Rene Descartes: Catholic attitudes toward him

[Cecilianus]

JD,
There’s been some interesting work on energy generation within black holes, but so far it does not come from nothing. It is more like a gathering of existing energy.

C and I will take opposite points on this.

No disagreement here. Energy and momentum are conserved in black holes - hence evaporation via Hawking radiation (which we haven’t seen yet, but which nobody has ever challenged the physics of).

I operate from the assumption that energy is a kind of “stuff” which always existed, its three laws describing its properties.

From this perspective, God manipulated raw energy to create the stuff of the universe, always within the context of its innate characteristics.

I know that this is a sparse explanation, but you’ll be reading my book someday, where the concepts are detailed and placed into a much broader perspective.

You’re aware this is not an original idea, but one thousands of years old going back to Plato? The idea of “eternal matter” (=energy) is specifically condemned as heresy, with anathemas chanted against the medieval Platonists who held this notion every year on the Sunday of Holy Orthodoxy.

If God is not the creator of the Universe but only its demiurge, I see no reason to believe in Him. He’s an unnecessary hypothesis. Science is more than sufficient to explain how natural processes work without resorting to a finite demiurge.

Your first clause comes from the perspective of time as a continuum, which is so great compared to the amount of time which we humans have experienced, that all things can happen within its span.

I take a different perspective: There is no such thing as time. There is only a sequence of events.

The development of biological life forms can be most logically evaluated as a sequence of events.

When writing a computer program, I am composing a set of instructions to be executed in various sequences, according to circumstances. It once took me two years to write a sequence of code which executed in less than a minute. Time was irrelevant. Only the sequence of instructions was important. There was an error in this code which took me two years to find, which occurred apparently at random about once every month or so. The error was simply that two instructions were in the wrong sequence, essentially a tpyographical error.

Treat evolution as a sequence of countable events. Primitive cells had to be constructed from scratch. Genes had to be assembled, one base-pair triplet at a time, then put into the field for testing. When the test results were in, a gene could be corrected, or enhanced.

I’ve probably written about 10 million computer instructions in my lifetime, reduced to about 1 million instructions of working code. Each one or group of several had to be tested and corrected, then properly incorporated into a working whole, Even from this background my mind cannot grasp the magnitude, in terms of instructions, of the coding behind biological machinery. Trillions upon trillions of amino-acid triplets inserted into genes during meiosis, sometimes years to wait for the modified critter to grow up and put the modified gene to work— if it survives long enough. The sheer number of steps in the process is overwhelming.

But in all, it is steps and sequences which count, not time.

It is logically impossible to lurk and post simultaneously.

What do you think people mean by time? It’s a measurement of distance between events.

I would also like to respond to an earlier comment of yours suggesting I take a critical thinking class from an atheist. I would like you to point out logical fallacies in my arguments rather than simply throwing an ad hominem about my critical thinking skills. Also, I would question the idea that atheists are necessarily better at critical thinking than theists. In my experience most atheists have a horribly childish understanding of what religious beliefs are, and they tend to attack a conception of God that theists usually left behind at the age of 3. If they are so good at critical thinking, they should recognize the value of knowing the belief system they are rejecting and arguing against and know better than to fall back on infantile straw men.

I minored in philosophy, took both classical logic and predicate calculus, as well as classes in discrete mathematics and lots and lots and lots of proofs-based math classes (multiple branches of algebra and analysis) for my math degree. If they had not conflicted with other classes (plasma physics) I would have taken modern Anglo-American philosophy and modal logic as well; I had to resort to reading the assignments for them outside of class and emailing the professor with my questions. In high school I took several years of straight “critical thinking” books and two years of classical (formal and material) logic, with modern logic integrated into my geometry curriculum. I don’t think I have a problem with critical thinking.

If you want to integrate physics and theology, you should at least understand the theology of Christianity instead of simply rejecting it. And you should have a clear understanding of the difference between religious “dogma” and philosophical perception. Your previous posts were full of both misunderstandings.

 

[JDaniel]

There’s been some interesting work on energy generation within black holes, but so far it does not come from nothing. It is more like a gathering of existing energy.

Greylorn:

What I was suggesting was more in line with what black holes have been thought to be, by some physicists, i.e., portals, as it were, to a place outside of the universe where used-up heat energy might be eliminated from the system, like some huge animal detritus, while replacement matter/energy was actually pumped into the system from elsewhere, probably from outside of the universe.

I operate from the assumption that energy is a kind of “stuff” which always existed, its three laws describing its properties.

Wouldn’t that make ‘energy’ infinite (in duration)?

From this perspective, God manipulated raw energy to create the stuff of the universe, always within the context of its innate characteristics.

Energy, then, free-floated in that whatever that is now only outside of the boundaries of the universe?

I know that this is a sparse explanation, but you’ll be reading my book someday, where the concepts are detailed and placed into a much broader perspective.

