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Laws of Nature, Source Unknown
NYT ^ | 12/18/07 | Dennis Overbye

Posted on 12/18/2007 1:01:57 PM PST by LibWhacker

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1 posted on 12/18/2007 1:02:00 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

Gravity, a force without source, other than, “I exist.”............


2 posted on 12/18/2007 1:05:30 PM PST by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: LibWhacker

Gravity sucks.


3 posted on 12/18/2007 1:08:19 PM PST by Rick.Donaldson (http://www.transasianaxis.com - Visit for lastest on DPRK/Russia/China/Etc --Fred Thompson for Prez.)
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To: LibWhacker

Random chance of course. Random chance and time is all powerful.


4 posted on 12/18/2007 1:14:42 PM PST by keithtoo (How come America's enemies and the Dimocrats always find common cause?)
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To: LibWhacker

Hey! Gravity is just a theory. There should be competing theories allowed to be taught.


5 posted on 12/18/2007 1:20:09 PM PST by jim_trent
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To: Rick.Donaldson

Don’t blame me. I voted for Velcro.


6 posted on 12/18/2007 1:22:33 PM PST by steve-b (Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. --RAH)
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To: LibWhacker

Randomness is a purely Platonic concept and may not even exist in the natural world.

I lean toward the Universe as one big glop of information. What else could come from the mind of God?


7 posted on 12/18/2007 1:25:06 PM PST by JmyBryan
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To: LibWhacker
Dr. Tegmark maintains that we are part of a mathematical structure

A Matrix, perhaps?

8 posted on 12/18/2007 1:42:21 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative (Global Warming Heretic -- http://agw-heretic.blogspot.com)
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To: LibWhacker
Such a deep subject, and yet the phrase "higgledy-piggledy" appeared twice in the article.
9 posted on 12/18/2007 1:50:56 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative (Global Warming Heretic -- http://agw-heretic.blogspot.com)
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To: LibWhacker

Imagine a mathematical construct so sophisticated it’s actually sentient.


10 posted on 12/18/2007 2:10:15 PM PST by Excellence (Bacon Bits Make Great Confetti)
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To: LibWhacker

It doesn’t matter. Most will argue all day long but nobody can prove their own point by attempting to disprove the opposition. Everybody points at the other and says ‘you’re wrong!’. Which entertains the few who see the illusions.


11 posted on 12/18/2007 2:14:45 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: LibWhacker
Einstein also said reality is just a perception but a persistent one. One thing we do know is that 2000 years is no measuring stick against a multi billion year existence.
12 posted on 12/18/2007 2:24:14 PM PST by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: Phlap

Relativity was another term stolen by Einstein along with that persistence thing.


13 posted on 12/18/2007 2:25:40 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

Face piles and piles of trouble with smiles.
It riles them to believe you perceive the web that they weave.


14 posted on 12/18/2007 2:32:26 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

“A Matrix, perhaps?”

Actually, it’s just a big ball of string.


15 posted on 12/18/2007 2:33:57 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: LibWhacker

bump for later comments


16 posted on 12/18/2007 2:52:32 PM PST by djf (I'm too busy to be jolly. Tis the time to cook a collie!)
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To: LibWhacker

The comment attributed to Feynman, that philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds, reminded me of this passage from Plato’s Timaeus:

“But the race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight;”


17 posted on 12/18/2007 3:00:54 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: dr_lew

ping for later read...


18 posted on 12/18/2007 3:56:10 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: JmyBryan

umm... Randomness is at the heart of quantum mechanics which, describes the material world to very high accuracy.

Suggested reading that is not mathematically painful: “The Quantum World,” by K. W. Ford.

The great problem of physics today, is the quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity (gravity) are fundamentaly incompatible yet both are experimentally very accurate.

Your comment on the universe as one big blob of information is spot-on compatible with some descriptions of quantum mechanics which are, still fundamentally about random processes at their core.

C.W.


19 posted on 12/18/2007 4:04:06 PM PST by colderwater
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To: LibWhacker
"Law" is just a description of the reality. The law doesn't make it happen, it just describes what DOES happen.

Time to revisit the concept of causality, gents.

20 posted on 12/18/2007 4:05:07 PM PST by IronJack (=)
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