways... which has been the case with ALL "proof" of things so far.

Gravatons are the particles that actually transmit Gravity. Our entire solar system has a slight gravitational PULL from Proxima Centuri, the closest Sun to our own... and to EVERY SINGLE other sun and body of mass in the universe. (Although the actual level of this effect is minute). Thus every body of mass exherts a force on every OTHER body of mass via Gravatons.

The whole reason your FEET stay on the ground is because your atomic structure is being BOMBARDED with gravatons with sufficient force to overcome escape velocity. Don't dismiss something you simply do not KNOW, your comments on Gravitons not existing is pathetic and as you know GRAVITY effects anything regardless WHERE you are or how DEEPLY you might be buried... they pass through EVERYTHING.

Just to PROVE it to you, have you seen what happens to a free floating object in SPACE that comes into contact with liquid? THe liquid forms a thin layer completely AROUND the object itself, as the body of mass of the object generate a field of gravitons that act towards its centre of mass.

Thats why planets are generally Spherical and why liquid in space is a PERFECT sphere... because the gravitons act equally in all directions towards the centre of mass to create gravity.

This is one of the 4 primary forces in the universe.

As for your "Bottom Line" about "vaccum" being ultimately between all particles I think you are wrong again. I actually believe that when you get right down to that level, the sub-atomic level what you actually find is the residual pattern of plasma or energy which permeates the universe. "Vaccum" is a terminology we use to describe the fact that there are no Particles (Oxygen or otherwise) in an area of space... Sub-atomically the term simply doesn't exist.

You have my appologies for misunderstanding you when you were talking about "God". I have only EVER heard the term God in relation to the anglo-saxon, christianic "God" and so I probably assumed you had everything else that went with it. Maybe thats just my Australian upbringing (we are very western here) and if you had used "Creator" or "Deity" I would have better understood (which you have not explained.. thank you)

What did I find so funny? I found it so funny that you created a paradox. "God Created because he is creative". That is like saying "The car travels because the car is for transport"... its stating the "RESULT" and not the cause.

A "corker" is an Australian Term which means a good joke, a CLASSIC joke or something that really stands out as being funny

Are "souls" illusions? I couldn't answer you that. An illusion is something you BELIEVE to be real, and in believing something is real you are using your force of will.. and as I said, its your force of will that makes it possible. So perhaps they are illusions which is WHY they are real. As for control, it IS an ILLUSION, which is why it can actually affect you because you believe it is real. So if you BELIEVE in the illusion then it is definately real... so perhaps if we started seeing souls as illusions they are no longer real.

That would make sense.

As for religion. It isn't human nature to "believe".. if it was then there wouldn't be so many people here now that DON'T believe. It is a human condition to not want to be responsible for your actions, to have a "purpose" in life... and while some have to turn to a higher power for that others can satiate that need themselves.

Mine is absurd to achieve? If that is so perhaps you should to some christians... they constantly struggle to acheive something that is always denied them and yet they must continue to struggle for the unobtainable for life, STILL be sinful on their death bed and STILL not get any closer to what they are TOLD they should always try and acheive.

THAT is absurd.

It takes a lot of practice and effort to be this sarcastic :D

You should be jealous ;)

[Edited by Gen-X on 05-03-2000 at 09:49 PM]

Megatron...dude...this must be a first...mention of ghosts on this bulletin board.

Do you mean ghosts as in, no government record of the person and no record of their existence or the things that go bump in the night?

No l don't believe in ghosts or the abilities of our current government down under :)

[Sam Finch]

The whole reason your FEET stay on the ground is because your atomic structure is being BOMBARDED with gravatons with sufficient force to overcome escape velocity. Don't dismiss something you simply do not KNOW, your comments on Gravitons not existing is pathetic and as you know GRAVITY effects anything regardless WHERE you are or how DEEPLY you might be buried... they pass through EVERYTHING.


have you ever seen a graviton, has anyone ever seen a graviton, are they in any way detectable apart from this mysterious force they transmit? No, they must be magic.

That or they don't really exist, they're just one of the crazy theories made to explain why gravity is different from the other 3 forces. They're as scientificly valid as the carpet dimension.

[kedaman]

HEhe, sam, I agree with you, the gravitons are just a theory, and i think if it's not generally accepted by science, it's not real until Gen-x disprooves something. That one with the liquidball doesn't proove nothing, I think gravity is one of the four primary forces yes, but it's a law, one of the rules in universe, not any particles, because we can't have particles that goes trough matter, affecting them to movement and then affect matter behind it, and so on. This would mean that if moon goes behind Earth for suns gravitons, All gravitons from sun will just pass trough Earth, adding energy to each particle it get's in contact with and still have the same energy from the beginning. That's not how particles work. If they hit something, give it more energy, they will loose some or all of themselves.

If you want the real answer to why God created univese, then don't look at me, because I wont have the answer. I'm going to ask my uncle about this. Still haven't recieved any mails from him. I'm not sure either about what he said to me because it alls sounds very extreme.

I have seen this thing so many times i have problems with understanding it:
What is Reality?
What is True?
What is science?
What is a "prooved" thing?
What is scientifically prooved?
What is fact?
What is "exist"?
Well, don't answer me on any of these because they're all based on that we think it is it, but what word shoud i use instead of illusion, to refer to the actual truth out there. If something exists, it just exists in our mind, if something is scientifically prooved, then we think people have prooven it by science...

I thought reality was the right word, but i was wrong

[Gen-X]

Mmmm.... interesting...

Now a few of you have me wondering... Surely as programmers you have learned the art of analysis, of information retrieval and in being able to find resources on things you don't know...

But your last statement about gravitons being fictional now makes me wonder if you are typing with your fingertips poking out of large white coats that strap around your back ;-)

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970608.html

http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/gen_rel_exp/

http://www2.rideau.net/gaasbeek/spap3.html

http://autodynamics.org/new99/Layman/PicoGravitons.html

http://www.herts.ac.uk/astro_ub/a12_ub.html

And it took me less than 5 minutes to come up with just these links. If there is one thing I hate.. its ignorance, I find it the most VILE failure of the human species to wallow in the middle ages just because it doesn't fit what YOU want to be the truth.

So next time before you start calling it magic, quoting that nobody has seen it so does it really exist... do a little research.

If I were to use YOUR kind of ignorance then DNA doesn't exist (I have never seen a chromosome), YOU don't exist, and neither does the sun... because funny enough, although I can see the light it produces I have never been able to actually look AT it.

:mad:

(walking off into the distance shaking his head wondering if some people should have stayed as single celled organisms)

[Sam Finch]

Gen-X

Your own sources fail you. They state that the graviton has not been detected, The only thing to support the Graviton is that the Maths of it works out, Not a mathematical proof which I would accept, just that the graviton is one solution to the Descrepancies in the four forces, now you of all people should be sceptical about that. As I say, the theory is as valid as the carpet dimension. (For thore of you that don't know the Carpet Dimension was a wierd theory which included a 5th Dimension rolled up like a carpet. It was dismissed for being unfounded and strange)

[Gen-X]

My sources don't fail me... Those were just a mere FEW links I found on how they came up with the idea of the graviton.

They have since been able to confirm its existance but as would be expected there are not many credible scientific sources found on the internet.


Also, I would have thought YOU of all people would have blankly accepted their existence considering they used MATHS to prove them.

[Sam Finch]

If you find me a source that says they found one I'll believe it, From what I know they havn't
9I may be wrong) and they didn't poroove they evisted mathematicly, they used what they call in the courts circumstancial evidence, Id doesn't wash there and it doesn't wash here, Until they Find one I maintain that they just happen to be a popular theory at the moment.

[Gen-X]

Sam.

Do you believe Quarks exist?

[kedaman]

I'm not ignoring anything. When I first heard of graviton, i searched and found enough info to convince that gravitons just is a not prooven theory. Even if I would think it sounds like saying god exists from you, i would be the one to tell you that even newtons theory of gravity is a theory. Ive already visited two of the pages you mentioned, but i wasn't looking for what they had to tell, just if it was a theory or not.

Now i am aware of that the theory is that the Graviton have a quantum mass and a size, and also that it travels at speed of light so they are not everywhere in universe and that gravitation cannot be a field, so we don't have them at every single spot, if we would have subgravitonal particles, they wouldn't be affected as far as they stays out of the way. But what i found more interesting was the pico-graviton, the mechanical explanation to gravity. The interesting thing is that it travels at 27c, which is just about as much as is needed for exceeding speeding limits in universe, not possible, to that there are none. Think about the possibilities. Also Sam, here's more about scifi guiding science that I mentioned i was explaining from Discovery Channel:


In essence, mass is simply more than one Pico Graviton. HOW pico-gravitons are related to mass is completely unknown in Autodynamics and is left to future researchers to discover.

Does the Pico-Graviton Exist?

The big question is: is there proof for pico-gravitons? There is no "proof", but there is a lot of indirect evidence. What is important at this point in the history of physics, is that Autodynamics provides the next step in explaining many "unexplained" phenomena and that the actual relationship between mass and energy will discovered with time. Perhaps some of the more "experimental" research involving gravity control or faster-than-light phenomena may already be on the right track. Further research is needed.

Autodynamics provides a paradigm - a platform - to allow such research to flourish and open doors in physics research and technology that today only exist in science fiction.

[Sam Finch]

I have no opinions either way on the existance of quarks, I don't know anything about them.

The reason I doubt the existance of gravitons is that they are there only to explain why gravity is different from the other 3 forces and so many theories have been put forward to explain this that I am sceptical of all of them.

[Gen-X]

Actually I was reading a university source book on science the other day (from my uni days) and it was talking about an experiment they were doing.

They kept getting anomalous readings... every time they did this experiment they detected a particle that had absolutely NO mass!!!

They were bewildered and yet the more they studied it the more they came to realise what it was. So they gave it the title "Graviton". I can bring the book into work tomorrow and list for you all the names/books that have this in it if you want.

So as you can see it is NOT a theory, it is a name given to something THEY HAVE PHYSICALLY FOUND!

As for you not believing in quarks because don't know anything about them... how very convenient for you. THEY have been proved as have gravitons, gluons, masons, bosons and every other particle.

They actually believe that the graviton is a phase-shifted photon and that photons are the building blocks of energy in our universe.

[Sam Finch]

I didn't know that, did they prove it was these that caused gravity or at least indicate it. I don't quite understand how something with no mass can move anything.

I didn't say I didn't believe in Quarks, I just don't know anything about them so I can't really say either way, It's like me asking you if you believe my brother can juggle. It's something I know nothing about.

Quantum Physics just isn't my subject so I will have to believe you that they have been found, It just seems a bit crazy that a particle with no mass can do anything.

or is it that it has no rest mass, like the photon.

[Gen-X]

I didn't know that, did they prove it was these that caused gravity or at least indicate it. I don't quite understand how something with no mass can move anything.


As you probably know, "gravity" has been described as the bending of space around a body of mass. We also know that the "force" of gravity increases with the more mass that is in question.

The question of whether something with "no mass" being able to move something is irrelevant because we are talking sub-atomic here... quantum theory. The "gravitons" transmit energy that causes the atoms to move in the same direction as the "flow" of the gravitons which funny enough happens to be towards the centre of mass where space has been bent.

How does ANYTHING move? Of course we can look at it macroscopically and say that I move my arm and the air particles around it are displaced... but if we look at a sub-atomic level what happens? Which particle moves first? And do the others follow it because of their Strong Nuclear and Weak Chemical bonds to the previous atoms?

You are talking 2 very different sciences here.


I didn't say I didn't believe in Quarks, I just don't know anything about them so I can't really say either way, It's like me asking you if you believe my brother can juggle. It's something I know nothing about.


So why say Gravitons don't exist? Obviously you just don't know very much about them and yet you stand up and categorically deny their existance saying they are only "theory"... but when it comes to quarks its all "Well I don't really know much about them so I don't comment".

Bit of a contradiction in terms here... something you seem to like to do a lot of.


Quantum Physics just isn't my subject so I will have to believe you that they have been found, It just seems a bit crazy that a particle with no mass can do anything.


Thats exactly what quantum physics is all about. It seems to me to be silly that a Quark requires more energy than it takes to power an entire city for a day to pull it apart from another Quark when both of them are so tiny...

But "size" and "mass" have absolutely NO bearing towards their power when it comes to the quantum fields.


or is it that it has no rest mass, like the photon.


It never mentioned "no rest" so I cannot say one way or the other...


But back to your contradiction. Before you kept telling me that mathematics was good to use as models and proofs etc, etc... and yet ALL of mathematics is "theoretical". Now you come across something that is "theoretical" and you dismiss it because it is a theory and "not proven" as you say...

So why do you accept SOME things that are theoretical and completely deny others?

Methinks you accept that which you WANT to accept and deny that which you don't... but heck, we are all human and do that don't we :)

[Gen-X]

Kedaman

There is still debate going around about electrons...

- Are they a cloud around the nucleus?
- Do they come closer and go farther away?
- Do they hold patterns or just swarm around?

We come up with THEORIES and PROJECTIONS and ASSUMPTIONS explaining 10 ways to sunday what we THINK an electron does... but NOBODY denies an electron actually exists.

Just because there are theories like picogravitons that try to explain something doesn't mean its a fake or bogus. Experiments kept detecting this particle, OVER and OVER again... just like they detected electrons.

So what is the difference between the person who first said "I shall call this an electron" and the person who said "I shall call this a graviton"?

Sam


As I said, I know nothing about quarks, it never bothered me why they were there or wheather or not they were there, I know that there are 3 of them inside every proton/neutron and that they have a property called colour which makes them attract in 3s, I don't know why we decided they were there and I don't know how we decided they were there.


Well just to let you know they believe that a graviton is a "form" of quark. They also believe that Quarks exist in another state or phase and that only when they combine into a formation of 3 do they come into OUR existance. That explains why particles appear in a vaccum, and it also explains why pulling apart Quarks causes them to disappear (not release energy but ACTUALLY disappear).. they have phased back into wherever they were before.


The Graviton I know a little about


So you know next to nothing about something we all KNOW exists for real... but you know more about something you doubt even exists?!!?? That makes sense ;)


It was invented to explain some effects about gravity, explaining things about gravity is where most bogus theories come from


It was not invented... it was actually NAMED as a result of it continually being detected in experiments. Have a read on the actual documentation regarding the KK experiments and you will find that this anomalous particle kept showing up and stuffing up their experiments. They thought it was bogus because it had no mass... and thats when they realised what they had found


It involves particles that have masses smaller than what was believed to be the smallest unit of mass, It travals at 27 times the speed of light and nobody's ever found one (pico gravitons)


It has NO mass, if it had mass then it in itself would create a gravitational field which it does not. If it had mass then it would stand to reason that it passing through another object on its way to causing a gravitational field to a second object would effect it MORE.. which it does not. The fact it has no mass is directly correlatory to the fact that it affects ALL matter to the same degree based PURELY on distance to the centre of mass.

This is simple Field Theory which funny enough is what most scientists believe to be truth at the moment... not just idle gossip or "trendy theory" but actual belief... just like we believe the earth is round.


To me this sounds like a crazy theory invented to explain something,


And because you are completely unwilling to even explore the possiblity you will continue to think it is crazy... That is EXACTLY the mentality that the catholic church had when dealing with Galilleo... they nearly burnt him at the stake for heracy because he blasphemed that our God created planet was NOT the centre of the known universe.

That kind of attitude was also the reason why Jules Verne died in a mental institute because he had "crazy theories" about boats that could sail underwater and aircraft that used a propellar on the top for lift.

What is crazy is that you would dismiss something simply because it doesn't follow what you think is crazy and NOT crazy... I might think some things are crazy but at least I give them due course until I see they are completely unfounded and based in illogical assumptions and flawed theories rather than seeing if they mathematically add up


the right theories all just pop out of maths, the 2 biggies this century, Quantum mechanics and Releitivity just popped out of the maths and were shown to hold by experiment. Einstein was one of the poineers of QM completley by accident, he hated the Idea of quantum mechanics but it just kept coming out and he couldn't stop it.


So does this mean you believe it or disbelieve it? Do things that just "pop" out mean they are good or that they are convenient to explain everything?

I am sure it just "popped" out that we are round when Columbus actually went around the entire world and came back


Remember just over 100 years ago everyone believed in something callled the Ether to explain some inconsistencies between Newtons laws of motion and new results about the speed of light. I don't believe gravitons are any more than a 21st century Ether.


Well FANCY THAT!!! And the reason they stopped believing in Ether was because someone DISPROVED it. Now where on earth would anyone get an idea that something is believed until the point at which it is disproved and a NEW theory comes along that withstands the riggors of scientific scrutiny.

Then strangely enough THAT stands as "belief" until someone shows that it is also wrong and have a NEW theory that now can withstand anything thrown at it.

My Oh My... Thank you for showing that scientific method by disproof has been the commonly accepted form of paradigm shifting for at least the last 100 years... so nice that you agree with me Sam :)

[Sam Finch]

In the 1990s, Carezani set out to find the properties of this particle he dubbed the "pico-graviton". Using calculations for perihelion advance, he came up with the following numbers: the pico graviton has the mass of around 1x10 81 kilograms, and travels at around 27 times the speed of light. Another person in the SAA has claimed to find approximately the same values for the properties of the pico-graviton through completely different methods but the calculations have not be confirmed.

that was taken from one of the websites in your list

are you saying it's the graviton (acording to you a particle that was found and named) or the pico graviton (as yet unfound) that causes gravity?

I agree totaly that the graviton was found, but just because it's called a graviton doesn't mean that it causes gravity, from your sources it's the pico graviton that is doing the work.

with a particle the size of a pico graviton I don't doubt that the uncertainty principal can be twisted in order to allow these things not to cause a gravitational field.

I am not dismissing the Idea that these things exist, however all the phisics I've seen has absolutley "beutiful" maths behind it, this is why I'm sceptical of the Idea. (I'm sure you at leat know what mathematical beuty is, even if you don't appreciate it
)
Newtons laws of motion

F=Ma = GMm / R^2

one equation that explained the motion of just about everything that can be observed (you have to adapt it a bit and add the EM Field equation etc, but still one equation)



Special Relitivity

The Lorentz transformation, a simple set of equations which made the "ether" completly inconcequential, and explained the huge discrepancies between Newtons laws and the constant speed of light.

Quantum Mechanics

The proof of the Uncertainty principal is in my opinion the most beutiful piece of maths I've ever seen (the one with probability waves, not the crappy particle bouncing explanation)

General Relitivity

I havn't read it but I've heard it is even more beutiful than the uncertainty principal.