The sooner, the better. I appreciate your taking the time to answer these questions.

Your first clause comes from the perspective of time as a continuum, which is so great compared to the amount of time which we humans have experienced, that all things can happen within its span.

Not every physicist agrees.

I take a different perspective: There is no such thing as time. There is only a sequence of events.

Ok. Let us go ahead and postulate, for the sake of argument, that there is no such thing as ‘time’. Would you agree that there is, at least, ‘duration’? If you would, then, would you also agree that the shortest potential duration is what we call the Planck length? (From what I understand, Planck time is theoretical; but it is directly related to Planck length.)

One more question: Is Planck ‘time’ not an element of ‘time’, per se? Or, attoseconds?

The development of biological life forms can be most logically evaluated as a sequence of events.

Yes that’s true. But, what would you say to those physicists who suggest that there have simply not been enough Planck length durations (time) to get the universe to the point where life forms, biotic soup, or pre-biotic soup might occur? Further, what effect(s), i.e., result(s) would one expect to find that would indicate (in reality) that a sequence is complete? (I think I know the answer to this, but, let’s see if we concur.)

When writing a computer program, I am composing a set of instructions to be executed in various sequences, according to circumstances. It once took me two years to write a sequence of code which executed in less than a minute. Time was irrelevant. Only the sequence of instructions was important. There was an error in this code which took me two years to find, which occurred apparently at random about once every month or so. The error was simply that two instructions were in the wrong sequence, essentially a tpyographical error.

Treat evolution as a sequence of countable events. Primitive cells had to be constructed from scratch. Genes had to be assembled, one base-pair triplet at a time, then put into the field for testing. When the test results were in, a gene could be corrected, or enhanced.

And that seems to be the problem that some other physicists point out: there have been insufficient durational cycles (time) to, logically and ontologically, to get our universe to the point of living organisms.

I’ve probably written about 10 million computer instructions in my lifetime, reduced to about 1 million instructions of working code. Each one or group of several had to be tested and corrected, then properly incorporated into a working whole, Even from this background my mind cannot grasp the magnitude, in terms of instructions, of the coding behind biological machinery. Trillions upon trillions of amino-acid triplets inserted into genes during meiosis, sometimes years to wait for the modified critter to grow up and put the modified gene to work— if it survives long enough. The sheer number of steps in the process is overwhelming.

But in all, it is steps and sequences which count, not time.

You do not think that durational cycles is a definition, of sorts, for ‘time’?

It is logically impossible to lurk and post simultaneously.

Unless I am two personalities!

God bless,
jd

 

[Cecilianus]

Greylorn:

What I was suggesting was more in line with what black holes have been thought to be, by some physicists, i.e., portals, as it were, to a place outside of the universe where used-up heat energy might be eliminated from the system, like some huge animal dumping, while replacement matter/energy was actually pumped into the system from elsewhere, probably from outside of the universe.

Except that they radiate energy.

The status of entropy inside a black hole, on the other hand, is a much more interesting and less well-understood problem.

 

[JDaniel]

I read some Descartes in college, and have recently resolved to re-read him. I recall that some Catholics tend to look unfavorably upon him and that he was even accused of atheism in his time (though his Meditations on First Philosophy seek to prove the existence of God). Can someone enlighten me on common attitudes towards Descartes’ philosophy among Catholics?

StMartintours:

Sorry: your thread has been sort of hijacked. In case you weren’t aware, you do have the “right” to re-take your thread. You may boot any of us at any time, or demand that we stay on topic. What’s your pleasure?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Except that they radiate energy.

The status of entropy inside a black hole, on the other hand, is a much more interesting and less well-understood problem.

C:

That’s what I was thinking, but, I didn’t phrase it correctly. So, the question is: is it a giant soup-bowl, taking in energy composites and regurgitating raw energy, or, is it linked to an “outside,” whatever that might be?

God bless,
jd

 

[Cecilianus]

C:

That’s what I was thinking, but, I didn’t phrase it correctly. So, the question is: is it a giant soup-bowl, taking in energy composites and regurgitating raw energy, or, is it linked to an “outside,” whatever that might be?

God bless,
jd

There’s no “outside” the universe - it’s linked to our own universe, in kind of an interesting way. What the “inside” of a black hole looks like, nobody really knows. The way it regurgitates energy is actually pretty fascinating: At every point in space due to the Heisenberg uncertainty between energy and time, “virtual particles” are being spontaneously created and destroyed. These particles are found due to the imprecision in being able to say that they’re not there, but their not imaginary or unreal in the common sense of the term - they’re responsible for all forces and interactions between particles. (They “borrow” energy from the vacuum because one cannot pin the energy of the vacuum down to zero within an infinitesimal time frame with perfect precision - the more precisely you try to measure the time frame in which you are measuring the energy of a vacuum, the less precisely you can say that the energy is zero, and the more energy these “virtual particles” can have. So the higher in energy a virtual particle has, the shorter lifetime it has, and vice versa.)

