Posted on 07/24/2003 1:55:39 PM PDT by Mr.Atos
I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...
Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!
Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.
Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.
Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.
Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!
Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?
Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!
Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!
Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?
Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?
I understand that is the logical conclusion of the ongoing Aristotle v Plato debate with Hawking and Penrose. I'm paraphrasing here, but I can find the source if anyone is interested: Basically, Hawking (Aristotle worldview) is content when the test results match the prediction, 'nuff said. Penrose (Plato worldview) on the other hand, says "not so fast" - it has to also make sense.
For anyone interested: click here for the latest draft of the agreement.
You were playing games with ALS. His statement that it does not say whether he is a professor or not on his web page is correct. You guys were clearly starting a rukus on purpose just to finally at the end bash him and "prove him wrong'".
Well, I must say this, and especially in view of his (and yours) getting another thread pulled into the smokey backroom - just what we were trying to avoid happening any more - by taunting and personal attacks instead of discussing the matter at hand - those who incite discord are disruptors. Right Wing Professor's actions in purposefully getting not one, but two threads pulled show quite well that whether he is a Professor or not, he certainly is not right wing since he is using the tactics of the left to do anything to silence opponents.
I am sick and tired of this thread pulling and I think it is time that those who incite and get these threads pulled be the ones who are punished instead of those who had nothing to do with it and have their posts deleted due to the actions of others. Further, since it is abundantly clear that the evolutionists are starting discord whenever the threads are not going their way, it is time that the management stop abiding by their wishes and destroying threads and instead punish the guilty.
So in other words you are trying to destroy another thread and really do not care. Seems that unless things are going your way, that is your mode of operation. Thanks for the honesty anyway.
It saddens me even more when the threads are pulled altogether. A lot of people invest time and research in their posts and offer great links and leads only to have it all lost. Sigh...
I hope that more people will choose civility than war.
Indeed, partially wrong is indicative of laziness and apathy. At least when you're way out on the limb you get a better view.
This is about as backwards as you can possibly get.
[Sabertooth:] Psychic? Things have changed.
Was it while you were gone there was this science thread about how keeping your prostate flushed out prevents cancer?
Thanks RWP, nice post. I guess I differ with respect to whether the measurement paradoxes are "extraneous" to QM. I imagine that they apparently exist because we try to reconcile the quantum world with what we know about the classical world. And I take your point about physical laws being "naturalistic constructs," or abstractions from reality.
What would be really interesting, from my point of view, would be to try to imagine the quantum world on the logic of its own terms. For instance, what does "action at a distance" really imply about the fundamental nature of the quantum vacuum? Do classical categories of space and time, "renormalized" for Einsteinian relativity, hold at the quantum level? There does not appear to be any kind of identifiable "break" between the quantum and classical worlds -- the latter appears to be seamlessly built up out of the former. Therefore it seems to me both must obey the same fundamental laws, which perhaps are yet unknown to us; and yet the two "worlds" look so very different. Is this an epistemological problem, a problem of constraints occasioned by human mental conditioning (back to your "constructs" observation again....)? If so, is there a way to get around those constraints -- perhaps by reimagining the structure of reality in a different way, hypothetically?
And so on. Maybe I'm obsessing on these problems 'way too much, Professor. Do you know, I even dream about these things? QM really is the most amazing problem I have ever encountered.
Thanks for writing, Prof.
Yes it is.
If you are obsessing over the quantum/classic bridge - then so is Penrose and so am I. I suggest that we expect it to make sense in addition to being predictable.
You raise a significant issue on the fabric of space/time at the quantum level. There are several theories I've read and most all papers I've read agree that quantum gravity is the key to the next breakthrough.
I see it a bit differently, though, and expect the best solution to quantum space/time, gravity, quantum/classic bridge and dark energy ... rests in dimensionality. I'm looking for an Einsteinian level breakthrough.
Analogy time! "Fully?" No. "Visual image?" No, not of God. Still I could somewhat convey in language my understanding of God. I believe this can be done, for God's appeal is addressed to man via mind and heart. And all of the natural world with all its contents (myself included) points to God. To explore it is to enter into a kind of "conversation" with God -- a conversation that, in a certain way, "supplements" His own relevation of Himself to us in the Holy Scriptures. (Which I do not read "literally." To me, that's too much like a lawyer deconstructing the language of a "contract" to do justice to the idea of God calling us into an inspired conversation with Him, according to His grace and light. It seems clear to me that the Holy Scriptures "function" on a great multiplicity of levels of meaning, simultaneously....)
The two sources of revelation, understood in truth by means of the aid of the Holy Spirit, do not ever contradict each other! I have never seen a single instance of such. And when you think about that, that really is the most gloriously amazing thing....
FWIW.
A-G, that's where I expect the "solution" to rest, too -- in dimensionality. To put the matter very crudely, the image that keeps popping up in my mind (I can't seem to beat it back with a stick!) is that the universe is a vast "intersection" of the realms of time and timelessness; and the time component is iself multi-dimensional.
Of course, I could be completely "looney-toons" about this....
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