Do you see the pattern, they were all arrived at by looking at the current laws, spotting something, thinking it through and then arriving at the theory, all the theories are very simple in concept. General Relitivity was "Proved" based on the assumptions of Special Relitivity and the equivilence principal (I mean proved mathematicly which we have discussed isn't enough to be taken as true)


This is why I'm sceptical of the idea of the pico graviton, to me it seems that slight inconsistencies were spotted in general relitivity, (one of which is the Idea of planets speeding up in their orbits, which could easily be attributed to them hitting space rocks and droping slightly in their orpits, or something else) and then someone said "I'm going to come up with a theory that explains this" and off they went and invented the pico graviton. which in my opinion is where you should get sceptical. Do you see the parrallel I'm drawing petween the Pico Graviton and the Ether. :)

[kedaman]

Well i've already given up the debate on the gravitons existance, I was just pointing out that if the picogravitons did the work, what possibly could gravitons cause, if they don't even have a mass. I don't care if we have electrons or gravitons actually existing or not, but why telling gravitons have the purpose of picogravitons when they don't? A particle may be detected but a purpose may be false. I'm not sure Gen-x But have you read all those webpages you posted?

I've learned one thing, it's not everywhere in universe, so to the old argument, most of the universe consists of vacuum. Gravitons, picogravitons or not, they have to move, and to move they need space, which is vacuum.


It has NO mass, if it had mass then it in itself would create a gravitational field which it does not. If it had mass then it would stand to reason that it passing through another object on its way to causing a gravitational field to a second object would effect it MORE.. which it does not. The fact it has no mass is directly correlatory to the fact that it affects ALL matter to the same degree based PURELY on distance to the centre of mass.

Why create a gravitational field if there is not such thing as gravitiational field? I think you're inconsequent. If picogravitons is the reason to illusion "gravitational field", then how could you possibly think about a picograviton with a gravitational field? I've also checked out the mass of picogravitons: 1x10 81 kilograms. That is not NO mass.

I still don't care if picogravitons exists or not, but i think it's a crazy theory, and we should be as sceptical to it as to ghosts and souls.


And because you are completely unwilling to even explore the possiblity you will continue to think it is crazy... That is EXACTLY the mentality that the catholic church had when dealing with Galilleo... they nearly burnt him at the stake for heracy because he blasphemed that our God created planet was NOT the centre of the known universe.

We still don't have a specified center of universe in 3d-space. If God created humans to be his most advanced creations, Earth surely is the center of universe. Whatever you say about we're not in a middle of a galaxy, doesn't matter, actually we have a massive black hole in our galaxys center, so it's like stupid to place us to live there if life ever could survive in such environment.

Well FANCY THAT!!! And the reason they stopped believing in Ether was because someone DISPROVED it. Now where on earth would anyone get an idea that something is believed until the point at which it is disproved and a NEW theory comes along that withstands the riggors of scientific scrutiny.

Then strangely enough THAT stands as "belief" until someone shows that it is also wrong and have a NEW theory that now can withstand anything thrown at it.

First, how can you ever DISPROOVE something if you don't have enough facts? If you believe in something, you can create tons of theories based on it and never understand the actual truth. If science fails to explain univese, even in distant future, like it does now, we've made a big mistake in taking what we see for to be true from the first beginnning. In every single theory, every single concept, we have a EQUAL proportion of possibility to be an illusion, if we don't have ANY FACTS AT ALL. By "disprooving" and "prooving" we only would tell ourself to think this makes more sence than that, but we can't take nothing for granted. For beliefs, i can tell you that everything you think you know, you're actually believing in.

[The Candlesitck Maker]

Woah, this is well deep. Gen-X, how do you sleep at night knowing you're the most sarcartic person in the world.

How is he sarcastic? He is only expressing his side of the arguement.

[The Candlesitck Maker]

He rips peoples arguments apart using his sharp teeth of sarcasm. There's more to being sarcastic than just saying the opposite to what you mean.

Anyway, get back to the physics.

[Gen-X]

CandleStick

I sleep like a baby thank you very much ;)

It was extremely sarcastic wasn't it... but you get that when someone spends their whole time saying how wrong you are only to then say exactly what they disagreed with in the beginning... Unfortunately being a human being means things like that trigger my sarcasm.

Others

No I didn't read the sites I listed... I listed them because at the time you were saying "They don't exist" and "Only a few people believe that crazy idea". So the fact I found sites relating to them so quickly showed that it wasn't such a crazy idea. I wasn't about to filter those sites to ONLY show you ones that agreed completely with what I believe myself... that would be stupid.

I'm not here to support just MY claims... I am here to get ALL the evidence both good and bad and adjust accordingly.


You see this is what it comes down to... what I have been trying to say all along they everyone seems to ignore.

Kedaman is right... how can we ever know ALL the facts? How can we ever know something we did is the TRUTH?

We boil water and measure the temperature at 100 degrees when it boils. We repeat the process 1000 times and the result is ALWAYS the same.

So we make a RULE : "Water boils at 100 degrees"

Then some bright spark decides to boil water at the top of a mountain... and it boils at 70 degrees!!?!?!?!

We didn't realise that altitude has an effect, we didn't realise that at higher altitudes the potential energy is different and that particle movement increases thus decreasing the amount of temperature required to excite molecules.

So now we revise the RULE : "At 1 atmosphere Water boils at 100 degrees"

And we come up with some wonderful mathematical formula that can compensate for Temperature and Altitude.


But none of that actually PROVES anything about how water boils... ALL of it is based on the current facts that we know and when a new fact comes along we adjust our thinking to include this new fact.


That is why I keep trying to tell everyone... YOU CANNOT PROVE ANYTHING!!!!

All you can do is find a theory that seems to work and then try and tear it to pieces. If you try everything you can possibly think of to DISPROVE it and you fail... then you hold onto that theory as "What we currently consider to be most valid" until some NEW fact comes along that allows you to disprove it and move on.

Why is that concept so damn strange to everyone out there!?!? It is the ONLY way that scientists actually work, perhaps Uni students out there should go and talk with physics students and ask them because they will tell this to you like it was common knowledge.

Science is about finding answers... and those answers are only accepted when it is IMPOSSIBLE to say they are wrong... not when you can come up with some pretty mathematical formula to explain it, not when you can draw diagrams or perform experiments.... but when there is NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON that can say/show/do something that DISPROVES what you are saying.

If you guys cannot understand this simplistic principle then I am amazed ANY of you are actually programmers!!!

Because I hope you don't test the robustness of your applications by writing mathematical formulas to show they are doing what they are supposed to...

I hope you are testing them by trying to knock them around, tear them apart and FORCING them to fail... because only when they fail do you know where you have gone wrong.


Am I making any sense or am I talking to a brick wall here?

[Sam Finch]

Gen-X

Can we leave the Descartes out of it. I thought we settled this. Of course you can't prove anything about the real world, but we can make some assumptions and prove that other things are true if our assumptions are true, if one of our assumptions turns out to be false, then what we've proved is not neccaceraly true, but it's pretty useless to sit there thumb up bum and say that you're not going to learn anything about the world around you because it can't be proved to be there and anything you learn can't be proved to be true.

as it happens I do use maths to test my programs, I come up with a few simplified cases of what the program is trying to do, work out the results mathematicly and if the program produces all the right results I assume it to be bug free. If it makes one mistake I go on a bug hunt.

sometimes I don't bother, I just check that the formulae I come up with to see If it simplifies to various special cases, If it does then I assume that that part of the program works.

It makes bug hunting far far quicker and more reliable because with a couple of equations I can have the same confidence that it works as I would after an infinite number of tests.

You can't prove anything, but you can believe things, and I don't believe in pico gravitons because of my own rule that if the theory makes assumptions that can't be observed (ie there's a load of pico gravitns floating around) and it is derived because it happens to fill a particular discrepency then it is unlikley to be true. A theory I believe has to be based apon a logical extension of observed assumptions, pico gravitons do not satiasfy this.

[kedaman]

I think we as human beings are doomed to explore, advance and discover, so we can't stand still and do nothing. But if science fails at some point in time, and we can't find out what bugs, then we have always a way out, at least one that can explain, and we won't always have to go that deep but we can find the failure at a very basic nature. For instance we have the Matrix.

[Gen-X]

Sam

I am going to break this down to the lowest possible form that I can in the hope you will actually understand this...


Of course you can't prove anything about the real world, but we can make some assumptions and prove that other things are true if our assumptions are true, if one of our assumptions turns out to be false, then what we've proved is not neccacerilly true


Ok. Lets just deal with that statement.

What you are saying is that providing all of your "assumptions" turn out to be correct, then you can actually prove that something is TRUE in science?

Now I have some questions from that...

1. How do you prove your assumptions are true in the first place?
2. How many times has science ever gotten it ALL correct?



but it's pretty useless to sit there thumb up bum and say that you're not going to learn anything about the world around you because it can't be proved to be there and anything you learn can't be proved to be true.


I dont know who you are referring to there but what I would say is that what you CAN do as a result of this is to listen to any and every theory and try and poke holes in it... If you find that you are unable to come up with anything solid and concrete the dismisses it then you accept it under the knowledge that "It is currently the closest to TRUTH as we know".

Thats very much different to what you quoted above.


It makes bug hunting far far quicker and more reliable because with a couple of equations I can have the same confidence that it works as I would after an infinite number of tests.


Ouch!! Ewww!! Yuck!!

If that is how you test programs then I am cringing. Obviously you haven't heard of "Unit Testing" and "Function Testing" and DEFINATELY "Acceptance Testing".

Simply verifying formulae and "assuming" that because it works a few times means it works for an infinate number of tests is not enough... Its ok for simple formula or for returning of single strings etc but for an entire application there are usually many interactions of unrelated (or seemingly unrelated) objects. You have to thoroughly test every possible outcome and eventuality in order to be sure it will work correctly...

Any Software Development book will tell you about this... its the first thing we learned in University under Software Engineering.


because of my own rule that if the theory makes assumptions that can't be observed (ie there's a load of pico gravitns floating around) and it is derived because it happens to fill a particular discrepency then it is unlikley to be true


Oh your kidding me right? And what do you classify as "observation"? I can't see air particles... I use some device that tells me they are air particles but I dont specificially see them myself... So are they there?

I can't see quarks, and yet they know they are there all the time...

String Theory and its application have shown a consistant and CONSTANT presence of a particle that has no mass. Half of science is about "filling descrepencies" and then trying to bash the hell out of them... if they fall over then its dismissed and something better is found... if it manages to withstand the riggors of being bombarded then it remains true.

What the hell do you think the electron is?!?!

Someone was doing an experiment on an Atom and they kept finding this particle pop up that had a negative charge. "Mmmm...", says Mr Scientist. "I wonder what that is... Lets see what I can get to FIT here. Is it another proton? Nope, its negative... Is it a Neutron... Nope, its too small... Perhaps I should call this thing an ELECTRON, and I shall say that it has a charge of -1 because there seems to be one of them for every Proton in the atom and its overall charge is 0".

He then went away and hammered on that, trying to make it false. He did tests, tried to disprove what it was but each time the answers came back the same... So he published it... and OTHER people hammered away on it... Eventually nobody could come up with anything to dispute the fact that this was a atom that had a charge of -1 and in neutral particle, matching the same number of +1 protons.

THAT is science...

Kedaman


But if science fails at some point in time, and we can't find out what bugs, then we have always a way out, at least one that can explain


And what is that way out that we can explain?

[kedaman]

If that is how you test programs then I am cringing. Obviously you haven't heard of "Unit Testing" and "Function Testing" and DEFINATELY "Acceptance Testing".

Actually i would prefer faster but functional methods instead of slower but accepting methods. That's what's make API better than Vb methods. About making an application while i'm "Unit Testing" would take ages and I would get tired of doing it. Instead i would make a stright example of what i'm doing first and then expand slowly to get it more functional and correct. I think Sam is doing the right thing.



String Theory and its application have shown a consistant and CONSTANT presence of a particle that has no mass. Half of science is about "filling descrepencies" and then trying to bash the hell out of them... if they fall over then its dismissed and something better is found... if it manages to withstand the riggors of being bombarded then it remains true.

That sounds like fact, but when you say "true" put into "" because something is only true if it stands against all possible arguments of laws in universe, not only human thoughts. But then also, i don't see we can thrust universe either as fact, only to be true to human beings.

Now i know scientists and mathematicians don't like Descartes, because their theories are dismissed like that, but we should have that in mind and not dismiss it because it's the most basic theory of universe, still being true because noone has disprooved it. It's like removing Newtons theory of gravity and calculate simple classical mathproblems with Einsteins relativity theory.

Also i didn't know anything about Descartes before Sam told me, so i was just standing here as his littlebrother without knowing it.

And what is that way out that we can explain?

Universe does not exist. Well i'm disappointed that Descartes already have said things, and i'm just repeating his theory but at least i have him to quote. No, Sam, i will stop posting theories of Descartes, as i know i would just disappoint people, and that's not what i want.

[Sam Finch]

oh god, I have to explain this to you again

1. How do you prove your assumptions are true in the first place?
2. How many times has science ever gotten it ALL correct?

let's start with Newton and his theory of Gravity. He started with these assumptions

A Time is Absolute
B F=Ma (This can be "Prooved" to hold from some other observations)
C The observed positions of the Planets that were available to him were accurate
D Ignoring Air resistance 2 bodies of differing masses will accelarate
under gravity at the same rate


From this he "proved" mathematicly

E F = (GMm) / (r^2)


now as it happens A,B,C,D and E have been proved not to hold in all situations, but in situations where we can approximate to A,B,C and D (We approximate to C bysaying that it does not matter if our results are slightly innacurate) then we can Approximate to E.

Statement E was true enough to get us to the moon, It doesn't matter that it's not absolutley true.

Now If Statements A,B and D can be proved from other simplifying assumptions which we can easily test in a situation to see if they are good enough approximations then we can go straight to statement E. and I'm quite happy to call that true.

but it's pretty useless to sit there thumb up bum and say that you're not going to learn anything about the world around you because it can't be proved to be there and anything you learn can't be proved to be true.

What do I mean by this? Shut up about not being able to proove anything is what I mean, You know what I mean by prooved, I know that you can't prove anything to be true in the real world, and ok, any observations we can make might just be a big coincedence, but if we assume that the patterns we see hold until something breaks that pattern then we can make predictions based on extentions of these patterns. I'm fed up of saying this.



because of my own rule that if the theory makes assumptions that can't be observed (ie there's a load of pico gravitns floating around) and it is derived because it happens to fill a particular discrepency then it is unlikley to be true

Every major breakthrough in physics is made by following up simple observations, an observation is not nessaseraly some thing you see, it can be something you feel (ie air), something you conclude from the result of an experiment or just a new way of interpreting something you see everyday (ie Einsteins Happiest Thought When you are falling unresisted due to gravity the laws of physics are the same as if you are at rest in no gravitaitional field) Einstein did not say I recon space is curved and then work backwards from that.

The Pico Graviton was invented purely as a theory, it was then worked backwards to make it work, This is why I am sceptical, I can't say they don't exist, I'd Just Like somthing more definate before I take on board theIdea of the Pico Graviton.

I'd Like to remind you at this point that although physicists found a particle and called it a graviton, that is a completley different particle to the Pico Graviton which has not been detected. Gravitons do not cause gravity, it's just a name.

I can't be arsed to explain my testing methods, but they are more thorough than you suggest, I just use maths to know what tests I have to do. (ie if I work out one of my functions is a linear transformation in 3Space then I know that I only have to test the function 3 times, it's enormously unlikley that I get the function so wrong that not only is it not a linear transformation in 3Space but it also gives the right results for my 3 tests Getting it that wrong is like trying to add 3 numbers and putting a square in it. (I'll Explain what 3Space means in Creation and AI, It's what you mean when you say the 3rd Dimension) All I do is cut down the number of tests I need to do by doing the right ones.

[Gen-X]

I can picture it now...

The scientists make the assumptions, they do a few little calculations and then they launch the rocket to the moon

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

Oops... We forgot to take into consideration Factor X... It changes our entire equation... We actually got it wrong, but because we didn't bother testing it outside of our control environment we never KNEW that the result would be that... Oh well.. what a shame.

Do you know how many people have died in Rocket ships? Explosions on take off? Testing of Fighter planes? Just because some stupid moron did a few mathematical sums and said "It happened 10 times it will happen 1000 times"?

You keep saying what you are saying, you keep agreeing with me... and then you crawl back into your safe little haven and snuggle up to your beloved mathematics to stay warm at night.

On and I understand the Pico Graviton is a theory... I don't beleive in it either... But YOU were the one to choose the Pico for your arguments... I chose the Graviton which HAS been detected and DOES exist. Of course you couldn't find anything to dispute the Graviton so you centred on the non-existant Pico... Funny enough you also tried to "DISPROVE" it... funny that :D


But all of this is a bit off topic from our original statement... which was that Darwin's theory of Evolution is in my opinion just an "observation" of what really happens.

- Mutation occurs.. .but it is NOT the mutation which causes evolution

- Survival of the fittest occurs... but it is a side-effect of evolutionary progression NOT the reason for it

THOSE were my original statements, THAT is my belief and unlike most people who refuse to support their beliefs with facts I wrote in here EXACTLY why I believe what I do about Evolution according to Darwin is WRONG.

This may be a little of subject but how many dimension are there? And what are they each?

i.e
1st dimension = length,
2nd Dimension = width,
3rd dimension = depth/height
4th dimension = time

[Sam Finch]

That's quite a hard one, there's no actual number of dimensions, we can come up with models involving N dimensions, with different qualities, they don't actually have to exist, we can have energy as a Dimension if we like, or pressure, light intensity, it depends what makes more sense when seen as a dimension than when seen as a quantity, A dimension isn't a real thing, it's purely a mathematical Idea.

[Gen-X]

A dimension is a purely mathematical idea


Oh my God! Sam... now you are taking the cake... its almost as good as your "The Sun rorates around the Earth" comment.

Mathematics has provided definitions for dimensions and has provided ways of calculating things within them... but as for dimensions being purely mathematical... *WHACK* wake up!

:D

Mega...

As for how many dimensions nobody is really sure. At the moment we know of 4 of them which you have stated.

String Theory has suggested that there are either 10 or 26 and my personal opinion is that there are 10.

Why?

Because it works out like this :


1D - Length
2D - Width
3D - Height
<---------------- We now have RealSpace
4D - Time (Length)
5D - Time (Width)
6D - Time (Depth)
<---------------- We now have ChronoSpace
7D - XXX (Length)
8D - XXX (Width)
9D - XXX (Depth)
<---------------- Who knows what we have now
10D - ????


Look at us. We exist in the 3rd dimension. Our universe has Length, Width and Height. But we don't move... everything is stationary. Its only when the 4th dimension comes in that we are "ACTIVATED". So we actually LIVE in the 4th dimension.

Look at time... Time is a vector just like Length... but instead of being in a real space it is in relation to "time". So why wouldn't the additional dimensions then logically follow that there is a Width and a Depth of time?

Now follow the logical pattern. If the 4th Dimension ACTIVES us then the 7th Dimension ACTIVATES Time.... I have no idea what XXX is and I dont think any human being CAN understand what XXX is because it is beyond our comprehension as 4D beings. As for what the 10th Dimension is that Actives the others you've got me.