Let’s say a virtual particle-antiparticle pair is spontaneously created near the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole. Due to conservation of momentum, one particle is going one direction (in) and the other in the other direction (out), and so one particle gets captured by the black hole and the other has enough momentum to escape. In order for momentum to be conserved, they have to disappear at the same time, but because of the high gravitational time dilation inside the black hole, the virtual particle that got captured will remain in existence for the rest of the lifetime of the universe, or until the black hole disappears. However, while this will only be a split second from inside the black hole, it will be billions of years when measured from outside the black hole, and the particle that escaped isn’t allowed to live that long - that would violate conservation of energy, since it never had any real energy of its own to begin with. So it in order to preserve conservation of energy, the mass of the black hole is decreased by precisely the mass of the virtual particle that escaped (which now becomes a real particle, from the perspective of the observer outside the black hole), and eventually the black hole will radiate all its energy away and evaporate.

That’s why even if CERN were capable of producing mini black holes, I wouldn’t be worried. They’d evaporate right away.

 

[JDaniel]

There’s no “outside” the universe - it’s linked to our own universe, in kind of an interesting way. What the “inside” of a black hole looks like, nobody really knows. The way it regurgitates energy is actually pretty fascinating: At every point in space due to the Heisenberg uncertainty between energy and time, “virtual particles” are being spontaneously created and destroyed. These particles are found due to the imprecision in being able to say that they’re not there, but their not imaginary or unreal in the common sense of the term - they’re responsible for all forces and interactions between particles. (They “borrow” energy from the vacuum because one cannot pin the energy of the vacuum down to zero within an infinitesimal time frame with perfect precision - the more precisely you try to measure the time frame in which you are measuring the energy of a vacuum, the less precisely you can say that the energy is zero, and the more energy these “virtual particles” can have. So the higher in energy a virtual particle has, the shorter lifetime it has, and vice versa.)

Let’s say a virtual particle-antiparticle pair is spontaneously created near the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole. Due to conservation of momentum, one particle is going one direction (in) and the other in the other direction (out), and so one particle gets captured by the black hole and the other has enough momentum to escape. In order for momentum to be conserved, they have to disappear at the same time, but because of the high gravitational time dilation inside the black hole, the virtual particle that got captured will remain in existence for the rest of the lifetime of the universe, or until the black hole disappears. However, while this will only be a split second from inside the black hole, it will be billions of years when measured from outside the black hole, and the particle that escaped isn’t allowed to live that long - that would violate conservation of energy, since it never had any real energy of its own to begin with. So it in order to preserve conservation of energy, the mass of the black hole is decreased by precisely the mass of the virtual particle that escaped (which now becomes a real particle, from the perspective of the observer outside the black hole), and eventually the black hole will radiate all its energy away and evaporate.

That’s why even if CERN were capable of producing mini black holes, I wouldn’t be worried. They’d evaporate right away.

C:

You will probably find this interesting, if you haven’t already read it: sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060508112217.htm

God bless,
jd

 

[greylorn]

No disagreement here. Energy and momentum are conserved in black holes - hence evaporation via Hawking radiation (which we haven’t seen yet, but which nobody has ever challenged the physics of).

Hawking radiation theory is based upon quantum mechanics, which I do not find to be a correct explanation of the physics behind quantum phenomena, however good a model it may be, there’s no physics in it. Have “virtual” particles of the sort required to implement Hawking radiation been experimentally discovered, or are they just lurking in the model’s math?

Hawking’s theory won’t be challenged because by now QM is dogma, and challenging Hawking would be a repudiation of the dogma.

I propose that any “virtual” particles appearing at the event horizon will be sucked right back into the black hole. Nothing will radiate, at least not by that mechanism. So consider the physics challenged.

You’re aware this is not an original idea, but one thousands of years old going back to Plato? The idea of “eternal matter” (=energy) is specifically condemned as heresy, with anathemas chanted against the medieval Platonists who held this notion every year on the Sunday of Holy Orthodoxy.

Since I never claimed it to be an original idea, I can only conclude that you are continuing your smarmy argumentative tactics, which depend upon making up what I’ve said. That’s the kind of trash commentary that really stupid liberals employ when smearing a legitimate opponent who they fear, like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman. It stinks. IMO the people who employ such disgusting tactics are the worst of human beings, soulless, brain-ruled nits who will make up lies to discredit another, to affirm the “truth” of their brain’s programming.

If God is not the creator of the Universe but only its demiurge, I see no reason to believe in Him. He’s an unnecessary hypothesis. Science is more than sufficient to explain how natural processes work without resorting to a finite demiurge.

