Posted on 06/03/2011 5:36:31 PM PDT by PhilosopherStone1000
I don't know how to run a ping list, but I'd be interested in
a) running the list and b) goosing participants to contribute.
My background is in physics and philosophy of science. I find, now that I'm older, that many concepts that were difficult to understand when I was 19 (for reasons including the fact that I was much more interested at that age in girls rather than momentum) are much easier for me. I was thinking that for many FReepers, if they were able to revisit some of the concepts that gave them such trouble in High School or College, they might find things much easier to understand.
Anywho, here are two great links:
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Sal Khan is the math/science teacher you always wanted but never got. His explanations are clear, simple and yet profound (I don't know his politics and don't care. He may be a leftie dimwit, but none of that comes through his videos).
After you've refreshed your linear algebra skills, this is the clearest explanation of Quantum Mechanics that I've seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epzh76hNl8I
Susskind is a leftie dimwit, but ignore his politics because, except for one (extremely subtle) hint, it doesn't come out.
So I need someone to either
a) explain how ping lists work or b) point me to the appropriate "help" page on ping lists.
Looking forward to the debate between Protestants, Catholics and atheists/agnostics on this since I have, at some point in my life, been all three.
I think you are the first person here who got my screen name (after many, many iterations of it).
I should have used this link instead: it’s the APoD list ‘blog topic, and there’s a prefab list of the rest of the year, one click opens the actual NASA page, the other link starts up the new topic.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2719642/posts?page=50#50
Pasting in the entire list is, as suspected, awkward.
Thanks! I’ll check that out.
History of the phil of sci is interesting, but to the extent that history is always written by the victors, one has to be careful.
If you haven’t read Kuhn’s “The history of scientific revolutions”, you should. Everything else on the subject is derivative and not worth the time unless you are looking for a post-grad job.
lol. I read that book.
Glad to have you aboard. Look forward to your contributions. And thank you for your service!
“The Philospher Stone” was what alchemists were looking for to try to turn lead into gold. Which is what I do on message boards: try to turn lead into gold.
Not always easy... not always easy.
Susskind is a good teacher. So is/was Feynman. It takes a knack to help the interested cross the void between ignorant (of a particular train of thought) and understanding.
Quantum Mechanics operates on a time and size scale that is outside of human senses to directly experience. That is a substantial barrier to understanding.
In my fairly superficial travels in base sciences, I also recall enjoying "Dancing Wu Li Masters," and Jay Gould on Communication Theory.
Don't put me on your ping list - I'll chime in of my own volition.
Challenging around here I’m certain. :-)
Sign me up
Please make (or disprove) the argument that a God who is both eternal and omniscient could have created a universe with the initial parameters such as the ones we know to be true of our universe knowing that 15 billion years later, human beings would have arisen through evolution.
Please make (or disprove) the argument that human beings were the goal of God’s operations at the creation of this universe even if the goal and the original starting point of the operation are separated by 15 billion years.
Good luck!
These questions depend on the definition of God that is used. If God is defined as omnipotent, then there is no way to determine the will of God without equally omnipotent mind - yet it is presumable that anything that exists must be of the will of that omnipotent God, by definition (i.e. since no other power exists, and nothing that is, is not known by God).
But if God is *not* define as omnipotent, the questions become immediately linked to the defined limitations of said "God." As well, the identification of the name God with a limited power creates an oxymoron.
Then, of course, there is the need to define time from the point of view God's subjective of objective aspects, the former being from the experience of time passing, the latter being outside of the experience of time, by definition. So objectively speaking, how is it possible for God not to know what is going to happen in the future, when objectively, it's not the future to God?
But here's a better place to start a debate: if the universe is not literally made out of God, then what did God use to make the universe, since before it was made there was only God, by definition?
I never coerce anyone except my teen-aged daughter :-)
The thing that modern physicists have to deal with when attempting to communicate with non-physicists is the extent to which mathematics now dominates everything.