I'm not talking bullshit here, this is a very valid theory called "String Theory" and recently "Super String Theory". It has explained a lot of things that up until now have been unexplainable... And I will continue to believe it until someone shows valid reason not to.

Over to you Math-Sam

[Iain17]

I am going to have to go with Gen-X on this one. Claiming that dimensions are purely mathematical is just plain ludicrous. Dimensions can be defined using mathematics, though i find it very hard to believe they will ever be truly quantified, but your argument implies that everything is purely mathematical. By that reasoning, i can define my table in formulae, so my table must be a purely mathematical idea.

Again, Gen-X's point that we will never truly understand higher dimensions, is a valid point. Our brains are simply not equipped to deal with the thinking involved. We are 4D beings and cannot comprehend anything more. Oh we can try and understand, but we will never truly KNOW.

Taking the example of the 2D being not being able to see a pencil approaching from 3D space. Some of you are obviously failing to grasp this idea. I will try and explain it a bit more clearly than Gen-X did. Imagine the 2D world. The following diagram shows the 2D world.

-------------
' O '
' -|- '
' / \ '
-------------


Now i will turn flip this diagram so it is like looking at the edge of a piece of papper, And add the pencil.

'|' represents the flat world

| |
| |
Pencil -------> | Pencil ---|---->
| |
| |

'Fig.1. Fig.2.


The person dwelling 2D space can only see what is on their 'Flat' world. Anything not contained in the '|' cannot be seen. i.e Fig.1. When the pencil passes through the flat world, Fig.2., the 2D being will see the following

-------------
' O '
' . -|- '
' / \ '
-------------

Where '.' is the hole made by the pencil.

This is why we will never be able to SEE objects in higher dimensions, we will only ever see the effect caused by them in our 4D world.

And no i am not talking bullshit either. I have read up on String theory, though it was a couple of years ago now. There is an excellent book called Hyperspace that explains it all, and i reckon Gen-X has read it judging by his arguments.

As for the Tenth dimension, it has been postulated that it is actually Heven and Hell. Belive what you will though.

Anything clearer now?

[kedaman]

Again, Gen-X's point that we will never truly understand higher dimensions, is a valid point. Our brains are simply not equipped to deal with the thinking involved. We are 4D beings and cannot comprehend anything more. Oh we can try and understand, but we will never truly KNOW.

I see, that everyone is having each other misunderstood because of the word "dimensions" which is ambiguous.

Let me explain dimensions here:
You're mixing up mathematical dimensions with dimensions of space. Mathematical dimensions can be how many as you want there to be. But for space:

3 dimensions. Three, not 4 10 or 26. Because space is room and room coordinates can be specified in 3 accurate dimensions. Also these dimensions can all be relatively applied on universe, for as far as we know we have not found any origo or base vectors in universe. So we can't say "this is the X vector", only mathematically.

So when you say 4d space, we have spacetime, and that's mathematical not real. And Gen-x stop trying to say math doesn't apply to real universe because of that it's almost always simplification. What you need to understand is what is relevant or not.

Nice drawings iain, but you should know you're just discussing mathematical dimensions. If we were to live in a 5d world and exist in at (0,0) in the two external dimensions, i would take this as plain stupidity in real universe. while two dimensions are connected to universe, space we have a free movement in the other three, the original vectors of those must interfere with the two others or we would create a angled vectors, creating a mathematical theory. And without known angles, how can we possibly have nonfixed values within space and fixed in the two other dimensions. Space is 3-dimensioned, believe your eyes or press the "ESC" key to exit your life.

[Iain17]

I am sorry that i am the one that is going to pull the wool from your eyes Kedaman, but i am going to have to correct you a little.

You claim that you can give the co-ordinates of any object that exists in our space, to coin your phrase. Well i agree with you partly, the bit you have wrong is claiming to be able to define that position in 3 co-ordinates. I will explain why you can't

x = length
y = width
z = depth
t = time

Now i will give the co-ordinates of an object using your 3D space. Lets say my table exists at

x=100, y=500, z=0

Just take that as an example. The problem is that the table was not there 100 years ago, and will probably not be there in 100 years time. To exactly pinpoint the table, we need to specify the time at which it is there.

x=100, y=500, z=0, t=2000



If we were to live in a 5d world and exist in at (0,0) in the two external dimensions, i would take this as plain stupidity in real universe

You can specify any point in our universe using those 4 co-ordinates. We don't define a fifth co-ordinate for us, as we do not live in 5D space.


Now i never claimed that we live in 5D space, though i do believe there are 10 dimensions. Our universe is 4 dimensional. It is not 3D as you so claim. If the world we lived in was only 3 dimensional we would be stuck in the one place, not thinking, not moving, not aging. We need time. We live inside this universe so we are 4 dimensional beings. The other dimensions are outside our universe if you like. Layered if you want to picture it like that. Each layer containing the dimensions below it, but not the ones above it.

5D beings, if there are any, can obviously enter our universe. Think about it. A 2D being can go in just one dimension as well as the both. We can move in 1D just as we can move in 2D, 3D and 4D. So logically a 5D being will be able to move in all 5 dimensions.

[Sam Finch]

The Reason I say that a Dimension is a purley mathemetical Idea is that we don't live in a specified number of dimensions, Clasical physics says 3, special relitivity 4, general relitivity 5, string theory 10 or 26, and there are thousands of other less widley accepted theories which say other numbers, seeing as I havn't read string theory or general relitivity I'm happy with 4.

The definition of N dimensional space is that you can't specify N+1 linearly independant vectors in N Dimensional Space.

in 3 dimensions this means that if you give me any four directions I can pick values X,Y and Z sutch that I can go X metres in one Direction, then Y metres in another, Z metres in the 3rd then I can get back to where I started by travaling only in the fourth Direction. (one of X,Y and Z is allowed to be -ve but none can be zero.)

I don't know how much sense that makes, I've tried to describe it using as little maths as possible but I think even GenX will agree that this is a very mathsy idea and can't be described properly without maths.

The Idea of a dimension is a mathematical Idea, you can understand what 0, 1, 2 or 3 dimensions is, if you inclusde
time you can sort of grasp 4, but this is because our universe can be approximated to a 3 Dimensional Space, and sort of approximated to 4.

String theory obviously explains a few things by approximating the universe to 10 or 26 dimensions, I'm sure it has some good reasons for doing this but that doesn't mean there are 26 Dimensions, it just means that's one way of looking at it.

Dimensions are simply tools to make maths easier, they arn't physical object any more than numbers are physical obects.

[Gen-X]

Recently I have been reading a science book (gasp of surprise from the audience :D )

It went through the foundations of atoms, the discovery of the electron, quarks, mesons, gluons, gravitons, field theory, electromagnetism and everything else.

Some very interesting things were said in there.

Apparently the scientific minds of the time totally refused to accept that light was generated from a photon and that this photon could be both a WAVE and a PARTICLE... it wasn't until the specifications of Quantum Mechanics that it showed it could act as BOTH when it needed to.

The impressive thing that I got out of all this was the actual size of everything going on... something I dont think we take into account very often. Take a photon for example... here was the quote used to describe how many there are :

"On a sunny day a thousand billion BILLION photons would strike the head of a pin in a single second"

It was discoveries like this which show how photons carry both the electromagnetic force AND the weak chemical force (A theory called the "ElectroWeak Theory") and are the basis for all the Unifying theories that are here today.

It then showed quite clearly that Gravity was carried by a particle in exactly the same way that light is carried by a photon... it isn't fiction, it is documented scientific proof (until such time as we prove otherwise).

If you were to ask a Quantum Mechanic to describe the universe he would say that it is a set of intersecting "fields" where each field there exists only a single type of particle... and that these particles are actually "knots" in the web of forces for that particlar field.

This suggests that matter is not actually solid in any way but is actually BLIPS in the fields of energy for particular fields.

In about the next week or so the book goes into a topic called the "Molecule of Life" and then into evolution... WHen I read that I will start a new topic and explain their findings.

[kedaman]

IAIN

x = length
y = width
z = depth
t = time

That's not 3d space, Thats spacetime, I was explaining 3d space, for you that believed time is a dimension to count with space dimensions to alter it with 4d, which is basically just math, not reality.

though i do believe there are 10 dimensions. Our universe is 4 dimensional

How consistent you are. Well simply put, don't take math for reality


Dimensions are simply tools to make maths easier, they arn't physical object any more than numbers are physical obects.

And the only thing we can state is that space is 3d in reality.

[Iain17]

Kedaman

And the only thing we can state is that space is 3d in reality.


Sorry if I was being unclear, but if we are talking about Space then I will agree that in the usual context of the word it is 3D.

However you must be able to see my point that you can only exactly pinpoint something using space-time.

For everyday use SPACE is fine for specifying where things are, but over a millennia things move and change. We need to specify that an object was there at a specific point in time as well as space, because it may well not be there at a different point in time. Clear?



though I do believe there are 10 dimensions. Our universe is 4 dimensional

How consistent you are. Well simply put, don't take math for reality



Sorry this is my fault, I was being unclear again. Just as you were talking about our visualization of space, I was talking about our visualization of the universe.

What I mean is that the universe we all know and love is 4 dimensional.;) Outside, our concept of the universe lay the other dimensions. I hope I have explained myself a little better this time.

[kedaman]

However you must be able to see my point that you can only exactly pinpoint something using space-time

What if I tell you time is not absolute? Then you have to back out because Einteins still stands strong with his Relativity theory.

What I mean is that the universe we all know and love is 4 dimensional. Outside, our concept of the universe lay the other dimensions. I hope I have explained myself a little better this time.

Yes, thanks for doing that. I agree that the four dimensions are pretty acceptable, as math is still as reliable for everyone except Gen-x.

[Gen-X]

Kedaman

Maths has its place... I have never denied that... but it certainly doesn't hold the vaunted place everyone else keeps saying it does.

Lets look at the Periodic Table.

Mathematical calculations were developed that could determine the atomic weight of elements. The funny thing is that it actually matched!

As new elements were discovered their atomic weight was calculated to match exactly what the Maths said it should... and everyone was happy.

Then all of a sudden one of the elements had slightly MORE weight than what it should of... and another had slightly LESS than what it should of...

Everyone was confused... they put it down to "error" and continued to trust their vaunted mathematics.

At some point later someone discovered the "Neutron" and with this discovery the mathematics used to calculate atomic weight also changed... and now the NEW formula could explain why those 2 elements had different weights than the previous one because they had until previously only assumed Protons existed in the nucleus.

My whole point is that Maths is an AFTERTHOUGHT. It is something that comes along afterwards to collaborate something we have already discovered. It can never be a PROOF... it can only SUPPORT something that is a proof.

Read some more books on science and the discovery of the atom and its internal workings and you will see that although they used mathematics and althought they worked the MATHS was made to FIT what they thought was true... it could never prove something that was not THOUGHT of first and was not VALIDATED by experiment and NOT mathematics.

Its the history of our science, its right in front of you, its the whole reason why we are where we are today... and yet there are so many people in here that continue to dispute it... THAT I don't understand.

[kedaman]

Gen-X, why do we break Math and physics apart from each other? And why math an chemistry?

Because we want to separate theories from math. Excuse me Gen-x, but i have to say that

Maths is an AFTERTHOUGHT

is false. Math is truely the most true thing in universe, we could ever imagine, it's physics you're trying to kick out, and physics is science and science is religion and religion is bullshit, as science is bullshit image, what you're actually stating.

[Sam Finch]

Gen-x

Let me explain to you the Idea of a model.

in order to explain the universe we must make a model, that model can be mathematical or non mathematical, in either case this model always has it's limitations, it only applies uunder certain conditions, however the buty of the mathematical model is that you can extend it by the use of mathematical methods, and this extension of the model will hold as long as the original model holds, 2 mathematical models can be combined to make a better model.

You are attributing your distrust of maths to the mistakes of 18th and 19th ecntury chemists who did not have the knowledge of modelling techniques we have today.

a mathematical model is made on observations, from this we can make more predictions, these predictions can be verified by experiment, if they are shown to be true it adds strength to the model, if they are shown to be false it shows that there are flaws in the model.

now I don't know about you but I don't have a particle accelarator in my living room, If I make a prediction I can't verify it by experiment, I just have to assume that the models hold in the situations I use them in.

now if you use a model in one of your arguments, and you use it wrong, or you make an assumption that contradicts a model that holds in the situations you're describing I will correct you, and seeing as all nonclasical models are entirley mathematical and can only be approximated to using non mathematical methods I usually use the maths argument.

you are right when you say that maths can't describe everything, I would have quite a job describing a cat to you entirely in maths. but physics is one of those things that needs maths, as I said Everything in nonclassical physics is a mathematical model If you read a science book It is likley to approximate these mathematical models into forms that the reader can understand, otherwise it wouldn't sell outside of universities.


as for the graviton Idea, you could use 3 Models to describe the situation


1 A changing gravitational field has some particle like qualities, these qualities are manifested in a particle known as the graviton

2 Gravity is transmitted by a particle, a masive object emmits particles in the same way as a bright object emits photons. however rather than having a conventional momentum, which would cause objects to repel they have a -ve momenum hence causing the attraction.

3 Billions upon billions of pico gravitons fly around the universe at 27c bouncing off massive objects, when 2 objects are near each other they block the gravitons from the space inbetween them causing a difference in gravitational pressure and hence an attractive force.


1 is obviously true, however when the graviton model was first described to me it was described more like 2. as I object to the Idea of a -ve momentum as it implies a -ve mass meaning that objects would increce in mass with time. I objected this and you pointed me to a website which suggested 3, I find this model pretty damned unlikley, having thought about it you were probably suggesting 1.

hopefully that's cleared up.

[Gen-X]

Kedaman

Mathematics is a system of Rules made by man to describe universal principles which have been observed to exist.

How then can the construct be "the most true thing in the universe" when they are our own constructions to describe what we can see and count and observe?

All I am saying should be kicked out is the belief that "Maths can be used to PROVE anything"... which was my point all long. Maths can be used to come up with models and tests and even predictions... but it isn't the maths which confirms the experiments... its the experiments that confirms the maths.

It is that simple... you cannot dispute the fact that "All Mathematical equations relating to the real world are PROVED by observed experimentation".

Sam

Thank you... Your explaination of the use of maths is spot on and I agree with it completely. It is used for models and it is used for predictions.

But did you notice that you wrote "these predictions can be verified by experiment" and not "mathematics PROVES these experiments were correct".

That is the point I have been trying to make here... That Maths is NOT the proof but the method. It does help but you don't write "E=mC2" and say that it PROVES the theory... Instead you do experiments and those experiments PROVES the mathematics.

Does that make sense? Surely you must see that as you yourself actually wrote it.

Maybe my translation of what I am meaning has been lost but my original point was that "Maths cannot provide PROOF". I think it still stands based on what you have said here perfectly.

As for gravitons.... There are more models than the ones you stated including field theory and string theory which shows they are particles but act as waves when in a certain "quanta" (hence quantum physics). It is the weakest of the 4 forces and the hardest to pull into the GUT because the energy levels required to make it similar to the other 3 is amazingly high... actually probably the energy of the Big Bang.

If you wont accept the existance of the graviton unless mathematics shows it then read string theory.

[Sam Finch]

Gen-x I have never thought that maths can provide proof of how the real world works, we agreed this some time ago.

However if you suggest something, I will combine it with an existing model and If I show that it leads to some obsurd conclusion or conflicts with another model I will object strongly to it, (ie your idea of quarks being 5D objects which only come into our space when in 3s conflicts with the uncertainty prncipal and places huge constraints on the way these things can move, on us there are very few constraints on the way we can move. It could be that the physics believed to be true is wrong, but more likley you are oversimplifying or misenterpreting the model you are using, which is where I jump in and tell you you are talking **** and you say that I'm using maths to prove things.

as for gravitons I wwas wondering what model you were saying was true, or if it's another one that I didn't mention, If it's completley ridiculous then I'll just object again, but if it's something like the first one which is gonna be true then I'm happy.

Like you say I do need a stron argument if I'm going to believe something, that's just me, and string theory is on my list of things to read, (you'll notice I have no objections to the 10D model because It's part of string theory is good enough, it's when I think you're misinterpreting a model or just talking crap I object) most theories nowadays are based entirley on mathsbecause it's the only thing we have that comes close to being able to describe the models we come up with.

[Iain17]

Maths as a model

While maths can not prove anything in the real world. It can be used to prove or disprove a theory or model of the real world. You all seem well read, so i assume you all know that a hundred and one theories to explain gravity have been proposed. Most of these have been proved wrong by maths, because we keep getting infinite loops appearing which brings down the whole model.

I can see why Sam suggested the fact that Dimensions are a purely mathematical idea. If super-string theory is correct and their are 10 dimensions, then the simple fact of the matter is that they are not just mathematical, but they actually exist. Admittedly the only way we can describe them is through mathematics.

Though even this is limited at the minute. Super-string theory has not yet been completed, because we lack the mathematics to model it. String theory was discovered by accident, when a student physicist was looking through a book of mathematical models trying to find one to explain some idea he had. We now have the theory, but not the maths to describe it. Physicist are having to work back wards for a change. They have the theory, now they need to know how they got there! We are in fact waiting for maths to catch up.

Though some physicists are still sceptical about String Theory actually being a theory. Unless you can prove or disprove a theory experimentally they hold that it is not a theory. Of course most of that thinking went out the window when they realised that they would never be able to experimentally test the theory of creation, but some people still abide by that rule.

Theoretically we might be able to prove string theory one day. At the minute we lack the technology to test it. The estimated amount of energy that we would need to probe higher dimension has been calculated at roughly 100 million times the energy produced in our most powerful atom smashers, or the Plank energy, which i can't remember of the top of my head.

[kedaman]

I believe theoretical math is physics and classic math is math. am I wrong?
Ie:

1+1=2 <- Can you proove or disproove it? No, it's a logical operation.
E=mc² <- Can you proove or disproove it? Yes, it's a theory and it can be prooved or disprooved.

I'm not saying you have to do it now, i'm just pointing this out as an example.

AM I WRONG?

[Gen-X]

Sam

Here are a few of your statements from previous posts.


Page 1
mathematical proofs, we do not assume anything, we merely define an operation, which is a perfectly valid method of proof.

Page 4
I can see your side of the argument that you can't prove anything at all in the real world but using maths to prove things makes sense if you base the logic on what is currently belived to be a good model of the real world, otherwise you might as well give up on science altogether

Studies of infinity are very valid, they are used to prove some mathematical tools[b/] that we can use to establish physical laws

Maths will always hold if the assumptions don't change


So now you say "I have never thought that maths can provide proof of how the real world works". Somehow either I am not picking up on your fine definition of what constitutes a "proof" or you have contradicted yourself.

But I noticed you have now swung from talking about "mathematics" to talking about "models". They are 2 different things. Models are used to "explain" something that has already been studied and experimented and to some extent PROVED. It was not the maths that brought about this proof, but in fact the experimentation that confirmed the maths is correct.