If I believed that God was a “demiurge” I’d not accept his existence either. Looks like more stuff you’ve gone ahead and made up.

Of all the dogmatists I’ve dealt with on CAF and life in general, you are only one whose approach I find to be despicable.

What do you think people mean by time? It’s a measurement of distance between events.

Gee whiz! Last time I took a physics course, “space” was the measurement of distance. Are they teaching a whole new belief system at DeVry Internet University these days?

I would also like to respond to an earlier comment of yours suggesting I take a critical thinking class from an atheist. I would like you to point out logical fallacies in my arguments rather than simply throwing an ad hominem about my critical thinking skills. Also, I would question the idea that atheists are necessarily better at critical thinking than theists. In my experience most atheists have a horribly childish understanding of what religious beliefs are, and they tend to attack a conception of God that theists usually left behind at the age of 3. If they are so good at critical thinking, they should recognize the value of knowing the belief system they are rejecting and arguing against and know better than to fall back on infantile straw men.

I minored in philosophy, took both classical logic and predicate calculus, as well as classes in discrete mathematics and lots and lots and lots of proofs-based math classes (multiple branches of algebra and analysis) for my math degree. If they had not conflicted with other classes (plasma physics) I would have taken modern Anglo-American philosophy and modal logic as well; I had to resort to reading the assignments for them outside of class and emailing the professor with my questions. In high school I took several years of straight “critical thinking” books and two years of classical (formal and material) logic, with modern logic integrated into my geometry curriculum. I don’t think I have a problem with critical thinking.

You’ve flunked every opportunity to do some critical thinking that I sent your way. All the phony credentials in the world, unless they are backed by an honest mind, are good for toilet paper.

If you want to integrate physics and theology, you should at least understand the theology of Christianity instead of simply rejecting it. And you should have a clear understanding of the difference between religious “dogma” and philosophical perception. Your previous posts were full of both misunderstandings.

Oh, really? Did theology change in the last 50 years? Is God no longer an omniscient, omnipotent spirit being who created the universe from nothing by acts of his will?

Exactly what is “philosophical perception?” If it amounts to something that included an understanding of physics, and was other than a melange of the random opinions of ignorant nitwits, I could be interested.

There are some competent philosophers. However, IMO you are a poor spokesperson for them.

 

[greylorn]

Greylorn:
What I was suggesting was more in line with what black holes have been thought to be, by some physicists, i.e., portals, as it were, to a place outside of the universe where used-up heat energy might be eliminated from the system, like some huge animal detritus, while replacement matter/energy was actually pumped into the system from elsewhere, probably from outside of the universe.

I love speculative black hole physics, so long as it is honestly presented as speculation. I’ve no idea what black holes are. Your proposal is fun, lacking only an explanation of the “place” where the energy clinkers go.

I have my own theories about BHs, of course, but they all involve the interaction of “God.” Let’s keep guessing!

Wouldn’t that make ‘energy’ infinite (in duration)?

I sure hope so!

Energy, then, free-floated in that whatever that is now only outside of the boundaries of the universe?

I don’t know, but since this idea is similar to mine, I’m inclined to agree with it. The notion of a boundary to energy-space makes my brain fume, angry that I failed to master very advanced mathematical forms, such as topology. .

Not every physicist agrees.

Who’d have thought it?

Ok. Let us go ahead and postulate, for the sake of argument, that there is no such thing as ‘time’. Would you agree that there is, at least, ‘duration’? If you would, then, would you also agree that the shortest potential duration is what we call the Planck length? (From what I understand, Planck time is theoretical; but it is directly related to Planck length.)

One more question: Is Planck ‘time’ not an element of ‘time’, per se? Or, attoseconds?

If there is a distinction between time and duration in the measurement of event sequences, I don’t understand it well enough to answer your question.

The Planck length is a distance measurement, not a “duration.” You’ve been in collusion with Cecil, perhaps?

Planck time is an interesting concept. I like it. The best that I can do is speculate about it which I do in the book (amid last chapter). I treat it as the smallest possible clock tick, a measurement of the transformation process by which an electron transforms some of its energy into a photon. And I’m open to better ideas.

Yes that’s true. But, what would you say to those physicists who suggest that there have simply not been enough Planck length durations (time) to get the universe to the point where life forms, biotic soup, or pre-biotic soup might occur? Further, what effect(s), i.e., result(s) would one expect to find that would indicate (in reality) that a sequence is complete? (I think I know the answer to this, but, let’s see if we concur.)

Since none of them have said those things (or anything else) to me, I’m too busy to be interested enough to generate what would, in this context, be an irrelevant set of comments.

And that seems to be the problem that some other physicists point out: there have been insufficient durational cycles (time) to, logically and ontologically, to get our universe to the point of living organisms.

There are those mysterious “other physicists” again. When they have read my book and wish to argue, I’ll do my best.

