From: John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Date: Sun Apr 12 1998 - 22:50:58 MDT
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On Sat, 11 Apr 1998 Reilly Jones <Reilly@compuserve.com> Wrote:
>No rationality is used in setting goals, only morality.
Because doing otherwise would not be rational.
>This time difference is a function of the measuring mechanism itself.
Time is what a clock measures.
>Is the Planck moment constant or is it not?
Yes, but I don't see the relevance to our conversation. The Plank time is a
function of the gravitational constant (G), the Plank constant divided by
2 PI (h), and the speed of light constant (c). As the names imply these
values don't change so all observes will see the same Plank time, namely
[Gh/c^5]^1/2 = 5.38 * 10-44 second.
The Plank Length is 10^-33 cm, it's the distance light can travel in the
plank time. As the wavelength of light gets smaller the energy gets larger
and so does the mass, remember E =MC^2 so M= E/c^2. At the Plank Length the
wavelength is so small and the mass is so great a mini Black Hole is formed.
To put it another way, when time gets shorter than this, or distance smaller,
a singularity is formed and our theories can tell us nothing about what is
going on, perhaps because there really is noting going on because time and
space are digital at these dimensions, or perhaps not. Nobody knows yet if
these values have any physical significance, my hunch is that they do but
maybe they're just an artifact of our imperfect ideas.
>I agree that the speed of light being the same for any observer is
>absolute, an absolute metaphysical assumption.
Yes, assumptions were made, before Einstein everybody assumed that the speed
of light would change for different observers, Einstein reasoned that this
was not true, and experiment has proven him correct.
>I have simply noted that QM and Relativity are not reconciled,
Nobody said otherwise.
>and they are not reconciled for a reason that science has not
>discovered yet.
If a problem has not been solved then obviously new ideas are required.
I don't have those new ideas, nobody does yet, not even Reilly Jones.
>They have not discovered it yet because something is wrong with some
>of the metaphysical assumptions underlying the current Kuhnian
>paradigm
You know something, I'm really tired of hearing about Kuhn. It's not that I
don't like Philosophy I do, but it's only entertainment. I'm sure Kuhn was a
nice man but such people do not produce new knowledge. Scientists are
explorers, Philosophers are tourists. When I hear a self righteous
philosopher of science make pronouncements with absolute certainty on
subjects he knows little about and in direct conflict with all experimental
evidence, I'm reminded of a eunuch at an orgy, he can tell others they're
doing it all wrong but can't do it himself.
>and it is very hard to buck dogmatism when you are trying to suck in
>grant money.
You want dogmatism I'll give you dogmatism. Aristotle used pure logic and a
long string of syllogisms, which fortunately I've forgotten, and concluded
that women MUST have fewer teeth than men. They don't. Aristotle had a wife,
he could have counted her teeth at any time but never bothered because he
already knew the truth, or thought he did. You know that Relativity MUST be
untrue, but you never bother to count the teeth.
>I also can't believe that individuals who proclaim themselves to be
>scientists, promote the Big Bang as science.
Any theory that makes predictions and can in principle be proven wrong is
Science. The steady state theory made predictions too and perhaps you like it
better than the Big Bang Theory, but nature did not, its predictions were
wrong.
>There is a lot of kookiness in science I don't go for. [...]
>Singularities inside black holes
A singularity is a point where an equation no longer works because values
become infinite. There is absolutely no doubt that our equations do this at
the center of a Black Hole, whether this fact has any physical significance
remains to be seen.
>Black holes are just like glaciers, if you want to free up the
>matter in them, just raise the background temperature around them.
No, that would only make them larger because the increased Blackbody
Radiation would fall into the Black Hole increasing its mass.
>The idea of a space-time continuum
Without space-time relativity wouldn't work. For example, the concept of
simultaneity is not absolute, observers will disagree about the time between
two events or even which came first, and they will disagree about the
distance in space between two events, but they will always agree about the
distance in space-time between two events.
>I'd go for a space-time conjunction
A what?
>The Planck moment is not a variable, not involved in any continuum,
>at least not locally anyway.
Huh? If the Plank Time is real then time is not infinitely divisible and so
not a continuum.
>I don't just pick on junk physics either
I've noticed. If you're not the greatest you're certainly the world's most
certain expert, and on every subject under the sun. Unfortunately absolute
certainty is a dime a dozen, being correct is not.
>If there was one ounce of ontological randomness in the universe,
>the universe would be entirely unintelligible.
Why? Event A is intelligible if we know it's cause B, and that means that if
we find event B in a time sequence we're certain to find event A later in the
same sequence. Some events have this property but I can find no logical
reason why all events must have it, and in fact the experimental evidence
shows that some do not.
>biology makes no sense when it takes randomness (as in mutations) to
>be some ontological aspect, rather than an epistemological aspect.
Mutation is only half of the machinery of Evolution, the other half is
natural selection and that is far from random.
Let's see, you say Einstein was a fool and in earlier posts you told us that
Bohr's and Heisenberg's scientific theories about Quantum Mechanics must be
wrong because you don't like their politics, now you tell us that Charles
Darwin makes no sense. Is there any scientist (not philosophers, I already
know you love them) in the last 150 years that you approve of?
>Lastly, I can't think of any greater credibility problem that to
>take information as an ontological primitive.
Probably our deepest disagreement of all.
>Information has no existence without a knower and a known.
Without information there is nothing for the knower to know, so he can't be
much of a knower.
>It is a common fallacy to say that DNA transmits information,
>without referencing the knower who can translate the information.
It's no fallacy and DNA does have a knower, it's had one for over 3 billion
years, the ribosomes in a cell know the language of DNA and know exactly what
the DNA means.
>DNA replication, the thing-in-itself, is not transmitting information
DNA can not only replicate itself but with the help of a "knower", a ribosome,
it can duplicate proteins and even entire living organisms.
>it is simply molecules bumping around and lining up in preferred
>developmental branches.
Your posts do not transmit information, they are simply electrons in a
transmission line bumping around and lining up in certain preferred branches
of the Internet until they reach me.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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