The model I am talking about regarding the graviton is the String Theory model. Partial proof has been found because it explains results that previous models simply couldn't explain. The previous models did reach infinate loops and thus could not explain gravity. This model does NOT resort to infinate loops, contains the correct ordering, dimensions, strengths and sizes of all 4 forces but as Iain has said... the energy required to actually experiment on gravities inclusion is next to impossible.

[a]Iain
The following statement is what I disagreed with when Sam basically said it


It can be used to prove or disprove a theory or model of the real world


Maths CANNOT prove or disprove a theory or model. It is the other way around. It is experimentation results that prove or disprove a MATHEMATICALLY generated model.

Iain. I know you are a reasonable person, so I ask you this :

"Provide for me a Model that is accepted as PROVED that did not have ANY experimentational results from the real world"

If you can do that then I will accept maths as proof, if however all models are based on actual results then I would say to you that the Maths didn't prove it, it was the results that proved the maths.

You are right that there isn't enough energy to actually test the string theory... that level of energy only existed at the big bang and was probably what created it in the first place. But it does however bring up a very interesting point for me :

If it takes that much energy to get OUT of the dimension we are in then doesn't it stand to reason that while we can interact with lower dimensions with next to no energy (we walk around with bits of the 1st dimension all over us as well as the 2nd) we cannot get to higher dimensions.

That matches what I said before about the 2D being not being able to reach the 3D (thus no Z from the perspective of the 2D) but the 3D can interact with the 2D (by creating the Z=0 from the perspective of the 3D).

Kedaman

The only thing I would add to your statement is that there is a lot of theoretical maths at the moment which has nothing to do with physics... its just theoretical maths (although a lot of math theory DOES get used in physics it isn't ALL) and that the proof or disproof for the equasion lies in experimental results CONFIRMING that the equation holds true.

What never happens is people saying "We have this equation and the equation itself proves what is happening in the real world".

[Iain17]

Gen-X

Back to Maths again;)

Okay, you have a point, i will have to rephrase my statement.

Maths can be used to prove or disprove a theory combined with our observations or experiments in the real world.

There has been no way of properly experimenting with gravity at a quantum level. Because the force is so weak the scale of the experiment we are talking about is ridiculously large. Apparently if we were to make an atom hold itself together through gravity, the atom would have to be the size of the universe.

Yet maths has proved many of the theories on gravity wrong. Admittedly we have to take into account our observations on how gravity works. You obviously know that most of the gravitational theories have produced infinite or zero results. This was calculated using maths. Then combined with the fact that we knew gravity did not function this way in the real world, we knew the theory to be wrong.


All

Higher Dimensions

I agree with you that a 2d being will not be able to interact with the 3d world. The energy needed to do this, as you stated, is the energy of creation. Which is why string theory is the closest theory we have to the theory of everything. It is also a theory on creation.

However if we intersected their 2d world with a pen they would see the effect of the 3d pen in their 2d world. This is why we still have hope that string theory may be proved one day, with out having to re-create a bit of the big bang. We may be able to detect "Shadows" of higher dimensions.

Physics has had its fair number of theories that were claimed could never be proved. In the 19th century they thought they would never be able to prove what the composition of a star is. The technology to reach a star and experiment on it was beyond them, and is still beyond us. Yet we can tell what makes up a star using spectroscopy, because each element has is own "fingerprint".

So our main hope at the minute is that we will be able to detect a "Fingerprint" from a higher dimension, because creating enough energy to probe a higher dimension is centuries ahead of us.


Kedaman

1+1=2 <- Can you proove or disproove it? No, it's a logical operation.
E=mc² <- Can you proove or disproove it? Yes, it's a theory and it can be prooved or disprooved.


There is no difference between these two equations.

x+x = 2x

And the reverse for the other equation, i will turn it into a number equation.

m=0
0=0*300000*300000

What is the difference between the above and your first example?

[Gen-X]

Iain

Thanks for refining but I still think it needs more


Maths can be used to prove or disprove a theory combined with our observations or experiments in the real world


Can you show me somewhere that Maths has been used WITHOUT experiments to prove something?

Maths provides guidelines, and through maths it can "help". But Maths itself is NEVER a proof. Sceince states "If it doesn't agree with experiement then it isn't a theory".

It was through the use of Maths that Bohr came up with the latest periodic table... and even rearranged some of the elements into their correct order before they were found. he even predicted their properties mathematically.

But it didn't become "PROOF" until those elements were actually found and experiments ACTUALLY agreed. So the maths wasn't part of the proof, the maths actually became a method for being able to "predict" and to "calculate"... but it was never the proof.


There has been no way of properly experimenting with gravity at a quantum level


Which is why they are working backwards on Super String Theory, because it is the first thing we haven't had the ability to experiment to prove. That in itself shows the ineffectiveness of Maths when dealing with the real world. Having the working formulae isn't enough, it doesn't PROVE anything until the evidence PROVES the maths.


Yet maths has proved many of the theories on gravity wrong.Admittedly we have to take into account our observations on how gravity works. You obviously know that most of the gravitational theories have produced infinite or zero results. This was calculated using maths. Then combined with the fact that we knew gravity did not function this way in the real world, we knew the theory to be wrong.


So did maths DISPROVE these theories? Or was it the fact that the theories didn't match was we could observe that DISPROVED them?

"we knew gravity did not function this way". THIS is the reason the theory was wrong... not the fact that maths said something to the contrary.


m=0
0=0*300000*300000

What is the difference between the above and your first example?


Try explaining that to Sam.

He thinks Z=3 is the same as 3 + 0i and that it is only using 1 dimension to describe a 3d space have a number equal to itself and nothing of an imaginary number.

[Iain17]

Gen-X

Maths Yet Again!


So did maths DISPROVE these theories? Or was it the fact that the theories didn't match was we could observe that DISPROVED them?

"we knew gravity did not function this way". THIS is the reason the theory was wrong... not the fact that maths said something to the contrary.


This i think shows where we differ in opinion. Some of theories on gravity have been quite plausible. The only reason they were proved wrong was because of maths, combined with our observations on how gravity works.

At first glance these theories explain quite well what we know about gravity. It is not until we use maths to work out what would happen under hypothetical conditions that we see the theories are flawed. These made up scenarios are physically impossible for us to experimentally test, but knowing what we know about gravity, we can use maths to work out the outcome. If the outcome conflicts with what we know, then the theory must be flawed.

[kedaman]

But I noticed you have now swung from talking about "mathematics" to talking about "models". They are 2 different things. Models are used to "explain" something that has already been studied and experimented and to some extent PROVED . It was not the maths that brought about this proof, but in fact the experimentation that confirmed the maths is correct.

yuck, Gen-x I don't like it when you use the word "proof" in that diffuse way. I have posted up the kedamanology thread for this purpose: to clean out the ambigous bugs in our language in refering to what is real or not.


Maths CANNOT prove or disprove a theory or model. It is the other way around. It is experimentation results that prove or disprove a MATHEMATICALLY generated model.

I think you're wrong Gen-x. You cannot proove anything with observations. "Just because earth looks flat it must be flat"


The only thing I would add to your statement is that there is a lot of theoretical maths at the moment which has nothing to do with physics... its just theoretical maths (although a lot of math theory DOES get used in physics it isn't ALL) and that the proof or disproof for the equasion lies in experimental results CONFIRMING that the equation holds true.

Theoretical math is theoretical math not classical math.


Maths can be used to prove or disprove a theory combined with our observations or experiments in the real world.

Now Iain has a better suggestion but it still lacks the true concept of proof.

And the reverse for the other equation, i will turn it into a number equation.

m=0
0=0*300000*300000

What is the difference between the above and your first example?

THe thing is that E refers to Energy not a variable you use in visualbasic. m is mass and c the speed of light. Now this works in reality we say, but you see that by observations, and that's NOT PROOF! Go look at kedamanology i've posted. I think we can solve out some big misunderstandings we always have in all our threads, right there.

I think you're wrong Gen-x. You cannot proove anything with observations. "Just because earth looks flat it must be
flat"

But you're looking at it from a Microscopic point of view. You must able to see the whole picture.

[Gen-X]

Iain

This i think shows where we differ in opinion. Some of theories on gravity have been quite plausible. The only reason they were proved wrong was because of maths,
combined with our observations on how gravity works


Yes you are right... this IS where our opinions differ and I still maintain that you are failing to see the relationship between mathematics and experimentation (NOT observation... EXPERIMENTATION)

Continue...


At first glance these theories explain quite well what we know about gravity. It is not until we use maths to work out what would happen under hypothetical conditions that we see the theories are flawed. These made up scenarios are physically impossible for us to experimentally test, but knowing what we know about gravity, we can use maths to work out the outcome. If the outcome conflicts with what we know, then the theory must be flawed.


This is where I disagree with you completely... and here is why.

I am studying the transition of state of water from a liquid to a gas. Its the early 1900's.

I do some experiments and I work out that at 100 degrees celcius water transforms from a liquid to a gas.

Based on what you are saying above, if I did some mathematical theories that used "pressure" instead of "temperature" to calculate the boiling of water, and that figure came out at 70 degrees celcius if the altitude was 1000m then you would say "but knowing what we know about boiling water we can use maths to work out the outcome".

Your mathematical formula would therefor be WRONG because you didn't take into account the fact that pressure has an influence on the boiling point of water.

Until you actually DO experiments and realise that your MATHS is wrong ("Hang on, I calculated 100 degrees but its doing it at 70 and the differing factor is my altitude") you would be unaware of your theory.

So how do you know these theories of gravity are wrong?

You say they do not match was we "know" about gravity? How do you know that what we "know" about gravity doesn't differ because of some factor we didn't take into account? Like the pressure on water?

This is the fundamental proof that states maths cannot prove something... because the maths itself is based on us knowing all the variables (Sam even said this himself). So using maths will only prove the TRUTH of something we have already corroborated with scientific experiment.

Your whole point of view falls apart the second a NEW factor is discovered.

THIS related to what I have maintained since the beginning of my posts... "Science holds something to be TRUE until someone shows it to be FALSE. FACTS are considered those things we cannot provide ANY holes for".

Thus the Earth was flat... we discovered it wasn't... Thus the earth is a sphere... and nobody can prove otherwise so the theory stands.

Kedaman
I understand your theory of proof. I understand your personal believe that NOTHING can be proved because the only thing you know for a fact is your own existence.

Because you believe in this (and I nor most others here don't) there is no use even debating you on your own personal view. Your answer to everything is "You don't really know, it could be an illusion". Simply providing CONFUSION is not the answer.

That is the reason I am overlooking some of the things you write because they make no sense, no logic and no reason... they are based on a personal concept that simply states "nothing is real" and therefor makes all following discussion worthless.


"Just because earth looks flat it must be flat"


Hang on.. Your theory is that its all illusion. So why isn't your point of view "The earth WAS flat until someone said it was a sphere... and then it BECAME a sphere"?


but you see that by observations, and that's NOT PROOF


What Iain is saying is that we have experimented and gathered results on Energy. These results have been found to follow a pattern and that pattern can be explained using the mathematical equation (model) E = mc2

The difference is that the mathematical equation is based on the fact that the variables that go into the equation do not change, that no outside influence occurs and that nothing new is added. Under THOSE conditions it holds true... but if/when science discovers a NEW condition the maths is re-written to take it into account.

THAT is why maths doesn't provide proof, because it in itself cannot determine what those variables are... only experiment can....

Oh and "observation" is totally different to experiment because observation is relative to the person observing. Experiment uses multiple perspectives before making any conclusions.

Mega
Kedaman isn't looking microscopic.. he is looking personally. Anything that is not in front of his eyes does not exist... when he turns around it comes into existance.

THAT is his point.

[Gen-X]

What a wonderful little story....


Its such a pity it has a FUNDAMENTAL flaw in it.

While I agree that the definition of the word "cold" means the abscence of heat... to apply this to terms like Good/Evil and Justice/Injustice shows the reason of an ignorant mind.

I shall explain :


Scale of Goodness :

Good Abscence of Good
| |
+----------------------------------------------+
| |
Help Person Don't help person


Now I am sure Kedaman and gugck are smiling at this saying "Yes, you got it right".

Now why not look at the COMPLETE scale.


Scale of Goodness :

Good Abscence of Good Evil
| | |
+-----------------------+---------------------+
| | |
Help Person Don't Help Person Kill that Person


Now you see the FULL picture instead of your ignorant and limited one.

Lets look at that in terms of an example seeing as nothing else gets through.

Premise
A Man is being bashed by another man.

The "GOOD" Person
Goes over to help the person being bashed.

The "ABSCENCE OF GOOD" Person
Does nothing while the person is bashed

The "EVIL" Person
Goes over and helps the other person BASH him some more


It is completely flawed to state that the abscence of Good is the term we use for evil... because it isn't. That is why 0 is neither POSITIVE or NEGATIVE... because it is the abscence of ANY influence in either direction.

Good/Evil is the same as Positive/Negative.


---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
I WANT YOU TO READ THIS KEDAMAN

Do you agree with this FLAW?

The answer will determine if I actually EVER bother
to reply to you again.

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------

[gugck]

So what your are saying is that is ok to just let something bad happen to someone?

It is interesting how you are quick to change the rules to suit your needs. Fortunately for me and everyone else, you don't make the rules. I know if something bad was happening to me, I'd want help, and it would be just as wrong (or evil if you will) to do nothing as it would be to participate. To me, not helping is the same as approving, and approving is the same as participating.

[Gen-X]

So what your are saying is that is ok to just let something bad happen to someone?


No I'm not saying that... and you KNOW that is not what I am saying.

But there is a distinct difference between providing help (Addition, Good, Positive), Doing nothing at all (Null, Neutral, 0), and going over and kicking him as well (Subtraction, Evil, Negative).

Its all about "perspective"... but I get the impression you are incapable of using other perspectives.

Think about this situation :

--------------------------------------------
Person A
1. He is good
2. He would go over and help the person who is down

Person B
1. He is evil
2. He would go over and help kicking the downed person

Person C
1. He is neutral
2. He would not involve himself in the situation

What Person A thinks of Person C
1. He is 'evil' because he did not help.
(Why? because Person C did "LESS GOOD" Than Person A would have)

What Person B thinks of Person C
1. He is 'good' because he did not kick him.
(Why? Because Person C did "LESS EVIL" Person B would have)

What another Person C would think of Person C
1. He is 'neutral' because he did what I would have done
(Why? Because Person C did "THE SAME" as the other Person C)
--------------------------------------------

So what does that actually tell you? Person C didn't change his actions although he is considered EVIL by those who are GOOD and considered GOOD by those who are EVIL.

It is in the "perspective" that judgement calls of Good and Evil are made... NOT in the actual actions themselves.


It is interesting how you are quick to change the rules to suit your needs. Fortunately for me and everyone else, you don't make the rules. I know if something bad was happening to me, I'd want help, and it would be just as wrong (or evil if you will) to do nothing as it would be to participate. To me, not helping is the same as approving, and approving is the same as participating.


Change what rules? I haven't changed any rules... Its people like Kedaman that changes the rules.

I have a question for you...

You say it is "evil" not to help.

What if "helping" this other person meant that the attacker would turn their attentions to your mother or girlfriend or wife? Would you STILL help the stricken person and leave your loved one open to being attacked?

Wouldn't you be considered EVIL for KNOWINGLY doing something that brought harm to someone you loved?

Or what if the person being kicked was a mass murderer and had just killed your entire family? Would you still go over there and stop him from being kicked?

Somehow I dont think you would go over there in EITHER of these cases... because your "perspective" has changed.

THAT is changing the rules... THAT is the weakness, its pure consequentialist while attempting to maintain a deontological visage.

PATHETIC

[gugck]

quoting Gen-X:
> No I'm not saying that... and you KNOW that
> is not what I am saying.

Actually in the context in which you used it, it is precisely what you said. In fact, if that is not what you were saying, then why did you use the same illustration in the same exact way all over again in the same reply? When I replied to it, it is funny how you got my point. I stand my ground on what I said, which was (in the presented situation - not necessarily all situations) that doing nothing is the same as participating.

> But there is a distinct difference between
> providing help (Addition, Good, Positive),
> Doing nothing at all (Null, Neutral, 0),
> and going over and kicking him as well
> (Subtraction, Evil, Negative).

I noticed you used "0" in your "doing nothing at all." Good and bad are boolean in value, not numeric. Isn't 0 also consider False? And if something is "Null," or "Neutral," does it convert to a default? In the case of good versus evil, no result may default to good or evil depending on the actions that were committed.

> So what does that actually tell you? Person C
> didn't change his actions although he is
> considered EVIL by those who are GOOD and
> considered GOOD by those who are EVIL.
> It is in the "perspective" that judgement
> calls of Good and Evil are made... NOT in
> the actual actions themselves.

Sounds like to me that you are saying that good and evil is based on each individual's idea of what they think is good or evil. I noticed that you said person so and so "thinks" that or "considers" so and so is good or evil or neutral. Saying "thinks" or "considers" implies opinion, and I know that you, being like myself want the facts, and do not want to rely on opinion. The fact is that a person's opinion is irrelevant, but what is important is the ACTUAL RESULT - good or evil. Certainly a person can say "I am hot" or "I am cold," or "It is light out," or "It is dark out," but what is it ACTUALLY. Can we measure it? Can we know, without relying on opinions? Yes we can.

Notice also that your application is in the pronoun form of the state of a PERSON'S being, such as "good" person, "absence of good" person, or "evil" person. When we judge the RESULT of an action we are not interested in the state of the person. You, of all people, should know that a good person can do evil, and an evil person can do good. It is not the person that is in question, but the RESULT of their actions, which can only be good or evil. There is no neutral because if something IS neutral, then it is, by default, either good or bad depending on the situation. I will show you using your own examples.

"A person is being bashed by another person" and yet another person sees it but does nothing. This is all the information we have, and the result will change when more factors are involved.

1. If the person being bashed deserves it (maybe as a sentence for their crime) then it would be GOOD not to intervene, not neutral.

2. If the person being bashed does not deserve it, then it is EVIL to not intervene, not neutral.

Let me repeat myself one more time so that you do not get too confused. You think that there is a do nothing. But there is only do good or do evil (which, by the way, is a little different than BE good and BE evil). The "FLAW," as you would say, in your argument is that not doing anything is still doing something, and doing something always determines whether what was done is good or evil.

> What if "helping" this other person meant
> that the attacker would turn their attentions
> to your mother or girlfriend or wife? Would
> you STILL help the stricken person and leave
> your loved one open to being attacked?
> Wouldn't you be considered EVIL for KNOWINGLY
> doing something that brought harm to someone
> you loved?

I can't believe you think you are presenting a good argument. In this case, if a person does nothing (which again is doing something), knowing that the result would bring harm to their family, then the result is what? That's right - good.

What about if they do intervene? The result of their action will be either good or evil depending on how the situation turned out.

> Or what if the person being kicked was a mass
> murderer and had just killed your entire
> family? Would you still go over there and stop
> him from being kicked?