You do not think that durational cycles is a definition, of sorts, for ‘time’?

Since I’ve no clue as to what you mean by a “durational cycle,” no.

Unless I am two personalities!
God bless,
jd

You are!

A week or so ago, JD became host for a walk-in. The dogmatic, angry, irrational soul writing from JD’s body was ejected, no doubt because he was becoming incalcitrantly obnoxious, and replaced with a gentler entity who’d definitely studied more physics than dogma, far more honest and interesting.

There are other explanations for the transformation, of course. JD went on vacation, and his house sitter, an intelligent physics student, cracked his CAF passwords. Or, JD’s benign twin. Or, the transformation is the result of a sneaky collusion between JD and another CAF poster.

Whatever the cause, it’s all fun. I’m not writing on CAF to get a date or (obviously) a friend. I’m here to exchange ideas, whether with individuals or committees. In the long term it will all work out.

Passed any Turing Tests yourself, lately?

 

[Cecilianus]

Hawking radiation theory is based upon quantum mechanics, which I do not find to be a correct explanation of the physics behind quantum phenomena, however good a model it may be, there’s no physics in it. Have “virtual” particles of the sort required to implement Hawking radiation been experimentally discovered, or are they just lurking in the model’s math?

Hawking’s theory won’t be challenged because by now QM is dogma, and challenging Hawking would be a repudiation of the dogma.

I propose that any “virtual” particles appearing at the event horizon will be sucked right back into the black hole. Nothing will radiate, at least not by that mechanism. So consider the physics challenged.

The scenario proposed was that they appear right at the event horizon. By conservation of linear momentum, one will be going away from the black hole, and the other into it. The Schwarzschild radius is defined as the distance from which a particle has just enough energy to escape, so by definition one of the particles will escape.

I have no interest in defending the basic facts of physics like quantum mechanics and conservation of linear momentum. If you deny these principles than you are about as much worth my time as defending the historical existence of Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ or the actual fact of the Moon landing, or the truth of the heliocentric model (which there are actual books out there challenging). Argumentation serves the purpose of truth, and if a position is so radical that it fits into the same level of credibility as Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories then I’m not going to learn anything by arguing against it, and no amount of proof will convince anyone of it.

Since I never claimed it to be an original idea, I can only conclude that you are continuing your smarmy argumentative tactics, which depend upon making up what I’ve said. That’s the kind of trash commentary that really stupid liberals employ when smearing a legitimate opponent who they fear, like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman. It stinks. IMO the people who employ such disgusting tactics are the worst of human beings, soulless, brain-ruled nits who will make up lies to discredit another, to affirm the “truth” of their brain’s programming.

I would appreciate it if you would engage me on a rational basis rather than engaging in namecalling.

If I believed that God was a “demiurge” I’d not accept his existence either. Looks like more stuff you’ve gone ahead and made up.

Of all the dogmatists I’ve dealt with on CAF and life in general, you are only one whose approach I find to be despicable.

You said that God shaped the universe out of pre-existing, eternal matter. That’s called the demiurge.

Gee whiz! Last time I took a physics course, “space” was the measurement of distance. Are they teaching a whole new belief system at DeVry Internet University these days?

It’s called special relativity. Time is a measurement of distance between two coordinates, just as space is. Or do you reject the dogma of relativity as well as that of quantum mechanics?

Like it or not, truth is learned through dogmas. Physics has its dogmas as well as history and theology. If you deny the dogmas of physics, that is the basic principles which have been confirmed and established too many times to question - conservation laws, quantum mechanics, relativity, etc. - without showing how your theory reduces to the previous one in a limiting case, then you will not go to Hell for it, but you are simply wasting your time. They’re “dogmas” because they’re true, settled facts.

Same goes with other sciences, such as history. You can argue until you are blue in the face that the Moon landing is a hoax, and you are doing admirably if your purpose is to free yourself from dogmatic shackles. But all you achieve is to make yourself a loony.

I’m going to follow some sage advice I was given earlier and not bother to respond to your denial of basic physics. I was arguing with some Holocaust deniers on facebook and my Jewish girlfriend asked why I was wasting my breath giving them the time of day. If you deny settled, well-known facts in the name of being anti-dogmatic, it’s a waste of time arguing against it.

I stand behind everything I have said. It’s correct physics, correct theology, and correct logical argumentation. If not, correct my physics, or correct my theology, or name the fallacy. If I misunderstood what you are saying, then please correct my misunderstanding rather than engaging in namecalling. I still don’t see how my understanding of your “theory” is a misreading.

 

[greylorn]

The scenario proposed was that they appear right at the event horizon. By conservation of linear momentum, one will be going away from the black hole, and the other into it. The Schwarzschild radius is defined as the distance from which a particle has just enough energy to escape, so by definition one of the particles will escape.