It used to be that one started with a phenomenon and asked how that came to be.
Today, one starts with an equation, and as long as that equation satisfies certain parameters, one asks “to what physical process does that equation (or “observable” given the Hermition operator) refer”?
ANY Hermition operator which satisfies certain parameters MUST describe a real state in physical space. Now, lets go find out what that state is.
That, to me, is the mind blowing part. But particularly fertile for generating questions in the phil of sci!
Well, if it survives the night, count me in. It would be interesting to have such discussions without the constant mud-throwing.
Thanks! At least someone responded!
My question wasn’t really about omnipotence (infinite power)but omniscience (infinite wisdom).
Here’s my argument (such as it is!):
Being ‘eternal’ (existing for an infinitely long period of time) means that any given sub-set of that existence is infinitesimally short in relation.
Here’s the mind blowing part: take a string that is “infinitely long”. Now take a part of that string away (no matter how large). The string which is left is “STILL” infinitely long. And the part of the string which you’ve taken (not matter how long it is) is till infinitessimally short in relation.
Ergo: 15 Billion years for God is not even the equivalent of “10 minutes” (or whatever) for us because WE are finite beings. Every time interval for us IS important because it’s a non-negligable portion of our existence. But every time interval for God is negligable because, in relation to HIS total existence, it is miniscule (infinitessimally small).
Hence, he could have created our universe KNOWING that human beings would evolve eventually in a time frame which for him might as well be (in “his” time) 5 minutes.
QED.
Agreed. Well, we’ll give it a shot!
People use the word "infinity," especially in mathematics, with a casualness that is almost frightening.
For all it's difficulty, I found [common] calculus to be fairly straightforward except for the very first step (supposedly the easiest), that of the definition of a limit in the form of: "as n approaches infinity." I think I'm still brain-stuck on that issue.
Anyway, you're right, once you start examining the definition of infinity and try to apply it to something, your results become immediately nonobvious and mind-blowing.
Heh. Good luck with that!
-- Today, one starts with an equation, and as long as that equation satisfies certain parameters, one asks "to what physical process does that equation (or "observable" given the Hermition operator) refer"? --
I don't know the term "Hermiton operator." My background is the semi-hard science of engineering, where every term in an equation (even probabilistic approach to design, quantum engineering, if you will) has obvious physical significance.
I'll go back to my "knack" comment. Not to knock physicists, but few physicists have a knack for teaching. I don't think Einstein had it - but his view of reality has/had profound effect. Others stepped in to explain the ramifications of 'c' being a speed limit.
That's what Bohr famously told Einstein, "Stop telling God what to do." This was his retort to Einstein's dictum, "God does not play dice with the universe."
The term is "Hermitian", like "Martian" . Named after Charles Hermite ( We always said "HER meet" and "her MEE shun" ) who characterized the algebraic properties of self-adjoint matrices, AKA Hermitian matrices, which represent Hermitian operators in Quantum Mechanics. The self-adjoint property allows for physical properties to be represented by eigenvalues of the representative matrix, or operator, acting on a set of wave functions.
So even though this is more abstract than the direct use of measured quantities as the elements of a physical model, as in classical physics, it is the way of QM, and the basis for its fabulous success and unshakeable hold, for over 100 years now, on physical theory.
Yeah, the whole definition of “neighborhood” in trying to define something like “infinitessimals” was tough.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that it was difficult not because it was hard to understand, it was difficult because you intuitively sensed that some mathematician was trying to pull something over on you.
OK, I understand that it would be VERY useful to be able to take the value of some function at a limit or zero or infinity. OK, proved. Got it. But the whole “there exists some delta such that for any epsilon f(epsilon) f(of) blah, blah, blah...
First Phil Stone postulate of phil of sci:
Science does one of two things:
a) It attempts to quantify differences that we already see “pre-scientifically” or
b) it defines things by “fiat” (fiat lux!).
And, in response to your original point:
Georg Cantor and Diagonal Proof!
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