Interestingly, the basis for all your arguments are based on what a person WOULD do. I understand what you are trying to saying, but the answers to your questions cannot be based on what a person WOULD do, but rather on what they SHOULD do. What they SHOULD do is dependent on the situation, and each situation will dictate whether what was done is good or evil. In this case, to do nothing (which again is doing something) could be good or evil, but it will never be neutral. Let me give some examples.

1. If you stop him from being beaten it maybe that you live in the United States and according to it's laws, a person is consider innocent until PROVEN guilty. It would be GOOD to let the law serve justice.

2. If you do not stop him from being beaten (which is the same as helping him be beaten) it maybe that you are defending your family and yourself, and that is also GOOD.

In summary of this whole thing, each situation dictates whether what is being done, or not done, both actions, and the only two choice (no neutral because it defaults to one of the other), determines whether the action is good or evil.

> It's all about "perspective"... but I get
> the impression you are incapable of using
> other perspectives.

Be very careful about impressions. You've heard the saying, "Never judge a book by it's cover," yet though I've only responded to one thing that you've said, you are already judging me. You do not even know me.

I find it extremely interesting that you complain about people pushing their ideas or beliefs down your throat, claiming they do not know what they are talking about, when you yourself do they very same things. You say you are against religion and religious people, yet you are more religious than most religious people I know. A "religious person" is one who believes something and basis their whole life around it. They are guided by a set of rules they have determined for themselves. Will you deny that you do not do that? Furthermore, anyone who does not agree with your "perspective" is automatically "flawed." Who is it then that is saying their way is the only right way.

Friend, I know all about perspective. I myself was once like you in my dislike of religion, and religious matters. I too, like you, have a love for science and reason and logical explanation. I too hate the idea that someone would put their trust, or faith into something that they have not taken the time to understand. And like you, I hate the idea that someone would start talking about something they no nothing about. You talk about religion and God, but how such of it or Him have actually studied? Enough to understand the basic concepts (not necessarily it's every concept)? Religion is a very tricky matter, and one thing I have learned from it is that one must not trust everything, but still like putting together a great puzzle, search for each piece with an open mind, trying ALL the possibilities? I personally hope that the purpose of our debates is to learn from each other. From what I have read, you are quite knowledgeable, and are a great thinker. While I do not appreciate your thoughtless concern for others, through your trying to put them down when they don't agree with you, I do appreciate your thought provoking material.

[gugck]

I would like to invite you to some interesting reading material. Check out http://www.reasons.org/resources/faf/97q3faf/haste.html

You will probably be interested in check out some of the other articles you find there.

[Gen-X]

gugck

Actually in the context in which you used it, it is precisely what you said. In fact, if that is not what you were saying, then why did you use the same illustration in the same exact way all over again in the same reply? When I replied to it, it is funny how you got my point. I stand my ground on what I said, which was (in the presented situation - not necessarily all situations) that doing nothing is the same as participating.


Actually it is precisely NOT what I said. In your own opinion "doing nothing" is the same as "doing evil". Based on that PERSONAL understanding of yours it was what I said. I however believe DIFFERENTLY than you do. In which case I restate what I said based on my own personal opinion.

Don't take my words and apply your OWN opinion to them... that is just as bad as actually twisting them on purpose ;)


I noticed you used "0" in your "doing nothing at all." Good and bad are boolean in value, not numeric. Isn't 0 also consider False? And if something is "Null," or "Neutral," does it convert to a default? In the case of good versus evil, no result may default to good or evil depending on the actions that were committed.


I said "0" in the context of Positve/Negative in relation to Good/Evil.

AGAIN, it is your personal belief that Good/Evil is a Boolean and NOT numeric. AGAIN I disagree.

My proof for this disagreement is that there are "DEGREES" (Numeric) of Good/Evil. I can choose to help the person to the point where I not only intervene but also take him to a doctor, stay with him till he is well and set out to punish his attacker... OR I could just simply get the person to stop hitting him.

In BOTH cases I have done "GOOD" (Net result is person has stopped being attacked... but the DEGREE of good that I did varies.

This refutes your postulation that Good/Evil is a BOOLEAN expression.


Sounds like to me that you are saying that good and evil is based on each individual's idea of what they think is good or evil


And you dispute that?

When women were burnt at the stake in Salem for "witchcraft" what do you think the people doing the BURNING thought?

They thought they were doing "GOOD".

What do you think the poor people being burned alive thought?

They thought they were doing "EVIL".

Why can you not see this concept?


Saying "thinks" or "considers" implies opinion, and I know that you, being like myself want the facts, and do not want to rely on opinion. The fact is that a person's opinion is irrelevant, but what is important is the ACTUAL RESULT - good or evil


My, my... What is Good if not the "REASON" behind doing something.

I set out to MURDER someone... I want to hack them to pieces in cold blood. I find out AFTERWARDS that this person was a mass murderer and was just about to kill some poor and innocent little girl. The "ACTUAL RESULT" is that I have done "GOOD" because I saved a little girls life....

But my INTENTION was bad.

The Bible talks SPECIFICALLY about this when "killing in the name of God" in saying that the act of KILLING is in itself NOT EVIL... it is the INTENT behind the killing. If you do it to protect another or in the name of God then you are NOT committing evil.

Again I am absolutely astounded you cannot see this simple fact.


Notice also that your application is in the pronoun form of the state of a PERSON'S being, such as "good" person, "absence of good" person, or "evil" person. When we judge the RESULT of an action we are not interested in the state of the person


Then I shall correct myself. I meants "Person A Believes themselves to be a GOOD person" and "Person C commits an act that is GOOD".


"A person is being bashed by another person" and yet another person sees it but does nothing. This is all the information we have, and the result will change when more factors are involved


Whats this??? Does this mean that the ACTUAL RESULT could change? And yet it was your whole determination of whether it was good or evil.

If that is all the information we have then by all means we would jump in there to save the poor man.

What happens then if we find out he was being punished for a crime he committed?

Did we commit an EVIL act because we stoped just punishment?


1. If the person being bashed deserves it (maybe as a sentence for their crime) then it would be GOOD not to intervene, not neutral.


You find out afterwards the person was INNOCENT.

Does that mean you did Evil?

Secondly, You are in another country... You didn't even know the man was being punished.

So you didn't help him.... As you said "doing nothing" is not neutral its EVIL.

So that means when someone is being murdered EVERY OTHER SINGLE HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET IS COMMITTING EVIL!!!! Because they did nothing to help.

Oh whats that you say? You mean they didn't know which means they cannot be evil...

But they didn't do GOOD either... because if they did Good they would help.

So here we have it... They didn't do GOOD and they certainly didn't do EVIL... Mmmmmm... I wonder then if they would be considered NEUTRAL!!!!

I guess that is the second point of evidence that refutes your postulation of Good/Evil being boolean.


Let me repeat myself one more time so that you do not get too confused. You think that there is a do nothing. But there is only do good or do evil (which, by the way, is a little different than BE good and BE evil). The "FLAW," as you would say, in your argument is that not doing anything is still doing something, and doing something always determines whether what was done is good or evil.


I know there is a do nothing.. its called being in another country.

"doing nothing" is doing something you are right... but what it is doing is saying "It is not my position to determine if my action in intervening will produce GOOD or EVIL".

There are 4 possiblities here :

1. Intervene & Person deserved it : Net result EVIL
2. Don't intervene & Person was innocent : Net result EVIL
3. Intervene & Person was innocent : Net result GOOD
4. Don't intervene & Person deserved it : Net result GOOD

As you say "doing something always determines whether what was done is good or evil".

So by choosing EITHER intervention or NOT intervention I could actually be doing EVIL.

By what you are saying (and have repeatedly said) it matters not my intention... it matters not the thought in my head is "Help this person" or "Kill this person" or even "Its none of my business"... All that matters is the end result of my action when all is said and done, the accounts are drawn and we know if what we did was right or not.


I can't believe you think you are presenting a good argument. In this case, if a person does nothing (which again is doing something), knowing that the result would bring harm to their family, then the result is what? That's right - good.


The net result is Good? So they let the other person die and that is Good? Oh of course... they were protecting their own... which means it was MORE good than saving the other person... Is that Numeric again???

Lets break this one down to your "BOOLEAN" objectives.


Booleans :
A : Save Person (True = Good, False = Evil)
B : Save famiily (True = Good, False = Evil)

Actions :
1 : Try to save Person
OR
2 : Do nothing

If Take Action 1 Then
A = True
B = False

Result = A and B = FALSE (Evil)
End If

If Take Action 2 Then
A = False
B = True

Result = A and B = FALSE (Evil)
End If


Fancy that... regardless WHICH action you take the answer is that you did EVIL because either the person died or your family died and after all the only thing that matters is the "ACTUAL RESULT".


What about if they do intervene? The result of their action will be either good or evil depending on how the situation turned out.


I hope you realise your naivety by now


What they SHOULD do is dependent on the situation, and each situation will dictate whether what was done is good or evil


This means that if I see a person being harmed and I know no additional information then I help. If I find out later that it was justice being served then "what was done" is now considered EVIL... So what I SHOULD have done was do nothing. Therefor my choice to DO SOMETHING was EVIL.


1. If you stop him from being beaten it maybe that you live in the United States and according to it's laws, a person is consider innocent until PROVEN guilty. It would be GOOD to let the law serve justice.


Flaw 1 : If the law is an EVIL law then its EVIL to let the law serve justice. Who are you to determine if the law is Good or Evil?

Flaw 2 : People get wrongly convicted. Doing nothing would mean your action is EVIL because you didn't say a persons life regardless of whether the law says they deserve it or not.


If you do not stop him from being beaten (which is the same as helping him be beaten)


Absolutely and totally NOT the same!!!!!!

If I "let" him get beaten he might get away with a few bruises and a cracked rib. If I "help" him get beaten he could die.

I have DOUBLED the amount of damage that person is taking and you are telling me they are the SAME!?!?!?!

If you convert everything that happens into your life as either GOOD or EVIL then I would DEARLY love to hear your "boolean" responses to the following :

1. Abortion : Good or Evil?
2. Euthenasia : Good or Evil?
3. Capital Punishment : Good or Evil?


it maybe that you are defending your family and yourself, and that is also GOOD


Good for YOU maybe but it certainly isn't GOOD for the person being beaten. In fact as far as HE is concerned what you are doing is EVIL for not helping him.

Do I have to repeat myself in saying that Good/Evil are based on "PERSPECTIVE"?????

Is the man being beaten going to say "Thats ok, let me die, you are protecting your family which means you are being GOOD"


In summary of this whole thing, each situation dictates whether what is being done, or not done, both actions, and the only two choice (no neutral because it defaults to one of the other), determines whether the action is good or evil


Actually its your "assessment" of the situation that determines if it is Good or Evil. I may assess that the person will get away with a mere beating and thus He lives, I live, my Family lives and Ultimate GOOD is done.

Its when I assess that someone will die, my family will NOT be harmed and I WILLINGLY did nothing to stop it that becomes EVIL... because my INTENTION was to allow harm to come to him for no good reason.

If however I say "I cannot determine WHICH action will bring about the most good" then why is that Evil by default?

1. Person may die if I try to help instead of just getting a beating : EVIL
2. My family may die if left unprotected : EVIL
3. I might be stopping justice from being served : EVIL
4. I can save him : GOOD

My "assessment" of the situation is that 3 possibilities bring about EVIL while only 1 possibility brings about GOOD.

In that case wouldn't the logical choice be the INTENT of choosing a path that presents itself with the HIGHEST opportunity for Good to occur?


Be very careful about impressions. You've heard the saying, "Never judge a book by it's cover," yet though I've only responded to one thing that you've said, you are already judging me. You do not even know me.


Oh my... Rhetoric of the "religous" :(

Why is it that people who believe in God have so MAJORLY misunderstood the concept of "judgement"?

They spit it out like its a foul and dirty word and yet we ALL do it. Yes I have judged you... whats wrong with that? You have judged me... its what human beings do. Sometimes we guise it using words like "educated guess" or "estimate" or "I believe you meant"... but its STILL judgement.

Might I remind you of this comment?


Sounds like to me that you are saying that good and evil is based on each individual's idea of what they think is good or evil


Have you "judged" that my opinion is as you stated? Or are you going to use some wonderful word that turns it from a judgement to a word you can actually stomach?

You DO judge a book by its cover... its all you see at first. What you DON'T do is refuse to open the book based on what you know about the cover. You accept that your "judgement" may be based on limited information and you endevour to open that book to find out if your original JUDGEMENT was correct or not.


I find it extremely interesting that you complain about people pushing their ideas or beliefs down your throat, claiming they do not know what they are talking about, when you yourself do they very same things.


Again you state something as if I said I didn't do that... What do you think everyone does? We take our opinions and we tell them to other people.

The difference is in people having the option to listen or not. To put my comment about "pushing their ideas down my throat" into context I was refering at the time to people preaching on street corners. I don't go around telling everyone around me what I believe to be true, I dont force them to listen to me in a public place. In here people may choose to listen or not to.

If you are going to quote me please put it in the proper context...


You say you are against religion and religious people, yet you are more religious than most religious people I know. A "religious person" is one who believes something and basis their whole life around it. They are guided by a set of rules they have determined for themselves. Will you deny that you do not do that?


Actually I will expand on it. If you look at the "cover" you will certainly draw similarities between myself and "religious people"... But as you get INSIDE the book you will discover one fundamental difference.

"relgious" people believe purely on faith and DO NOT QUESTION because it means they must not have faith.

Myself on the otherhand will CERTAINLY build my life around the rules I determined... but I will always question my rules and when presented with improvements to that rule I will happily accept them and CHANGE my belief to suit the new and improved version.

Can YOU tell me religious people ever CHANGE their belief in their deity to newer versions?


Furthermore, anyone who does not agree with your "perspective" is automatically "flawed." Who is it then that is saying their way is the only right way


Actually they are not automatically flawed. They are only flawed if I can find reasonable, logical or sensible argumentation to that end. If I can find nothing whatsoever to dispute what they say then they are obviously not flawed.

I cannot "disprove" God's existance... But I also cannot accept other peoples "proof" of his existence because I see flaws in their statements. When someone asks I do not outrightly say "God does not exist" I state my reasons why and ask for people to find logical, reasonable or sensible arguments as to why my own personal reasons are flawed.

If they can do that successfully then I happily accept it and analyse it again to find a path that more closely resembles the truth.


Friend, I know all about perspective

Then I hope you will understand Friend when I say that your words have strongly suggested to me (Ah, one of those "soft" words for judgement) that if you believe you know al about perspective you have overlooked something


You talk about religion and God, but how such of it or Him have actually studied? Enough to understand the basic concepts (not necessarily it's every concept)?


I not only grew up in a religious environment but also married a religious person and spent several years in such a environment. Don't begin to think I am talking from lack of knowledge here. I asked these questions to those in relgious groups and as always the discussions ended in "I DON'T KNOW, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BELIEVE?".


Religion is a very tricky matter, and one thing I have learned from it is that one must not trust everything, but still like putting together a great puzzle, search for each piece with an open mind, trying ALL the possibilities?


Then I must ask you something.

1. Do you belive in God?
2. And if so, do you believe in the possibility that he does NOT exist?

This is where I get frustrated. Those who DO believe in God absolutely and totally refuse to even "consider" the possibility that he does NOT exist, which by your own definition shows they do NOT have an open mind.

I personally do NOT believe in him, though I do hold reservation about the possibility of his existence... its just that nobody has given me enough evidence to support that possibility.


I personally hope that the purpose of our debates is to learn from each other


I wish that were so... but the only people who learn are those who are not blind, those who have absolute faith are blind because their faith prohibits them from even "considering" alternatives.

So the only people who are learning are those who do NOT have absolute faith... all the others simply refuse to even see reason.


While I do not appreciate your thoughtless concern for others, through your trying to put them down when they don't agree with you, I do appreciate your thought provoking material


It is my bane, when I become frustrated I resort to sarcasm and derision. I spent many years being tolerant of people with these views, I calmly tried to open their minds to alternatives, I even took the time out to "step into their shoes" and see the world from their perspective.... and yet never would they try the opposite. Always they wer just simply right and no other alternative existed.

Iain once berated me for my sarcasm and then found himself doing exactly the same and now understands the fuel that ignites it.

If you read my posts you will find times where I agree, disagree and even stop to reconsider something I have said myself... I have stated when I was wrong, have apologised when I misunderstood someone and have even attempted at times to just "Agree to disagree" (which I am sure you can understand is the hardest thing for me to do)....

My biggest flaw in life is that I don't tolerate stupidity very well.... which on occasion makes me stupid ;)

[kedaman]

My correction - Good and Evil is a boolean choise.


My proof for this disagreement is that there are "DEGREES" (Numeric) of Good/Evil. I can choose to help the person to the point where I not only intervene but also take him to a doctor, stay with him till he is well and set out to punish his attacker... OR I could just simply get the person to stop hitting him.

In BOTH cases I have done "GOOD" (Net result is person has stopped being attacked... but the DEGREE of good that I did varies.

This refutes your postulation that Good/Evil is a BOOLEAN expression.

I disagree Gen-x, in this case you have two independent choises. 1-Boolean Choise to help person or not. 2- Boolean Choise to punish attacker or not. The other choises is not irrelevant, but if they were, they are all boolean choises. What you think is Evil is the degree of damage done in overall, that's definitely something else. Evil is the contrast to Good of a boolean switch and it is determined by your own mind. You will know when you do something wrong.


Sounds like to me that you are saying that good and evil is based on each individual's idea of what they think is good or evil

So this is correct. You yourself determine if you have done right or wrong.


When women were burnt at the stake in Salem for "witchcraft" what do you think the people doing the BURNING thought?

They thought they were doing "GOOD".

What do you think the poor people being burned alive thought?

They thought they were doing "EVIL".

Gen-x, can you make this more clear: Who is "they" in all four cases? As i see this
1. People doing the burning must think either they are doing right or wrong, depend on how much they think it is correct to burn witches.
2. People burned must think they have done wrong, if they have done it to be called witches OR, right, if they have been missunderstood in some way.


Saying "thinks" or "considers" implies opinion, and I know that you, being like myself want the facts, and do not want to rely on opinion. The fact is that a person's opinion is irrelevant, but what is important is the ACTUAL RESULT - good or evil

This is in my opinion wrong, gugck. The ACTUAL RESULT shows nothing of how a human thinks. The thought behind it, the good or evil behind it, is what counts. I have to Agree Gen-x is right about this.

Although there is a huge problem with this:

The Bible talks SPECIFICALLY about this when "killing in the name of God" in saying that the act of KILLING is in itself NOT EVIL... it is the INTENT behind the killing. If you do it to protect another or in the name of God then you are NOT committing evil.

because this is what religion causes, massmurder and wars. On this basis. If there is something correct in the bible it must be the law "Do not kill"

So here we have it... They didn't do GOOD and they certainly didn't do EVIL... Mmmmmm... I wonder then if they would be considered NEUTRAL!!!!

I guess that is the second point of evidence that refutes your postulation of Good/Evil being boolean.