I have no interest in defending the basic facts of physics like quantum mechanics and conservation of linear momentum. If you deny these principles than you are about as much worth my time as defending the historical existence of Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ or the actual fact of the Moon landing, or the truth of the heliocentric model (which there are actual books out there challenging). Argumentation serves the purpose of truth, and if a position is so radical that it fits into the same level of credibility as Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories then I’m not going to learn anything by arguing against it, and no amount of proof will convince anyone of it.

You continue to accuse me of saying things that I did not say.

I would appreciate it if you would engage me on a rational basis rather than engaging in namecalling.

Consider it attribute assignment, not “name calling.”

And I would appreciate it if you would stop inventing things and attributing them to me. Hey, we can’t all have what we want.

You said that God shaped the universe out of pre-existing, eternal matter. That’s called the demiurge.

I looked up “demiurge.” The taste of undercooked crow really sucks.

“Demiurge” is not a term I’d heard of before, since as I pointed out, I am not a student of philosophy. It is actually a word which comes pretty close to fitting my ideas.

Of course I said that the universe was shaped from energy. True to your disingenuous style, you substituted “matter” for that. Was that deliberate, or simply another indication of your inability understand a word of what you read?

Nonetheless, I’ll not use “disingenuous,” because it has the wrong “tone” in English. When I read it in your post I misinterpreted it as meaning, “God’s urge, or compulsion,” which would not fit my ideas. Most likely, others would make a similar mistake. The “urge” component is the wrong sense.

So while you are absolutely correct, I won’t use demiurge to describe components of my ideas, for esthetic reasons. (I find it interesting that neither “demiurge” nor “esthetic” are included in the CAF spell checker.)

Thank you for the correction.

It’s called special relativity. Time is a measurement of distance between two coordinates, just as space is. Or do you reject the dogma of relativity as well as that of quantum mechanics?

Time cannot be used to measure space. How might that be done? How do you transform the t parameter into d, for distance? Each are isolated parameters.

Perhaps you should actually study Relativity Theory. Faced with the observer-dependent variability of spacetime, Einstein decided that space was fixed, and time was the variant. How do you propose to measure space with variable time?

Like it or not, truth is learned through dogmas. Physics has its dogmas as well as history and theology. If you deny the dogmas of physics, that is the basic principles which have been confirmed and established too many times to question - conservation laws, quantum mechanics, relativity, etc. - without showing how your theory reduces to the previous one in a limiting case, then you will not go to Hell for it, but you are simply wasting your time. They’re “dogmas” because they’re true, settled facts.

Same goes with other sciences, such as history. You can argue until you are blue in the face that the Moon landing is a hoax, and you are doing admirably if your purpose is to free yourself from dogmatic shackles. But all you achieve is to make yourself a loony.

I’m going to follow some sage advice I was given earlier and not bother to respond to your denial of basic physics. I was arguing with some Holocaust deniers on facebook and my Jewish girlfriend asked why I was wasting my breath giving them the time of day. If you deny settled, well-known facts in the name of being anti-dogmatic, it’s a waste of time arguing against it.

You confuse theories with facts. Since you could not discriminate between the universe as God’s genuine Bible and the scriptures written by men, it would be too much of a stretch to explain to you exactly the difference between the laws of thermodynamics and the theories of QM.

I had a Jewish girlfriend once. You deserve several.

I stand behind everything I have said. It’s correct physics, correct theology, and correct logical argumentation. If not, correct my physics, or correct my theology, or name the fallacy. If I misunderstood what you are saying, then please correct my misunderstanding rather than engaging in namecalling. I still don’t see how my understanding of your “theory” is a misreading.

It’s tough to argue with someone who is so correct. It is impossible to discuss anything involving fact or logic with someone who, when confronted with his illogic, reverts to dogma of any sort.

In recent history, trying to correct errors on your part was an exercise akin to writing information into a Write-Only Memory and expecting to retrieve any of it. My WOM burner is burnt out.

Your misunderstanding is not a problem. Any nit can misunderstand, as I did with the definition of demiurge. Your propensity to invent statements and ascribe them to me is an annoying habit, like picking your nose at dinner, wiping your boogers on the host’s tablecloth, then whining loudly about his filthy laundry. You must be a liberal Democrat.

 

[greylorn]

StMartintours:

Sorry: your thread has been sort of hijacked. In case you weren’t aware, you do have the “right” to re-take your thread. You may boot any of us at any time, or demand that we stay on topic. What’s your pleasure?

God bless,
jd

Yes, not addressed to me.

I’ve had many threads hijacked and although I tried, the harder I tried, the more hijackers ganged up. I even complained to a moderator once. My only recourse was to abandon the threads.

Naturally I would like to learn exactly how to prevent, or at least attenuate thread hijacking. Particularly, how to scratch a particular poster. Help?

