Ask a physicist anything. (6)

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
Close! I'm saying that G-d Himself intentionally provoked our curiosity and desire to learn. An example is the way a parent will teach their child how to put together a jigsaw puzzle; you leave clues, but make them do the work otherwise they don't develop.

So if you look at the word I bolded in your snipped quote here, I'm not saying there was some coded knowledge G-d gave us so we'd know w/o doing any work. Consider it part of a great Biblical precept, that "the seed is in itself," so that it brings forth after it's own kind. (Which will certainly mutate

Well, what is the seed, then? There doesn't appear to be anything we know today that we couldn't know if the Bible didn't exist (except for things about the Bible itself, of course).

razeontherock said:
Amazing how this is ALWAYS on topic on CF The worst elements of "religion" revolve around this tired idea. The C claim of "only way to the Father" actually expresses something very different from this, but certainly C's have mistakenly allowed themselves to be dragged into the "my Dad can beat up your Dad" argument.

You'll notice Jesus never said anything to that effect.

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me," - Exodus 20:2-5. Since Jesus is God and God said this, it seems Jesus really did say that his dad is better than your dad.

Besides, the point was simply that your argument could easily be used by people of other faiths. It doesn't bolster Christianity.

razeontherock said:
Thanks for using the word "seems." This conclusion goes beyond my statement. Your earlier comment was closer to the mark; I pointed out a similarity.

Fair enough

GrowingSmaller · Jul 12, 2011

Favourite chess player of all time and why?

hasone · Jul 12, 2011

If we assume a PoV such that the earth is at rest, what does the motion of the sun and the planets (and the rest of the galaxy and the other galaxies) look like? What kind of equations are we talking about here?

GrowingSmaller · Jul 12, 2011

Why is a Lorenz attractor considered a fractal? Can you zoom in on them infinitely?

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

hasone said:
If we assume a PoV such that the earth is at rest, what does the motion of the sun and the planets (and the rest of the galaxy and the other galaxies) look like?

It looks like the Sun goes round the Earth, and the other planets go round the Sun, and their moons go round their planets. Basically, it'd look like the normal heliocentric model with the camera following the Earth.

hasone said:
What kind of equations are we talking about here?

You'd be in a non-inertial frame, as the Earth is accelerating. To assume it's at rest generates fictitious forces. To assume an inertial reference frame, you'd find the Earth accelerating from rest as it moves round the Sun.

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Favourite chess player of all time and why?

Deep Blue, because it's the first step towards robot domination.

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Why is a Lorenz attractor considered a fractal? Can you zoom in on them infinitely?

In a manner of speaking. The fractal nature of the Attractor manifests as the repeated figure-of-eight patterns. The further you zoom out, the more figure-of-eights you see. Which this self-repetition is commonly understood to be, "If you zoom in on an edge, you see smaller and smaller curves that look like the whole object", fractals are generally any pattern that repeats itself as you scale up or down.

razeontherock · Jul 12, 2011

Wiccan_Child said:
Well, what is the seed, then? There doesn't appear to be anything we know today that we couldn't know if the Bible didn't exist (except for things about the Bible itself, of course).

In this instance the seed is the word itself. The words speak curiosity and thirst for knowledge and understanding about the world in which we live, and how it came to be. You cannot create a controlled experiment in which our species develops apart from this, so you have no data to support your conclusion.

Wiccan_Child said:
Since Jesus is God and God said this, it seems Jesus really did say that his dad is better than your dad.

Well the title if this thread IS "ask a physicist anything," but that's in the spirit of non-physicists (such as myself) getting to learn, not in physicists applying their mind to comprehending Spiritual matters such as you raise here. This point is understandable and we might pursue that sometime if you wish - but another day, in another thread.

Wiccan_Child said:
Besides, the point was simply that your argument could easily be used by people of other faiths. It doesn't bolster Christianity.

A curious division you create here. You assume that something that bolsters other Faiths somehow can not have that affect on C, or across the board? This is "us vs them," tribalism, and not how the realm of the Spirit operates!

sandwiches · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
In this instance the seed is the word itself. The words speak curiosity and thirst for knowledge and understanding about the world in which we live, and how it came to be. You cannot create a controlled experiment in which our species develops apart from this, so you have no data to support your conclusion.

You're right. He can't show what life would like without the Bible. Sadly, neither can you. No way to falsify or test your idea, I'm afraid.

It's a cool idea, though.

razeontherock · Jul 12, 2011

sandwiches said:
No way to falsify or test your idea, I'm afraid.

Right! Not in the realm of science. Perhaps there's a more concise way of saying that same thing, but this is why Faith and science don't conflict.

sandwiches · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
Right! Not in the realm of science. Perhaps there's a more concise way of saying that same thing, but this is why Faith and science don't conflict.

No. No way to verify or test this in any way. Now, if I am mistaken and you know of a way that we can put your idea to the test, please do tell.

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
In this instance the seed is the word itself. The words speak curiosity and thirst for knowledge and understanding about the world in which we live, and how it came to be. You cannot create a controlled experiment in which our species develops apart from this, so you have no data to support your conclusion.