NO, here is what you don't understand Gen-x. consider those not involved in this case to not have a choise at all. To act evil or good, you need a choise. Instead they have to consider other choises.

There are 4 possiblities here :

1. Intervene & Person deserved it : Net result EVIL
2. Don't intervene & Person was innocent : Net result EVIL
3. Intervene & Person was innocent : Net result GOOD
4. Don't intervene & Person deserved it : Net result GOOD

As you say "doing something always determines whether what was done is good or evil".

So by choosing EITHER intervention or NOT intervention I could actually be doing EVIL.

So the only thing that possibly could solve this is your own perspective. If it is a hard choise, it's probably because there isn't any good or evil in the act at all. YOu are probably doing good in both cases because you will know the other will only result in evil.


I cannot "disprove" God's existance... But I also cannot accept other peoples "proof" of his existence because I see flaws in their statements. When someone asks I do not outrightly say "God does not exist" I state my reasons why and ask for people to find logical, reasonable or sensible arguments as to why my own personal reasons are flawed.

You haven't seen a flaw in my proof of god yet, so it still stands true...

[gugck]

> You are telling me that the simplest
> answer to our existence in the universe
> is that a sentient extra-universal
> entity made the decision to create
> an entire universe and "PROGRAM" every
> single physical law, chemical reaction,
> sub-atomic interaction, intellectual
> thought, pre-destined eventuality and
> sentient inhabitant????

You are telling me that all that happened by sheer coincidence? You said you would entertain the thought that God could exist, yet here you aren't entertaining anything. Just saying that it is not possible. Did you actually sit down and think about how it could be possible, and then say, it can't be? Why is it so hard to comprehend the idea of consciousness creating?

> We are NOT natural... that has been proved
> by the fact that we no longer abide by the
> laws of nature. We don't die when we were
> meant to, we change our own genetics, we
> live in environments that are not hospitable.
> Everything nature defines for everything
> else we ignore.

You said, "we no longer abide by the laws of nature." What do mean abide by? You said, "we don't die when we were meant to." What do you mean "meant to?" You say, "Everything NATURE DEFINES for everything else we ignore?" Are you implying purpose? According to your arguments, we have no purpose, yet these statements you present imply this.

If the universe created itself, then why can't it re-create itself. According to your thinking that the universe just is, why does it have to obey it's own laws? You say "we change our genetics" and claim it is not normal, but if the universe creates itself, and I am part of the universe, then I can re-create myself if I want to. Please be careful about contradicting yourself, because it makes you out to be a liar.

> If you went to a psychologist and
> described ALL of the things you
> believe in... but said it was a
> Rabbit you were talking about and
> NOT God they would lock you up
> and throw away the key.

We know for sure a rabbit exists, and we know what rabbit is. We know all the qualities of a rabbit as it relates to us. Furthermore, we can run tests to find the answer. However, God we do not know exists, and cannot run a tests, like we could with a rabbit. The psychologist has no right to lock up someone for simply believing. If I say, "God talks to me." Can you disprove it!? If you can then lock me up.

> I find it completely offensive that
> anybody tells me I was created by
> some higher power, I find it offensive
> that I am TOLD the universe I live
> in was constructed.

I find it completely offensive that anybody would tell me I am related to ape or a one-cell organism. What is so wrong with being the offspring of an entity that knows all the properties of the universe and can manipulate time/space? That not only knows these things, but actually created them from it's own thought process.

I do have a question. Did you create yourself, or was it another force greater than yourself (not necessarily referring to my God)? Now you contradict reality.

> 1. If GOD is so omniscient why create us?
> 2. If he exists outside of our space/time why create it?
> 3. If the "rules" don't apply to him why make them apply to us?

You ask "why" three times. If you do not believe you have a purpose, then why never gets answered. In fact, any reason a person gives, you will just say, I disagree because we have no purpose. Since you asked though, let's see if I can make it real simple.

1. Why do we programmers write programs? We can live without them. If we are self-sufficient without it, then "why" create it? We create it because we want it to do something for us, whether it is entertain us, or allow us to interact with each other easier and more quickly, or whatever. Do we need a reason to create it? No. We can create it just because we want to.

2. Again as a programmer, do you exist outside your program? Yes. Why create it?

3. Again as a programmer, do the rules of your program apply to you? Like God, they do while you are interacting with it, but if you want you can change the programming logic so that it does what you want. As the programmer, are you limited to what you programmed into it, or can you re-program it whenever you want it to do something different?

> a. Why were we created in his image?
> b. Why is his image that of a planet
> walking, air breathing biped?

You again ask "why?" And your questions are irrelevant. If there is no purpose, then the question is irrelevant. The question can be answered by looking in the place you got the original concept of "created in his image." In order for you to understand, you must first understand other concepts, which the Bible presents. Ultimately, and in simplest terms, "created in his image," means that we are His offspring. Does it mean he has a physical body, like our own? No. Our bodies and the whole of creation is merely a symbolic representation of a true reality - my opinion.

> Surely you would WANT to create something
> equal to yourself in order to be
> entertained/kept company or whatever...
> but you wouldn't set out to make something
> that was completely and totally inferior
> to yourself and then control everything
> that happened inside it.

Why not? We do it every day. You have a computer, and the computer does everything you program it to do. Is the computer "equal to you?" Your misconception is that God is actually making people do EVERYTHING they do, when according the Bible (which is what you keep referring to), He only defined the parameters of operation, and gave it all the data it needed to figure itself out. Your programming logic does the same thing. When you are writing a program, don't you create all parameters of it's operation and then afterward give it all the data it needs to do the calculations?

> Oh and one last thing. If God is responsible
> for everything and can micromanage everything
> then he is responsible for MY disbelieving in him.

> So God is actually disbelieving in himself...
> therefore he doesn't even think HE exists...
> so why would we?

Just like the programmer, He can tell you that if parameter so and thus is set, then the result will be… He has given you a "free-will" so that you can choose, but he knows every possible choice you could make, and the outcome of each choice. He is able to make a program understand itself, and allow it to decide even if it wants to work properly. Even we can do some of these things with our own programming models.

> There is no need to think that something
> ELSE is responsible for us or our world.
> What is it going to take to convince people
> that there is no such thing as God and even
> if there is he certainly doesn't give a
> rats arse if we live or die.

Is any of your statement based on fact? Can you "prove" your statement beyond a shadow of a doubt? You are lying because "something else" (again not necessarily my God) IS responsible for us and our world. Let me ask. Are you responsible for your existence and your world? As far as "convincing" people, we are like you. We need unrefutable answers. You can't "convince" anyone of something you cannot prove. You already told me in the last post that you cannot prove God does not exist. Furthermore, you said, "if He does exist He certainly…" How do you know what He thinks? Have you talked to Him? Are you now like us?

> As for religion. It isn't human nature to "believe"..

Oh yeah!? Is that what you believe? :)

> If there is one thing I hate.. its ignorance,
> I find it the most VILE failure of the human
> species to wallow in the middle ages just
> because it doesn't fit what YOU want to be
> the truth.

Truth is truth regardless of what one believes. You get angry at others because they hold on to what they believe until someone proves them wrong, but isn't that what you are doing.

> We used to think that God created plagues and
> swarms, turned water into wine and did all these miracles...

You say, "used to" and "now we haven't seen those kinds of things in 2000 years." Who is we? We who believe in God see these kinds of things all the time. Let me share with you.

My son, who is now, 8 was born with an irreversible heart condition. Upon his arrival, the doctors noted he was having trouble, so they monitored him, examined him, and eventually conclude based on FACTS that they know that he had a problem with his heart. To verify the condition, he was sent to a special heart doctor. This doctor also came to the same conclusion. He in fact told us that our son's heart would never be right without surgery, and that they should monitor him to see how it affects him. They determined that if his heart caused him trouble they would perform surgery to correct it when he was old enough. He was examined regularly as to his condition, and with each visit it reconfirmed the condition and it's affect on him. Now, this went on over a period of years, and during that time, I prayed to God for God to correct his problematic heart. The facts, according to the doctors, say that no one has ever grown out of this condition, it has NEVER occurred before, and in most cases required heart surgery. Oddly enough, the 3rd year, the doctor went to examine him, and found a perfect heart. The doctor was so perplexed that he did not know what to do. He even went back and re-examined all the past data to make sure no mistakes were made. He found no mistakes. He himself, said, "Wow! That has never happened before." You will probably just say, "oh, he just grew out of it." But my question is this, what are the chances that someone would just happened to beat the odds that just happened to have someone praying for him?

Let's try this one. A man is sitting in church and begins to have problems. Someone in the congregation calls the paramedics, and they come and do all they can for him only to end up pronouncing him dead. The paramedics cover him and are ready to take him away, but the congregation speaks up and says, "we do not accept this, please let us pray." They begin praying, and 15 minutes after they began the man sits up. He is alive to this day. He and members of the congregation will tell you and they all agree. The paramedics, who were not necessarily "religious" people (I dunno that), have legal documents showing the time of death. Did they all imagine he died? Did he actually die? The fact, which is all we have, say he did.

Let's break it down. Person A died. Paramedic person B and C verified, and documented it. Person D-etc. witnessed the whole thing, and also prayed. Person A lives on. Each one is an indisputable fact.

Again, it is sure such a coincidence that these things just happened to occur the same time we prayed. If God is not real, then no one can pray to Him. If no one can pray to Him, then prayer doesn't work. Why did it work in these two cases? These are only two of the MANY verifications of the power of prayer to a real and living God just within my own experience. Shall I go and find all the different accounts that are documented within our lifetime, even by people like yourself? Miracles do happen today. If you do not hear about them it is because you are not looking in the right places, or talking to the right people.

[Gen-X]

Whoah!

Information overload. I will try to get through things as simply as I can, I will be short but hopefully get the main points.

Kedaman

Gen-x, can you make this more clear: Who is "they" in all four cases? As i see this
1. People doing the burning must think either they are doing right or wrong, depend on how much they think it is correct to burn witches.
2. People burned must think they have done wrong, if they have done it to be called witches OR, right, if they have been missunderstood in some way.


*sigh*
"they" refers to the people just mentioned.

1. The BurnERS thought the act of burning was GOOD because it rid the world of what they "perceived" as EVIL

2. The BurnEES thought the act of being burned was EVIL because they knew they were decent people and that the people burning them were IGNORANT

This shows that one side felt the act was "GOOD" while the other side felt it was "EVIL". I think you agree with me on this (based on what I have read here) that Good/Evil is based on your own perception of the event.


NO, here is what you don't understand Gen-x. consider those not involved in this case to not have a choise at all. To act evil or good, you need a choise. Instead they have to consider other choises


So if your variable only has Good(True) and Evil(False) then if I tried to create this variable for a perosn who wasn't there (ie you said he has "not have a choice at all") then which value would you assign it? Good or Evil?

But I heard you say... "He wasn't THERE... you can't assign him EITHER value!!!"

And that my friend means that he is NULL.


You haven't seen a flaw in my proof of god yet, so it still stands true...


I have seen many flaws in your proof but instead of actually debating them you simply say "your wrong" or "bullshit" or "I didn't see you mention any flaws" and carry on as if blinded.

You once said the only 2 things you believe are real are :

1. Yourself
2. What you "see" or what created the illusion

If you "see" then it is an extention of "yourself" and what creates the illusion can also be "yourself".

You also said that perhaps it was your own mind that created the world around you, that you are the only consciousness and the only thing that truely existed and that you could have made me up in you mind to talk to you.

If you believe that, and considering you believe YOURSELF to be one of the only real things then your belief in God means you created him within this "consciousness" you talk about. In that event as you are the creator of God then YOU are in fact God.

Another flaw in your proof was the scientific proof you postulated from your uncle. Everyone picked holes in it immediately showing the flaw of your already EXISTING belief in God for jumping to wild conclusions without fact.... yet you STILL believe they are wrong in saying that.

What more proof do you need?


I agree that we perceive "degrees of" good or evil. But how much good or evil do we have to do before it is considered good or evil?


Exactly my point!!!

1. I Steal an apple (Its wrong, its bad.. but its not much)
2. I hit a person (Now its a bit worse, its definately bad)
3. I kill a person (Ooooo... now I am bordering on Evil)
4. I spend my entire life murdering people (Pure Evil)

Are you trying to tell me that all 4 of these are "BOOLEAN" and that Stealing an apple is "just as evil" as spending my entire life murdering people?????

[ANSWER REQUIRED]


That is all the CPU really understands on it's most basic level. As for us, we do the same. Consider it this way, our bodies are the hardware that receive the data, and our reason or logic is the processor. As we receive data from outside ourselves, we convert it down to 1 or 0 - True or False.


You see this is where you are being ignorant (meant sincerely).

Human beings DON'T do it the same way. Have you ever studied the human brain? Unlike a CPU which can only count in 0's and 1's the neural transmitters of the human brain are ANALOG. This means that we receive "shades" of signals. Neurons are triggered based on a complex chemical reactions only when the threshhold is breached. This is the WHOLE reason why we struggle to make interfaces between Man and Machine... because WE ARE NOT DIGITAL (ie run on 0's and 1's)

Now if you want to start talking Quantum Physics we could probably find at a sub-atomic level a reaction either DOES or DOES NOT happen (Boolean) but if you know anything at all bout QM is that the sub-atomic world and our own are so vastly different relating one to the other is ignorance.


If what you think is good is opposite of what I think is good, what is our basis for agreement on judging something else good or evil? If we go to court, how do we come to a correct or truthful conclusion to it's actual condition?

Ok. So its time for definitions :)

Good = Fair, Just, Equal, Unbias, Unselfish.... etc, etc

But I have to ask... what does that have to do with the courts? I have found that they rarely rely on being fair or just... some of the laws I believe are actually OPPOSITE and yet we must follow them if we want to live in our society.

We will NEVER be able to reach a "truthful" conclusion... only the TRUTH that we want to be known. I once believed as I think you do now that despite what anyone says there is a "TRUTH" which is always right and always behind everything... and that bringing it to light means everyone can see it... I discovered over the years that followed this wasn't the case.

I realise now that TRUTH is what a person believes it to be. Sure we share common truths... but the difference between RIGHT/WRONG and GOOD/EVIL is totally dependant on which side of the fence you are sitting on.

EVIL : Man steals food from a grocer
GOOD : Man stole it to feed his family

To his family he is "GOOD" but to the grocer he is "EVIL". If there is an ABSOLUTE truth to it all then what is it?

A: He is GOOD because he fed his family? Why didn't he "talk" to the grocer instead and ask?

B: He is EVIL because he stole? But he was prepared to do anything to see his family well. Is that Evil?


You have a window. It is created good, and perfect i.e. no scratches, no warps, no defects in any way. A person comes along and puts a crack in it. Now that is has a crack in it, it is defective. Does it matter the "degree" of the crack? It may a one-inch long crack or it may cover the whole window, but what difference does that make? Either way it is still defective, and depending on how much defectiveness we can tolerate, we determine if it needs to be fixed or replaced


Did you realise your contradiction here? You say it doesn't matter the "degree" of the crack and yet you say depending on that "degree" you will determine if it is to be fixed or replaced.


My argument was never that "doing nothing" = "Evil."


Really? Perhaps you should go back up and read your exact words which state "If you do not stop him from being beaten (which is the same as helping him be beaten) "

Can you now tell me that was never your argument?


I am not trying to be ignorant, but like you I have questions


Perhaps this will help then. In order for me to evaluate something someone says I place myself in their shoes.

You tell me Good/Evil are BOOLEAN. So I "entertain" this fact. I take it to be true and then think of all the consequences of that belief. I then find myself wondering "If it is boolean then I MUST apply a value to EVERYONE I meet. I see fred, fred hit me yesterday... that was EVIL. I see john, john helped me out on the weekend... that was GOOD. I see mary, I dont know mary from a bar of soap, we have never spoken nor had any contact. Mmmmm... I cannot designate her recent actions as Good because it did not effect me... I cannot even designate her actions as Evil because again it didn't effect me... So I am left with no choice but to designate her actions (NULL) or 0 or benign"

This is why I refuse the belief that Good/Evil are Boolean.

How about you place yourself in my shoes. Consider Good/Evil to be a numeric value where 0 is the abscence of Good AND Evil. 0 is where the Animals live... they neither help nor harm... they simply do what they must to survive.

Now tell me a flaw in my system while looking at it from the inside?


Since one person thinks one thing is good and the other person thinks the same thing is evil, how do they ever know for sure which of them is right unless something outside of us defines it?


Why MUST one of them be right????

Imagine this :

2 men fighting for a loaf of bread. BOTH of them are trying to feed their families. BOTH of them are starving. If they shared the loaf EVENLY between them then BOTH families would die from starvation.

Who is EVIL and who is GOOD? One family would say they are GOOD if they get the loaf and the other is EVIL for trying to take it from them... That is the way of life... I am Good, THEY are evil.

Its the whole reason why people and countries can stand to commit war on each other... because they JUSTIFY themselves and CONDEMN their enemy.

I remember a religious person once explaining to me that the reason a Soldier isn't considered to be committing MURDER during a time of war was because they were doing GOOD and not evil. I wonder if they ever asked the family of the people he killed if he was Good or Evil?


I will be the first to agree with you that the majority of people like me are as you judge them, but hopefully, after we get to know one another a little better, you will not think that of me


Well I shall admit that you are showing classic symptoms of what I categorize as a person of blind religious belief... but you also show a few symptoms of being able to see beyond that... As yet I cannot tell if you truely believe them or simply entertain them to be seen as "open minded". I will keep myself open to either possibility.


Truth, our goal. Evaluate all statements to be True or False


Statement : 1.0000001 is close to 1

Answer : TRUE

But is it? What is your definition of "close"? What is mine? Is there an ULTIMATE definition of "close"?

This is why there is no such thing as ULTIMATE truths

"Logic" is not just the breakdown of data to 0's and 1's. Logic is also the "natural flow" of things. Like water trickles down the side of a mountain by finding the path of least resistance... This is another point of Logic.


My first question. Do you know all religious people?


I should provide you with some additional information.

When I make statements like "All people" I actually mean "The majority of people whom I have had some interaction with so far". I am so surprised when people do not understand that generalizations like this are always based on the experience of the person themselves.

If I were to say the statment to you "All planets revolve around our sun" you would say "TRUE". But they have discovered other planets in other galaxies. But you didn't think of that.. because what you consider to be "All planets" are those that you know of.

Do you see my point?


I do not believe PURELY on faith because I question all the data I receive that says it is True. Your statement is now False again


Then what irrefutable PROOF do you have for God's existance that does not rely on the fact you ALREADY believe in his existance?


Yes, they can and they do


So today they believe Jesus was the son of God and tomorrow they believe he was just a prophet???

Of course not you say... That is a CORE belief.. that does not change.

That is like saying "Of course the world is not round. It is a CORE belief that it is flat".

"In general" religious people will never totally change their belief and "remain" religious people. Only those who believe in science will do that.

As you say... We use the facts to determine TRUE/FALSE and when new facts are presented we CHANGE that.