 

[JDaniel]

I love speculative black hole physics, so long as it is honestly presented as speculation. I’ve no idea what black holes are. Your proposal is fun, lacking only an explanation of the “place” where the energy clinkers go.

Greylorn:

Well, of course, that would be “speculation,” too.

I have my own theories about BHs, of course, but they all involve the interaction of “God.” Let’s keep guessing!

I concur.

I sure hope so!

That would be problematic, in my opinion.

I don’t know, but since this idea is similar to mine, I’m inclined to agree with it. The notion of a boundary to energy-space makes my brain fume, angry that I failed to master very advanced mathematical forms, such as topology.

I have read at least two accounts of the updated Hubble viewing the “edge of the universe.”

If there is a distinction between time and duration in the measurement of event sequences, I don’t understand it well enough to answer your question.

This is a recent definition of time: “the aggregating succession of non-contemporaneous distension intrinsic to changeable reality.” Do you agree with it?

The Planck length is a distance measurement, not a “duration.” You’ve been in collusion with Cecil, perhaps?

That is correct. But, Planck time, (tP) is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length." So, Planck length is a necessary relation.

Planck time is an interesting concept. I like it. The best that I can do is speculate about it which I do in the book (amid last chapter). I treat it as the smallest possible clock tick, a measurement of the transformation process by which an electron transforms some of its energy into a photon. And I’m open to better ideas.

My understanding of one Planck unit of ‘time’ is that it is only mathematical, a hypothetical abstraction - since we are unable to measure it.

Since none of them have said those things (or anything else) to me, I’m too busy to be interested enough to generate what would, in this context, be an irrelevant set of comments.

Would you expect them to say something to you?

There are those mysterious “other physicists” again. When they have read my book and wish to argue, I’ll do my best.

Which should be interesting!

Since I’ve no clue as to what you mean by a “durational cycle,” no.

Think of it as a “beginning point to an ending point.” It is that which elapses as an object moves from one to the other.

A week or so ago, JD became host for a walk-in. The dogmatic, angry, irrational soul writing from JD’s body was ejected, no doubt because he was becoming incalcitrantly obnoxious, and replaced with a gentler entity who’d definitely studied more physics than dogma, far more honest and interesting.

I rarely get “angry,” Greylorn. I will certainly meet someone who confronts me on their tone level. If they seem angry, then I’ll be angry. Perhaps we will both become un-angry.

I like your new word.

There are other explanations for the transformation, of course. JD went on vacation, and his house sitter, an intelligent physics student, cracked his CAF passwords. Or, JD’s benign twin. Or, the transformation is the result of a sneaky collusion between JD and another CAF poster.

Or, it could be that you said something to spark my interest, a few posts ago.

Whatever the cause, it’s all fun. I’m not writing on CAF to get a date or (obviously) a friend. I’m here to exchange ideas, whether with individuals or committees. In the long term it will all work out.

Now I’m hurt!

Passed any Turing Tests yourself, lately?

I give those tests.

God bless,
jd

 

[Cecilianus]

“Demiurge” is not a term I’d heard of before, since as I pointed out, I am not a student of philosophy. It is actually a word which comes pretty close to fitting my ideas.

Of course I said that the universe was shaped from energy. True to your disingenuous style, you substituted “matter” for that. Was that deliberate, or simply another indication of your inability understand a word of what you read?

The modern physical meaning of “energy” is very similar if not identical to the Aristotelian understanding of prime matter. Yes, it was deliberate, and I stick to it.

Perhaps you should actually study Relativity Theory. Faced with the observer-dependent variability of spacetime, Einstein decided that space was fixed, and time was the variant. How do you propose to measure space with variable time?

Spacetime is invariant, and either space or time can be fudged with in a Lorentz transformation provided the four-dimensional quantity remains invariant. Time dilation and length contraction are quite well-known phenomena which most people including non-physicists have heard of.

I had a Jewish girlfriend once. You deserve several.

I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you. But one true love is enough for one lifetime.

It’s tough to argue with someone who is so correct. It is impossible to discuss anything involving fact or logic with someone who, when confronted with his illogic, reverts to dogma of any sort.

I resorted to logic. Which dogma did I resort to, besides the basic theories of physics?

Your misunderstanding is not a problem. Any nit can misunderstand, as I did with the definition of demiurge. Your propensity to invent statements and ascribe them to me is an annoying habit, like picking your nose at dinner, wiping your boogers on the host’s tablecloth, then whining loudly about his filthy laundry. You must be a liberal Democrat.

Actually I’m a registered Republican and a single-issue pro-life voter. And I really don’t understand what I did to annoy you this much. And if you’re not interested in rational discussion rather than name-calling, I will stop beating my head against this brick wall.

 

[Cecilianus]

I have read at least two accounts of the updated Hubble viewing the “edge of the universe.”