Then neither do you have any data to support your conclusion, and it could just as easily be made about any piece of text ever written . My point, is that we've never gone to the Bible, deduced some 'advanced knowledge', and found it's right. Attempts to do this in the form of making predictions, about the Rapture and suchlike, invariably fail. People say that the Bible contains knowledge about the hydrological cycle or (as I'm debating elsewhere at the moment) an accurate summary of how life on Earth evolved. I know you're not saying it has any such advanced knowledge, but still, there are those who do.

razeontherock said:
Well the title if this thread IS "ask a physicist anything," but that's in the spirit of non-physicists (such as myself) getting to learn, not in physicists applying their mind to comprehending Spiritual matters such as you raise here. This point is understandable and we might pursue that sometime if you wish - but another day, in another thread.

Fair enough.

razeontherock said:
A curious division you create here. You assume that something that bolsters other Faiths somehow can not have that affect on C, or across the board? This is "us vs them," tribalism, and not how the realm of the Spirit operates!

It's not a matter of 'us v them', it's logic. Let's say that there's some thing for which there are four possible explanations, A, B, C, and D, and you propose an argument that bolsters A. That's all fine and dandy, but if that argument also bolsters B, C, and D, then the argument becomes pointless. It's not that it's false, but it loses all power to raise the liklihood of any one possibility. Something which bolsters both evolution and Creation, or both pro- and anti-vaccine campaigns, or in general all the options of a given dilemma, is pointless in the debate, since neither side gain an advantage.

razeontherock · Jul 12, 2011

sandwiches said:
No. No way to verify or test this in any way. Now, if I am mistaken and you know of a way that we can put your idea to the test, please do tell.

Sorry, in the interest of being concise, I was too brief; and that caused confusion. More detail is needed? When I said "right," I was affirming what you had said. Following that up with "not in the realm of science," indicates falsification and testing is not possible. At least not in any way I can see. Which further affirms what you said.

sandwiches · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
Sorry, in the interest of being concise, I was too brief; and that caused confusion. More detail is needed? When I said "right," I was affirming what you had said. Following that up with "not in the realm of science," indicates falsification and testing is not possible. At least not in any way I can see. Which further affirms what you said.

Pardon me, if I misunderstood but it seems that you implied a different method or mechanism for verification involving faith.

razeontherock · Jul 12, 2011

Wiccan_Child said:
It's not a matter of 'us v them', it's logic. Let's say that there's some thing for which there are four possible explanations, A, B, C, and D, and you propose an argument that bolsters A. That's all fine and dandy, but if that argument also bolsters B, C, and D, then the argument becomes pointless. It's not that it's false, but it loses all power to raise the liklihood of any one possibility. Something which bolsters both evolution and Creation, or both pro- and anti-vaccine campaigns, or in general all the options of a given dilemma, is pointless in the debate, since neither side gain an advantage.

This is a marvelously simple illustration of a difference between what I will label the scientific mind, vs the Spiritual mind. For the purposes of debate or otherwise determining A, B, C, or D, the logic you present here is sound. Yet in context, the subject matter had (somehow) turned to mankind's quest for peace w/ G-d, in which debate, strife, or anything that advances a concept of superiority of one mortal over another is the antithesis of the goal.

Chalnoth · Jul 12, 2011

GrowingSmaller said:
Why is a Lorenz attractor considered a fractal? Can you zoom in on them infinitely?

Well, a fractal is defined as an object with non-integer number of dimensions. So I guess that there exists an attractor in the Lorenz potential that has the property of having a non-integer number of dimensions.

Unfortunately, I can't say I know more than that.

Chalnoth · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
This is a marvelously simple illustration of a difference between what I will label the scientific mind, vs the Spiritual mind. For the purposes of debate or otherwise determining A, B, C, or D, the logic you present here is sound. Yet in context, the subject matter had (somehow) turned to mankind's quest for peace w/ G-d, in which debate, strife, or anything that advances a concept of superiority of one mortal over another is the antithesis of the goal.

Um, adding word salad to an argument doesn't make that argument any more valid.

The fact remains that approaching the world through logic and evidence (i.e. science) is the only way to arrive at the truth about the nature of the world. Period.

It is the only way because it is the only self-correcting way. Without self-correction, any other method you might try is guaranteed to give you wrong answers.

razeontherock · Jul 12, 2011

Chalnoth said:
The fact remains that approaching the world through logic and evidence (i.e. science) is the only way to arrive at the truth about the nature of the world.

Add the word "physical" to your statement, and it becomes true. Science is the study of the physical world. There are branches of science that study less concrete things, and at a point it ceases to be science, no matter who might like to label it as still science.

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

Chalnoth said:
Well, a fractal is defined as an object with non-integer number of dimensions. So I guess that there exists an attractor in the Lorenz potential that has the property of having a non-integer number of dimensions.

Unfortunately, I can't say I know more than that.

I've never heard that definition before. What about the mandlebrot? Surely that's a two dimensional object, albeit one with a ridiculously complex edge?

Wiccan_Child · Jul 12, 2011

razeontherock said:
This is a marvelously simple illustration of a difference between what I will label the scientific mind, vs the Spiritual mind. For the purposes of debate or otherwise determining A, B, C, or D, the logic you present here is sound. Yet in context, the subject matter had (somehow) turned to mankind's quest for peace w/ G-d, in which debate, strife, or anything that advances a concept of superiority of one mortal over another is the antithesis of the goal.

That's certainly how the moral zeitgeist is progressing, but I fail to see the significance.

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