World is flat = TRUE
Someone went around the world = Change to FALSE

Religous people "in general" believe the existence of God based on conclusions they draw themselves about things that happen... without any solid proof... and yet ask them how you could change their belief about the existence of God and they say it is impossible... show us FACTS.

I find it enourmously strange they don't need FACTS (or those facts are VERY dodgy) to believe but they want ABSOLUTE PROOF to disbelieve. This to me is a clear deliniation as to the "nature" of their belief not being founded in factual determination but in personal belief which probably started from childhood when their parents "TOLD" them God existed... and the rest is history.


I really like the way you word it, "more closely resembles." It shows me that you are willing to have some faith.


Tell me... do you believe ABSOLUTE faith blinds people?


My answer is yes to both. However, for me, the possibility of God not existing, will mean that my own ability to perceive a thing is "flawed." And in this case, your statement about my "mental deficiency" is then true.


This is where I question your difference from other religious people. You say that you DO accept the possiblity that he does NOT exist... but qualify it by saying if that is the case you are completely insane!!!

Does that mean you TRUELY accept this possibility or was that just a very fancy way of being able to say "YES" but really meaning "NO"?


I am one of those who believe in God, and I do not refuse to "consider the possibilities."


I question the qualification of insanity as being directly equal to "refusing" to accept an alternative.

You haven't convinced me you TRUELY accept the possibility he does NOT exist.


This is the problem I have. How much evidence is "enough evidence?" Ultimately you determine that factor


EXACTLY And those people who are already pre-disposed to believe in the existance of God will need LITTLE TO NO evidence to accept it... but they require an infinate amount of evidence to DENY it.

Can you not see this philosophy running through ALL people of religious belief??????


and you will begin to see that not all religious people are as you suppose.


To be honest... what I am learning lately is that "some" religious people are more devious than others. Most will wave their ignorance around with pride believing it to show themselves as pious while others know how to "play the heathen game" while still reserving their own beliefs.

Lets hope I get a surprise... people only grow through surprises ;)

gugck


You are telling me that all that happened by sheer coincidence?


No I am not telling you that. I am telling you that it happened. "coincidence" would imply purpose in things. Is it a "coincidence" that all forms of life are composed of the element CARBON? No, because CARBON is the element that bonds the easiest to other elements such as HYDROGEN and OXYGEN which form complex nucleids, proteins and amino acids


You said you would entertain the thought that God could exist, yet here you aren't entertaining anything. Just saying that it is not possible. Did you actually sit down and think about how it could be possible, and then say, it can't be? Why is it so hard to comprehend the idea of consciousness creating?


I did sit down and think of it would be possible. I imagined a being that was sentient, that had the ability to control our universe. I then thought about how our universe has laws and how those laws are NEVER broken.

GRAVITY works... it always works, there has never been a documented case where it has NOT worked.

That is where I came to the realisation that God did not exist... because a being that is "SENTIENT" makes its own purpose and it moves "OUTSIDE" of the natural environment that is around it. Because of that its MOVEMENT is then evident.

Why are rocks not sentient? Because they will always follow the principles of the universe. They will not move of their own volition, they will not show "PURPOSE".

If God is sentient then we would see UNDISPUTABLE evidence of his purpose. Gravity would stop when it served his purpose, Physical laws would "temporarily halt" to serve his purpose..... But so far the only thing people of a religious nature can ever bring forth to explain God's ACTUAL work in this world is minute, mystical, almost unperceivable... They banter words like "If you believed then you would see" which only prove even more that they are ficticiously creating evidence... that is like saying "If you were insane you would see".

I can quite easily accept the existance of a divine entity... IF I CAN SEE SOMETHING OCCUR THAT DEFIES A KNOWN AND REPETITIOUSLY PROVEN NATURAL LAW THAT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY AN AS YET UNQUANTIFIED FORCE.

We have come to know of only **4** forces in our universe. Every single element of matter IN this universe is described by those 4 forces. They each occur as a response to the motion that was started with the Big Bang. If you can show me a force OUTSIDE of this, or one where one of these 4 forces are started WITHOUT an existing and pre-determined force...

THEN I will start to listen.... Until then everything you say comes across as the blind leading the blind.


You said, "we no longer abide by the laws of nature." What do mean abide by? You said, "we don't die when we were meant to." What do you mean "meant to?" You say, "Everything NATURE DEFINES for everything else we ignore?" Are you implying purpose? According to your arguments, we have no purpose, yet these statements you present imply this.


Yes I am implying purpose... As I have said and frustratingly have to RESTATE... "Sentience HAS Purpose". That is the whole reason why I dispute Animals as being "sentient"... They are Alive certainly but I disagree they are sentient because they ABIDE by the laws of nature.

As for us "humans" we do NOT abide by the laws of nature. We are the only species known to have defied nature and become sentient... In doing this we give ourselves PURPOSE. Whether that purpose be survival, the persuit of happiness, the accumulation of wealth or to just have a good time.

Where in any of that does it imply there must be a divine entity on top of it all?

In fact the existance of our ability to give ourselves purpose was the reason God was created in the first place... We wanted an ULTIMATE purpose and people chose to construct a "creator" to give us that purpose... well, to keep it shrouded in mystery and tell us we will find it just on the other side of death so that we can happily live our lives without fear of being listless and living for no good reason.


If the universe created itself, then why can't it re-create itself


What the hell do you think is going to happen when the gravity of the universal mass starts falling back in on itself and the whole thing comes screaming into the centre and explodes into ANOTHER big bang?????

Sarcastic or not... You are being just plain IGNORANT.


According to your thinking that the universe just is, why does it have to obey it's own laws?


The word "obey" implies choice. The universe doesn't have a CHOICE... the universe IS.


You say "we change our genetics" and claim it is not normal, but if the universe creates itself, and I am part of the universe, then I can re-create myself if I want to. Please be careful about contradicting yourself, because it makes you out to be a liar.


And as I have said... WE have surpassed nature. WE have overcome "some" of the universal boundaries set out for us.

There isn't a single word I have said that has contradicted myself.

The problem here is that you have this belief that says "If I am created then something created me, and something created it and something created it..."

That is why you said that if "I can re-create myself" and the "universe created me" therefor "the universe re-creates itself"..... One does NOT lead to the other because the FIRST is a "sentient" life while the second is NOT.

When are you going to understand this? I feel like I am explaining to a child why 1 + 1 = 2 because they just dont have an understanding of things enough to see the connection

I am sure you feel the same way about me but at least at no time do I have to resort to "Oooo... its some mystical unknown purpose, something we cannot see and cannot touch but its there if you just let yourself believe"


> If you went to a psychologist and
> described ALL of the things you
> believe in... but said it was a
> Rabbit you were talking about and
> NOT God they would lock you up
> and throw away the key.

We know for sure a rabbit exists


AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

I was not talking about a rabbit you can "SEE". I was talking about telling a psychologist about this "rabbit" that is with you all the time, its in the room with you now and the psychologist cannot SEE a rabbit there.


If I say, "God talks to me." Can you disprove it!? If you can then lock me up.


Can you PROVE it? No? Well then if you are unable to prove it I guess YOU are the liar

Based on what you say then I could say "God IS talking to me and he tells me that he is a fake and that everyone who believes in him is completely insane. He wanted me to pass that on to everyone who was stupid enough to believe in him". Now you cannot DISPROVE that God told me that... So are you going to accept this as true???


I find it completely offensive that anybody would tell me I am related to ape or a one-cell organism.


Of course you are... because your egotistical. You think the universe was created for you and that this divine entity made absolutely EVERYTHING in it for you to play with

With that as the foundation of your existence of course you find it offensive


What is so wrong with being the offspring of an entity that knows all the properties of the universe and can manipulate time/space? That not only knows these things, but actually created them from it's own thought process


Who ever said it was "wrong"? I just said its misguided, self-supported and born from a need to have a purpose in order to function in the world.

Sheesh! I need a coffee in the morning in order to function in the world... Each to their own... but at least I don't try and tell everyone that THEY need a coffee in the morning


I do have a question. Did you create yourself, or was it another force greater than yourself (not necessarily referring to my God)? Now you contradict reality.


"Greater"? And what determines "Greater"? Larger? More powerful? More noble? Faster? Stronger? Harder?

I was created by a chemical reaction between a series of deoxyrhibonucleic acid molecules during a process called reproduction between members of my own species.

The force wasn't GREATER and it wasn't LESSER because there is no need to apply such a term... You would only even USE the word greater if you already had a pre-disposition to believing the existance of a God or God-like entity.

So what reality am I contradicting? The one you have in your head? The one that actually is?

REALITY is the universe... and I was born in the universe so there is no contradiction.

But here is an interesting thought.

You used the word "CREATED". This implies to "make out of nothing". In this sense I was NOT "created", I was formed from a re-organisation of DNA, proteins and amino acids that were broken down from the sperm and ova cell structures of my parents during intercourse. Nothing NEW was brought into existence, nothing was made out of nothing, the chemical process simply reorganised what was already there and set up a series of chemical processes that had the ability to ABSORB surrounding molecules in order to reshape them as my body needed.

So under those conditions I even dispute your use and definition of the word CREATED


You ask "why" three times. If you do not believe you have a purpose, then why never gets answered


Mmmm... perhaps you need to look up the word "why" in the dictionary. It basically means "please explain to me the reasons behind", and considering YOU are the one who believes and I was asking YOU "why" then surely it is evident I was asking for your reasons that explain the question I posed.


In fact, any reason a person gives, you will just say, I disagree because we have no purpose


Guess that shows how little you know because I believe we DO have a purpose... and it is whatever we have CHOSEN that purpose to me. My purpose in life is to gain knowledge and understanding, to increase my awareness and perspicacity and to see things for what they really are.


>1. Why do we programmers write programs?

Because our boss told us to. Does that mean God has a boss?

>We can live without them. If we are self-sufficient without it, then "why" create it?

But we cannot live without them. Without the program that runs the sewerage system we would die. The program that runs the water system and the electricity system are vital.

Oh!!! But you mean those superfluous and meaningless programs that we sometimes write and then discard? Throw away because they only kept our interest for a few moments?

Now I think I see what you are saying :D

We create it because we want it to do something for us, whether it is entertain us, or allow us to interact with each other easier and more quickly, or whatever.

So we are SLAVES of God? Where does "free will" fit in there? If our purpose is to entertain HIM then doesn't that make the Bible a load of rubbish?

Do we need a reason to create it? No. We can create it just because we want to.

So you are saying there wasn't any Noble reason for God creating the universe and Us... it was just out of his boredom?

2. Again as a programmer, do you exist outside your program? Yes. Why create it?

No I don't exist outside of my program. My program requires "time" to run and so do I. I can only change it as fast as the environment which I exist in AND the program exists in can allow. If the program were to exist in ANOTHER place then I would be unable to program it at all.

In order for me to have created it I must have abided by ALL the laws that go into Programming in the first place (I need a keyboard, computer, fingers, a language that ALREADY EXISTS to write it in, time, food)

3. Again as a programmer, do the rules of your program apply to you? Like God, they do while you are interacting with it,

So you are saying that unless God is "interacting" with us then he is in a different plane of existence? But when he wants to perform a miracle he has to become "human" to do so? (ie he is effected by time/fatigue/hunger etc?)

but if you want you can change the programming logic so that it does what you want. As the programmer, are you limited to what you programmed into it, or can you re-program it whenever you want it to do something different?

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh now this one takes the Cake and PROVES beyond any doubt why God doesn't exist USING YOUR OWN WORDS

Yes, we CAN change the program whenever we want to do something different. When was the last time you saw the universe CHANGE?????

Imagine life from the Programs point of view. It knows the "laws" (ie code) that it must abide by... All of a sudden those "laws" change and it has NEW laws. It therfor understands that something is changing those laws.

Now do you see the laws of our universe changing? Has it ever just suddenly gone "Hello, I'm Version 1.2 of Gravity"?

No it hasn't.... which means there isn't a "programmer" for this universe.

You said it.. not me.


Our bodies and the whole of creation is merely a symbolic representation of a true reality - my opinion.


There is that nasty word again... Symbolic. Whenever people cannot explain a glaring fault with the Bible they whip out the worn out rhetoric... "Its Symbolic... I know it says HACK HIS FRIKKEN HEAD OFF!!! But it is Symbolic for Love thy Neighbour".

Why must you state FACT when you want to but resort to SYMBOLISM when FACT completely fails to explain it?


Why not? We do it every day. You have a computer, and the computer does everything you program it to do. Is the computer "equal to you?"


No, thats when I call my "friends" to get some company from people LIKE ME. The program is a small and insignificant part of my life. It is a TOOL that I use and throw away as I see fit.

But of course God is the ONLY God, the ONLY one of his level and therefor has no friends.........


Your misconception is that God is actually making people do EVERYTHING they do, when according the Bible (which is what you keep referring to), He only defined the parameters of operation, and gave it all the data it needed to figure itself out. Your programming logic does the same thing. When you are writing a program, don't you create all parameters of it's operation and then afterward give it all the data it needs to do the calculations?


I like that "figure itself out". If I write a program I give it the code. That codes tells it the ONLY directions it can go...

This means it can give me the answer TRUE or the answer FALSE. it cannot turn around and say to me "I don't feel like answering your question".

Would you say then that the program has "free will"? or is it only as FREE as the cage that keeps it??????????

What you are saying is that God gave us "free will" to only do those things he PROGRAMMED us to be able to do.

That isn't free will at all... that is delusional slavery.


Just like the programmer, He can tell you that if parameter so and thus is set, then the result will be… He has given you a "free-will" so that you can choose


That isn't free will!!!!!!

IF THIS IS SET THEN YOU MUST DO THIS

Where is the freedom in that? Where is the choice in that? In your eyes God has already programmed every single possibility that exists leaving us with PRE-DEFINED choices. A values doesn't simply say "I AM TRUE" just because it wants to be... it is SET to true and the RULES are defined that tell it how to change. There is no FREEDOM in that.

So I hear you say... "Ah yes but we can set our program to pick a RANDOM number... THERE is your freedom". Random numbers are generated by taking the number of seconds passed midnight and applying it to a complex algorithm to generate a number that is only as random as the time you sat down to your computer...

And if the time we sit down at our computer was "ALREADY KNOWN" to God then we haven't done anything with free will at all.


Is any of your statement based on fact? Can you "prove" your statement beyond a shadow of a doubt?


Can you? Can you prove even to within a "reasonable" half doubt that God exists???????


Are you responsible for your existence and your world?


Nobody is responsible for my existence in the world other than my parents decision to have a child.

If you say they had the "free will" to make that decision then THEY chose to create me NOT GOD. If you say that "God knew you were going to be born" then my parents had NO FREE WILL.

So which is it? Did my parents have free will or not????


Truth is truth regardless of what one believes


And that is the fundamental flaw from which you are unable to see anything else.

TRUTH is relative. It changes the more information you add to it and we will never know enough information.

It was considered the TRUTH that the earth was flat until they discovered otherwise. now it is TRUTH that the world is round. You say it is TRUTH that God exists... perhaps upon your death that TRUTH will also be altered... and then again perhaps MY TRUTH will be altered at that time as well.

The point is that ULTIMATE TRUTH is a fallacy.


You get angry at others because they hold on to what they believe until someone proves them wrong, but isn't that what you are doing.


Notice the word I highlighted. That is the difference. I believe what I do until someone provides factual, reasonable or logical evidence to suggest otherwise... While "they" HOLD ON... clinging to it DESPITE evidence to the contrary.


You say, "used to" and "now we haven't seen those kinds of things in 2000 years." Who is we? We who believe in God see these kinds of things all the time. Let me share with you.


Oh I like this... You compare the parting of an entire sea to a single boy and a single man who were surrounded by no more than a FEW people?!?!?!


My son, who is now, 8 was born with an irreversible heart condition


Well I guess "irreversible" was wrong then wasn't it. You just PROVED IT. Don't confuse a LACK of understanding with a miracle from God.

People used to Boil water at 100 degrees celsius for hundreds of years and they decided that was the temperature required. Then someone boiled water on Mt Everest and it boiled at 70 degrees celsius. He didn't suddenly go "That has never happened before... ITS A MIRACLE!!!!!!". He realised that the understanding of how water boils was WRONG up until that point and adjusted accordingly.


Let's try this one. A man is sitting in church and begins to have problems


How many faults do you want?

1. He was surrounded by people in the church. Subjegation was possible

2. We don't know the paramedics backgrounds. Were they good ones?

3. There have been cases of people "coming back to life" without need of praying.

4. If he REMAINED DEAD, would they have even mentioned it ever again that they prayed and FAILED???

Its a wonderful story and I am sure it has done the rounds of the churches... it wonderfully props up the crutch people need to believe in... but it is hardly evidence.


Again, it is sure such a coincidence that these things just happened to occur the same time we prayed


You only hear about the successful prayers... NEVER the failures. Funny that.

If he didn't survive you say "God had a reason", "He has a purpose", "He is in a better place"... If it works you say "See!!! God heard us". You have an answer based not on the EVENT but on the OUTCOME.


If no one can pray to Him, then prayer doesn't work


Go read up on Psycho-Sematics. We don't fully understand the human being or its ability to influence its OWN being yet... it doesn't mean PRAYER was the answer.


Why did it work in these two cases?


And why did it fail miserably in 100,000 other cases?


If you do not hear about them it is because you are not looking in the right places, or talking to the right people


Read that line again. Not looking in the right place... Does that mean that I am not seeing them? Or that I am reading into things that are not there.

Again you have chosen the OUTCOME to make the decision. "IF YOU DO NOT HEAR ABOUT THEM" You obviously were NOT talking to the right people or looking in the right places.

The OUTCOME predicts whether the EVENT was real or not.

You don't see this blindness do you!?!?

[gugck]

> Are you trying to tell me that all 4
> of these are "BOOLEAN" and that Stealing
> an apple is "just as evil" as spending
> my entire life murdering people?????

The answer is Yes. If perfection means no defect, then it doesn't matter how imperfect something is. So to be perfectly good, you have to have no "degree" evil.

> Have you ever studied the human brain?

I am not referring to the human brain according to it's physical limitations, but only to it's ability to produce truth. I could care less how it works, but what is important is that it is logical.

> Did you realize your contradiction here?
> You say it doesn't matter the "degree"
> of the crack and yet you say depending
> on that "degree" you will determine if
> it is to be fixed or replaced.

It doesn't matter in the fact that the window is defective and we WANTED perfect window. So what I am saying is that even though we want it to be perfect, WE decide the degree of imperfection that WE will tolerate. If the degree is 0 defect then it doesn't matter.

> I cannot even designate her actions as
> Evil because again it didn't effect me...
> So I am left with no choice but to
> designate her actions (NULL) or 0 or benign.

That is using your laws, not mine. I said that if there was no effect, then it defaults either to good or evil. Isn't "no effect" good?

We do not need to debate this issue further.

> the Animals live... they neither
> help nor harm... they simply do
> what they must to survive.