I haven’t read those accounts and I typically don’t read popular-level science news because their lack of technicality can make them misleading. I suspect what they might have been referring to is the edge of the observable universe, that is close to as far back in space as we are physically capable of seeing (13.74 billion light-years). Inflationary theories of expansion, of which there is a general consensus that they are flawed in their current form and that they are better than the previous versions of the Big Bang and have to be kept until they are fixed, indicate that the actual universe is much bigger due to “inflationary” expansion many times faster than the speed of light (permissible where no information is exchanged between the objects moving apart - though the idea makes me uncomfortable).

The farther away we view an object, the farther back in time the object we are viewing is, and so we are observing events closer to the creation of the universe, which is sort of a temporal edge. We can’t see beyond the creation of early galaxies, though, setting aside the CMB of course.

 

[greylorn]

Greylorn:
Well, of course, that would be “speculation,” too.

I’m keen on speculation, especially when it can be collaborative. Much more effective to get the right mix of people, at the right time, and kick around ideas until the wine runs out. But I’ve not known anyone who could do that in over 30 years, so all my thinking is done in a social vacuum.

Generally, idea speculation is entirely casual and rarely produces anything, unless it is directed to an end. Lots of movies seem to arise from that process. But there’s plenty of it in science, especially since the pop science magazines and documentary channels have created a market for it.

Most of it is poorly done, kind of halfway-there speculation which doesn’t complete. Like a black hole dumping off energy or entropy or some detritus from this universe into another, or from our space into other dimensions. To be complete, these wastebaskets need to be defined more interestingly than some TV nit waving his hands and bobbing his head and scribbling meaningless equations on a blackboard, then claiming his speculations to be meaningful. Trash!

It’s not as easy job. My favorite speculation went uncompleted for about 45 years. If anyone ever finds it worthwhile, I’ll be too dead to know.

That would be problematic, in my opinion.

This is because you are attached to the belief that the Creator necessarily created everything. I once held the same belief, so know that getting beyond it is difficult. Should you read the book, you must agree to suspend judgment on this issue, else you will be stuck in permanent disagreement with my ideas and unable to move on to the interesting physics implications, where you would have much to contribute.

I have read at least two accounts of the updated Hubble viewing the “edge of the universe.”

I’ve not, so will suspend judgment until I do. Do C’s comments on this apply? Seems like they are objective, and consistent with what I’ve read.

This is a recent definition of time: “the aggregating succession of non-contemporaneous distension intrinsic to changeable reality.” Do you agree with it?

I agree that it is good to abjure obfuscation.

If I wrote something like that, I’d expect my editor to show up at my door late one night with a snarl on her face and a 12-gauge in hand.

That is correct. But, Planck time, (tP) is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length." So, Planck length is a necessary relation.

I’m philosophically opposed to defining length in terms of time, because I don’t believe in the continuity of time. Quantized time makes more sense to me. I also accept the existence of the aether but see no reason to assume that it is of constant density. We already know that c is not a constant. It is only a “constant” when measured in a vacuum.

Several standardization problems arise, beginning with the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum, just approximate vacuums. All are full of radiation, neutrinos, outgassed molecules, etc. And if there is an aether, vacuums are full of it as well, which makes measurements a function of aether density.

Ultimately, space and time are so interwoven that defining either as an independently standardized unit of measurement seems impossible.

My understanding of one Planck unit of ‘time’ is that it is only mathematical, a hypothetical abstraction - since we are unable to measure it.

Yes. There seem to be different levels of abstraction, some brushing closer to measurable reality than others. I think that t[sub]p[/sub] is akin to 0-degrees Kelvin, definable but unreachable. That’s just a guess, since I’m not smart enough to understand Planck’s mathematics.

Would you expect them to say something to you?

Yes. I’m especially disappointed in Douglas Hofstadter, who used my material (inappropriately) and blew off the implications.

Which should be interesting!

Only if I’m still around to participate.

Think of it as a “beginning point to an ending point.” It is that which elapses as an object moves from one to the other.

Interesting notion, “that which elapses.” I really like it as a definition of time. It’s open ended, and seems to accommodate quantization. I don’t see it as a good sense of “duration” though.

I’m inclined to extend it beyond spatial measurements, to physical events. Your thoughts?

I rarely get “angry,” Greylorn. I will certainly meet someone who confronts me on their tone level. If they seem angry, then I’ll be angry. Perhaps we will both become un-angry.

I like your new word.

It would be good for me to become more peaceable.

If you are referring to my term for soul, thanks, but I didn’t invent it. I commissioned it from a friend who is a natural wordsmith.

Or, it could be that you said something to spark my interest, a few posts ago.

That was the turning point, preceded by a good question from you.

Now I’m hurt!

Over what? None intended, I promise.

I give those tests.
God bless,
jd

Not a job I’d wish on a friend. Does anyone ever pass?