I hope you do not really believe that. You should really be a closer observer of nature. Furthermore, are we separate from nature?

> I am so surprised when people do not
> understand that generalizations like
> this are always based on the experience
> of the person themselves.

>Do you see my point?

I saw your point to begin with and, if you read it, you will see that I said you were making a general statement. I went on the reduce it down to say that you are lying because even if every person you met was as you say, you would never have enough information to about all of us to make a correct determination. It would always remain within what you know to be true.

> "In general" religious people will never
> totally change their belief and "remain"
> religious people. Only those who believe
> in science will do that.

"Those who believe in science" are, by your own statement, just like religious people. Do unbelieving science people ever change their belief that God does not exist? Do they ever change their belief that they must have proof?

> Religious people "in general" believe the
> existence of God based on conclusions
> they draw themselves...

And science does not do this also? Let me ask? Are you separate from the universe that you test, or part of it?

> ...personal belief [about God] started from
> childhood when their parents "TOLD" them
> God existed...

Actually, my mother tried to teach me that God existed, but at that time I did not accept because my father, who does not believe in God, taught me that He doesn't exists. Later, I came to my own conclusions.

> Tell me... do you believe ABSOLUTE faith
> blinds people?

Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see. So, sure ABSOLUTE faith can, but that doesn't mean it does. The thing you are missing, is that you operate on faith as much as anyone. Is it possible you are also blind. You are so SURE that you are right even when you only have a little evidence. Many of the things you believe in are only theories, not fact, but you take them on faith "until they proven wrong."

> Does that mean you TRUELY accept this
> possibility or was that just a very
> fancy way of being able to say "YES"
> but really meaning "NO"?

I am agreeing with you that if God does not exist, I am mentally deficient because while I have faith that He exist, I am also see how COULD exist, and the two are in agreement.

> If you can show me a force OUTSIDE of this...

Take a look at a dream. What is a dream? Is not the mind imagining something? Can an imagination be a force that affects this world? Is their a limitation in the imagination? Can you do ANYTHING you want there? Think about the implications for just a second. I will try to expound upon this later. For now, think about it.

> ...keep it shrouded in mystery and tell
> us we will find it just on the other
> side of death...

Do you limit your studies? Do you know there are people studying death, what it is, and what occurs? Both believers and non-believers are studying this, and it appears both are coming up with the same conclusions. There is something (life, death, heaven, hell), something after death. I only mention this, but let's not debate over it. I have other things I wish to discuss.

> What the hell do you think is going
> to happen when the gravity of the
> universal mass starts falling back
> in on itself and the whole thing
> comes screaming into the center
> and explodes into ANOTHER big bang?????

Do you realize that I wasn't saying this was my argument? I used your argument. You said first said that the universe created itself, "it just is," then you say we humans, who are part of the universe, can't break it's laws. If what you say is true, then humans can do whatever they want, because the universe defines itself, it's own laws. Be as sarcastic as you like, I only used your logic to try to understand you.

> I have to resort to "Oooo... its some
> mystical unknown purpose, something we
> cannot see and cannot touch but its
> there if you just let yourself believe."

First, can you please show me where I said that? I never ever said any such thing. In fact, I will say the opposite. It is not mystical, and you can touch and see it. Unfortunately, you have limited your touching and seeing abilities. Furthermore, do you actually touch and see an atom or sub-atomic particle or any such thing? Sure you have instruments to measure them, but what makes you so sure?

And, for that matter, since you know ALL properties of the universe, will you please explain them all to me? You are saying the same things to me that I am saying you? Just believe me. Have you been to the outer limits of the universe? No you say? How do you KNOW it is there? You say, "the evidence says," "the evidence says," but the only evidence you have is what you know. What you know will never be everything, because there is always more to know, so then how do you know for sure?

> Based on what you say then I could say
> "God IS talking to me and he tells me
> that he is a fake and that everyone who
> believes in him is completely insane. He
> wanted me to pass that on to everyone
> who was stupid enough to believe in him".
> Now you cannot DISPROVE that God told
> me that... So are you going to accept
> this as true???

"Now you cannot DISPROVE that God told me..." Sure I can. If I walked over to you and said, "I was talking to myself the other day, and I want you to know that I am not real, and that everyone who thinks I am real is completely insane. I want you to pass that on to everyone who was stupid enough to know me." Am I speaking a truth or a lie? And who will be seen as insane?

You do not even realize yet that everything you say must agree with The Truth, or it is not true - it is a lie.

> Of course you are... because your egotistical.
> You think the universe was created for you and
> that this divine entity made absolutely
> EVERYTHING in it for you to play with.

> With that as the foundation of your existence
> of course you find it offensive.

Actually, I only used that to try to show you how egotistical your statement was, because you are offended that you could be fabricated. You think you made you when you do not even know how you work.

I myself on the other hand never, ever said I thought the universe was created for me. I will say it was created for God, by God, and He created for His purposes the same as you create something for yours.

> You used the word "CREATED". This implies
> to "make out of nothing".

Let me ask you this. When you get to the smallest thing there is what is there? Is it possibly - nothing? Furthermore, it may imply "out of nothing," but it really means to make something unknown out of something known. Back again to imagination. If God is a known and the universe unknown, did he, by definition, create?

> But we cannot live without them. Without
> the program that runs the sewerage system
> we would die. The program that runs the
> water system and the electricity system
> are vital.

"we cannot live without them." Them refers to OUR system, but I keep telling you it is not OUR system that matters. It is the truth, the true system that matters. If our system dies, we do not die, we make new systems, or live within the original system. If I wanted I could go live in a jungle, without the use of a computer, or any sewer system, I could because nature itself (an existing system) would then support my life.

My only argument was that we create systems for ourselves for whatever reason we want to. Why couldn't it be the same for God?

> So you are saying there wasn't any Noble
> reason for God creating the universe and
> Us... it was just out of his boredom?

I am saying that if you can create your own truth, then why can't God do the same. I am also saying that reason is irrelevant to us. Whether we know it, or understand it, is irrelevant.

> In order for me to have created the program
> I must have abided by ALL the laws that go
> into Programming in the first place (I need
> a keyboard, computer, fingers, a language
> that ALREADY EXISTS).

The program, the keyboard, the computer, everything is created by a person. To the computer and it's program the person (or persons - collectively) are God.

> Why must you state FACT when you want
> to but resort to SYMBOLISM when FACT
> completely fails to explain it?

I was in referring to a computer program. Let me ask it this way. You have a picture of you on your computer. Is the picture you, or is it a bunch of 0's and 1's that represent (symbolize) you? The picture is only symbolic, but is it real? Can you see it? Can you measure?

> TRUTH is relative.

How do you know? That is your truth. Not mine. I can't believe that you cannot see the flaw in your logic. You yourself said, that gravity was unchanging. Therefore it must be what's that? Truth? No matter what YOU BELIEVE about gravity, it still remains gravity that continues to work as it always has.

Someone once said, "there is no such thing as absolute truth." The statement itself is absolute, therefore the statement is incorrect - a lie.

The TRUTH is that YOUR TRUTH is relative. Every REAL truth that I believe is fixed, and unmovable because that is what truth is. Truth is known by itself. It can withstand every test, and always remain true.


> Well I guess "irreversible" was wrong
> then wasn't it. You just PROVED IT. Don't
> confuse a LACK of understanding with a
> miracle from God.

Let me rephrase it since that was the doctor's words and not mine. The heart condition was never known before then or after then to have been corrected without surgery. It interesting that like the magician you direct the reader to an irrelevant point. The fact remains, the heart was defective, I prayed for it become whole, in spite of FACT that it never happened before, it did. Bottom line.

> You only hear about the successful
> prayers... NEVER the failures. Funny that.

Who said? I hear about failures all the time, but that does not mean it does not work. If I say to you go and put a certain coin in that machine and you will get a soda, and you put the certain coin in, but get no soda, does that mean I was a liar? Does it mean that now I can never trust the machine to give me a soda when I put a coin in? Of coarse, you may try to say, "see the machine failed, therefore prayer will fail." I will say True, but the machine and the prayer are both coming from man, who is quite a frail creature and makes many mistakes.

> And why did it fail miserably
> in 100,000 other cases?

What do I care about someone else's results? If almost every time I pray, my prayer is answered, then prayer must be real. You will say but there's that "almost" and it has to work every time. If you say that then I will say, you yourself, "when you have ENOUGH evidence." If a test worked 99 times out of a 100 what does that tell us? Something was different the 1 time. Should we then say our test was inaccurate, or should we explore why the test failed? With prayer, we will almost always find that it was the fault of the person praying, and not the power of prayer that was at fault.

> The OUTCOME predicts whether the
> EVENT was real or not.

And it is different with you? You run a test and the results (outcome) show you the validity of what you believe to be true.

> Then what irrefutable PROOF do you have
> for God's existance that does not rely
> on the fact you ALREADY believe in his
> existance?

This is forth coming - if I ever get the chance. I hope to make this my last reply in our existing debate in order that I might get a chance to put down to words my argument. Being very busy, it may be awhile. Either way, I think we understand enough of each other's OPINIONS that we need not debate further over things said (you may reply if you wish). Furthermore, if you really believe that truth is relative to what one BELIEVES, then you and I have no ground on which to stand, for we will never reach a conclusion.

[Gen-X]

I have but one thing to say...

If you don't believe we have any need to discuss what we already have then why did your reply include questions?


But you are correct... we have no foundation for discussion because you have indicated to me that your persuition is such that you do not wish to see anything other than that which you personally believe to me true.

I am sure you will say the same of me but that is simply because we talk 2 different languages.

I talk the language of reason, logic and FACT as shown by observation while you talk about faith, acceptance and the denial of anything that doesn't suit your purpose.

With that being the case we really wont get anywhere.

I believe you are wrong, you believe I am wrong. Enjoy your belief... regardless whether right or wrong I hope they make you happy.

[kedaman]

But I heard you say... "He wasn't THERE... you can't assign him EITHER value!!!"

And that my friend means that he is NULL.

No Gen-x You can't asign a not declared variable.


If you "see" then it is an extention of "yourself" and what creates the illusion can also be "yourself".

You're right, and then i'm universe.


If you believe that, and considering you believe YOURSELF to be one of the only real things then your belief in God means you created him within this "consciousness" you talk about. In that event as you are the creator of God then YOU are in fact God.

FLAW: Case1: I am universe, and what i see is part of me. Case2: I am part of universe. In both cases I am component of universe, not the creator.

Another flaw in your proof was the scientific proof you postulated from your uncle. Everyone picked holes in it immediately showing the flaw of your already EXISTING belief in God for jumping to wild conclusions without fact.... yet you STILL believe they are wrong in saying that.

What more proof do you need?

Since we haven't agreed science is not a reliable yet, i can't state all "showed flaws" are flawed. On the other hand i know they are.


I agree that we perceive "degrees of" good or evil. But how much good or evil do we have to do before it is considered good or evil?

Exactly my point!!!

I think that was postulated by gugck

1. I Steal an apple (Its wrong, its bad.. but its not much)
2. I hit a person (Now its a bit worse, its definately bad)
3. I kill a person (Ooooo... now I am bordering on Evil)
4. I spend my entire life murdering people (Pure Evil)

Are you trying to tell me that all 4 of these are "BOOLEAN" and that Stealing an apple is "just as evil" as spending my entire life murdering people?????

No i do not. Those can all be split up in millions of aspect each a boolean good/evil. You may count and calculate these boolean switches percentage in your brain, and you get a scale between evil and good but it won't flaw my argument as evil and good is a boolean concept, whatever it can be applied on.

Hmm, i think you have anwered all gugcks post, not mine, well I think i'm going to reply anyway on some of them:


Unlike a CPU which can only count in 0's and 1's the neural transmitters of the human brain are ANALOG

Human brains are definitely not analog, it's digital complexity, analog is a mathematical concept.

... So I am left with no choice but to designate her actions (NULL) or 0 or benign"

Good/Evil Implies a choise, It implies you have a value to asign, a boolean. No choise means no value.

2 men fighting for a loaf of bread. BOTH of them are trying to feed their families. BOTH of them are starving. If they shared the loaf EVENLY between them then BOTH families would die from starvation.

There are a bunch of boolean choises, one of them may be the choose to fight or not, and it's a boolean choise.

Statement : 1.0000001 is close to 1

Answer : TRUE

MAthematical concepts



I talk the language of reason, logic and FACT as shown by observation while you talk about faith, acceptance and the denial of anything that doesn't suit your purpose.

You talk the language of science, not FACT, Gen-x. And I think science and religion is both the same language, the language of faith, and it's the faith that differs.

[gugck]

quote Kedaman:
> You talk the language of
> science, not FACT, Gen-x.
> And I think science and
> religion is both the same
> language, the language of
> faith, and it's the faith
> that differs.

Bravo!! A man of true understanding. This has been my entire argument. People continually complain about "people of faith" beleiving "blindly," not realizing that we believe in something the same way they do.

Unfortunately, instead of accepting in the slightest evidence we present, they say we are only delusion, or mentally defecient, or anything that will keep them from accepting the possibility that what we have seen and know is in fact as real as the evidence they have found to "believe" what they "believe."

I think you said it before, "belief is essential to man's existence." Without we would have none of the technologies we have today. Even greater still is the fact that all that we do (any person) is based on faith. Could I even lie on my own bed to sleep at night without it? You may say something like, "I know I will rest and rise again tomorrow." But do you know that for sure? Such things are said by "faith."

BTW Kedaman - Since you believe God is real, it may just be that much of what was said between me and Gen-x may actually be for you. That is, as a confirmation of what you believe. God uses every man, the believer and the unbeliever, for His purposes. God sent me to the board, and I responded at His request. Normally I do not involve myself with such debates because the Bible warns that arguments are useless, and should be avoided. But the Lord Jesus has something in mind for someone on the board. Though I thought it was Gen-X, it may be you. It may be yet still someone else. Even if no one else (which I doubt), I know my own belief in God has been further solidified by the arguments. The Lord DID speak to me (not my own imagination because several others confirmed what was said - and that without my asking of them). He is trying to reveal himself to those who refuse to see him but their hearts are very hard and they want to live their lives without having to be accountable. Yet, every day their own heart convicts them, and they know it. They do see what we see, but they are not interested in believing (only arguing, and justifying themselves). I myself have said all that I was given to say, and I can say no more. I only encourage to listen to God, and obey Him as He leds you, for He IS teaching you and seeking to reveal Himself to you!

G-day mate!

[Gen-X]

When will you two open your eyes?

I have to state this very simply and I am sure even then you will fail to see the difference.

SCIENCE

I have done an experiment. I believe something to be true. Please come and have a look at it.

[Other person looks at the experiment, repeats it and comes up with the same conclusion]

I write a book on it and publish it

[People all over the world do the SAME experiment and come up with the same conclusion]

Seeing as everyone who does the experiment comes up with the same conclusion, and nobody has been able to provide evidence that would suggest we are wrong then my original theory is considered "FACT"

RELIGION

God just spoke to me. I believe something to be true. Please come and listen to me tell you about it.

[Other person listens to him, but has to take him at his word because he cannot "test" in any way, he cannot support it, he doesn't hear it himself... the only piece of evidence he has is the word of the man]

I write a book on it

[People all over the world read it but again none of them hear the exact same words, none of them get the same results]

Seeing as not one SINGLE other person can verify or confirm exactly what the first person heard, validate it wasn't either a lie, fake, day dreaming or anything else...

There is NO conclusion to draw... NO fact to make.

If I said God told me to tell you that you were being evil then you would "validate" what I said based on whether you believed you WERE being evil or not. If you believed you WERE being evil you would say "Oh my, he was being truthful". If however you DONT believe you were being evil you would say "He is lying, he didn't speak to God".

Your "personal" definition was used to validate another's.

CONCLUSION

Religion is PERSONAL
Science is GLOBAL


Kedaman

The fact you cannot even accept the brain is analog and that you say analog is a mathematical concept is enough for me to ignore the garbage you just wrote.

[kedaman]

Gen-x

CONCLUSION

Religion is PERSONAL
Science is GLOBAL

So, gen-x you wan't it this way, that's ok, but i have to give you the whole picture:

Religion and Science have both Global and Personal Aspects

Global Science - Common accepted science
Personal Science - What you know and accept as science

Global Religion - Common accepted religion
Personal Religion - What you know and accept as religion

So Science and Religion is actually the same language still, although I agree science is has a very strong global part since scientists tries to remove personal science.

But what you're wrong about is the reliability - everything has a equal chance of being an illusion.


Kedaman

The fact you cannot even accept the brain is analog and that you say analog is a mathematical concept is enough for me to ignore the garbage you just wrote.

So you IGNORE? I thought you hated ignorance! You don't even know what analog actually means, I'm sure you have a diffuse perception of it, but you don't know what it means. Analog IS a mathematical concept:

- Mathematically "Analog" means "Irrational Scale", which implies that values cannot be splitted up in rational values or even irrational constants factorized with rational values.

IF you try to dig up the nonmathematical definition, i'll point out that you used it for a mathematical purpose:

Unlike a CPU which can only count in 0's and 1's the neural transmitters of the human brain are ANALOG.


gugck

Bravo!! A man of true understanding. This has been my entire argument. People continually complain about "people of faith" beleiving "blindly," not realizing that we believe in something the same way they do.

Yes, i'm understanding, I understand both you and Gen-x, because I don't believe in neither, still my vision is that both are be accurate.

Unfortunately, instead of accepting in the slightest evidence we present, they say we are only delusion, or mentally defecient, or anything that will keep them from accepting the possibility that what we have seen and know is in fact as real as the evidence they have found to "believe" what they "believe."

Thats correct, there's a little difference between science and religion, that is that religion can accept science, but science can not accept religion, due to failure to actually understand that science is faith. Still many scientists believe in a religion, which makes it obvious: They cannot admit that science is faith.

[Gen-X]

Kedaman... My ignorant little friend.

Maths as Sam so elloquently put it is the explaination and description of "the world around us" through models.

Therefor "analog" is describing something in the REAL WORLD and is not purely mathematical.

In fact "analog" was first used in electronics and NOT mathematics....

If you cannot understand this basic concept then I am not going to respond to your next post... HECK, I shouldn't have responded to this one because your perception of reality is so different from mine that communication is not possible.

[Sam Finch]

Maths as Sam so elloquently put it is the explaination and description of "the world around us" through models.

Therefor "analog" is describing something in the REAL WORLD and is not purely mathematical.

In fact "analog" was first used in electronics and NOT mathematics....

hate to pick you up on stuff like this but analog is more mathematical than real world, analog is an electronics term meaning not quantized, obviously charge is quantized (electrons etc.) it's only in the mathematical part of electronics that it isn't quantised at all.

Just an observation, I havn't really read the whole thread in detail so I don't know where it all aplied to the existance of god but doubtless it doesn't proove it either way.

[kedaman]

In fact is has nothing to do with God, Gen-x likes to hang up on small details, in this case the mathematical definition of analog.

[dclamp]

bump