Posted on 04/05/2009 8:10:35 PM PDT by betty boop
Substitute God for Unicorns and we are in complete agreement : )
As that statement stands, it is merely a totally unsupported (pre)supposition. What "we" ever "invented" God? Let's see your data!
Ahh you caught me out. I didn't invent God, some schmuck did thousands of years ago. He learned that if he appealed to a higher authority he could get more power and control. And the rest as 'we' say is history : )
You cavalierly say "at a point in time", well, which point in time? When the light reflected off of Pluto or when the reflected light hit your eyeball?
Let us say that you see the reflected light from Pluto on the horizon (0 degrees) and at that precise moment (from your perspective) there is a nuclear explosion that obliterates Pluto. When and how many degrees from the horizon do you need to be looking in order to see the explosion?
It certainly is true that I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days about 7k years ago.
I have two questions? Where did all the water go when God created the earth and do you dispute Einsteins Theory of Relativity?
No, I wouldn't say it's necessarily "safe" to say any of those things. The fact is, we really don't know; but these theories seem to be the most promising ways we have right now to engage issues of perennial puzzlement to human kind — unless or until something "better" comes along.
The point being that Truth is by its nature a quest, never a final possession. And that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
You’re such a litte man. You make smary half-whitted comments, then when someone makes a snippy reply you whine like a little school girl. You have digressed quite a bit from the years ago when we ran into each other here at FR, Hank.
How on earth did you ever get from "they-yah to he-ah?" (I.e., "from there to here" in New England parlance.)
It is my understanding (such as it is) that the uncertainty principle itself confirms that there is an inherent disconnect of some important magnitude between the "certainty" of observation (i.e., a discrete measurement) and the "certainty" that the observation really maps to "objective" reality in its fullest sense.
It ought to be obvious that, just because we have quantifiable "experience" of a phenomenon once under some arbitrarily selected criterion, this does not (cannot) make it a universal law of Nature. Yet once we make the discrete experience a "rule," all subsequent experience of a like kind runs the risk of being filtered through that very rule forever more, without due regard for its applicablility to the case at hand. (E.g., a rule that helps us locate the space/time coordinates of a particle will not help us understand its wave behavior.)
At the end of the day, such a maneuver tells you more about man than it does about the reality external to man.
Fortunately, the heart of the uncertainty principle is reconciled by the principle of complementarity. The most basic example of complementarity is particle/wave duality. As Heisenberg showed, one cannot know both the position (space/time coordinates) and the velocity (wave function) of a particle simultaneously. The observer must choose which aspect of what is ultimately a single integrated phenomenon he wants to investigate. This casts the problem into the frame of choosing which of two seemingly mutually-exclusive properties of the given object is most relevant to the type of knowledge one seeks in a given observer-defined experimental situation. But the complementarity principle tells us that, at the end of the day, the two aspects are not only not mutually exclusive, but both are necessary to the complete description of the system of which they are "modes."
In short, the insights of quantum theory tend to show that Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle — although it may operate perfectly well as far as we can tell in the Newtonian Paradigm — seemingly falls to pieces at the quantum level.
This is a huge challenge to our "ordinary" ways of thinking about the world, which for many centuries by now has been heavily invested in "true/false," "yes/no," "0/1" (binary) "styles" of thinking....
I'm sorry if I seem grumpy and cantankerous. Fact is, I don't regard you as an "old man" at all; and I recognize you really do make the effort to "do your own thinking." That right there sets you apart from almost everybody else nowadays.... And that of itself makes you worthy of commendation in my book — whether or not I agree with you on particular points.
And oftentimes, I don't. :^)
That doesn't mean I think you're a jerk.
“You’re such a litte man.”
Well, actually I am, at least physcially. But I’m not small enough in character to be bothered by the mental pigmies that cannot bear rational argument.
I haven’t change at all in the last 30 years (which is way less than half my life) and in one respect, have not changed at all in over 60 years, because the one thing I learned as a boy is that other’s opinions of me have zero value.
Think what you like and write what you like, you’ll find no complaint from me. Just wish people did not suffer so from the fact I do not agree with them. What’s wrong with them, do they have so little character that my opinion threatens them? Poor babies.
Hank
Yes.
Why do you even bother asking? Are you deliberately acting dense?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time the observer is facing away from the sun, (blessed with dark skies and good visibility) he observes photons from Pluto that were emitted from it 6.8 hours (102 degrees) earlier -- while the observer's telescope position was still in full sunlight. Pluto is 6.8 light-hours distant; the observer's location on this rotating ball of mud simply dictates whether he is in position to observe its emitted light -- or not...
That was the entire point of my discussion of the photo in # 639 -- except that, in that case, the distances are in huge multiples of light-years, instead of a few light-hours.
“{If our own existence and nature invalidate the certainty of any observation, all the observations on which the uncertainty principle are based have to be thrown out—thus, no uncertainty principle.
How on earth did you ever get from “they-yah to he-ah?” (I.e., “from there to here” in New England parlance.) “
If you try really hard, I think you can understand this. (By the way, I was born in Ipswich, Mass, and have lived in NE most of my life, so the explanation of the coloquialism was unnecessary for me.)
It’s called reason.
Premise: It is not possible to derive certain knowledge about anything by observation and reasoning from that observation.
Hypothesis: It is impossible to know anything with certainty because the physical (observable) world is governed by laws that make it impossible to know anything with certainty.
Argument: Since “it is not possible to derive certain knowledge about anything by reason, it is not possible to know anything with certainty. The claim that the uncertainty principle is known, must be false, since no certain knowledge is possible.
Here is the primary problem with using the so-called uncertainty principle as the basis of logical argument—it makes every argument self-contradictory and therefore invalid.
In the end, the “’ordinary’ ways of thinking about the world, which for many centuries by now has been heavily invested in “true/false,” “yes/no,” “0/1” (binary) “styles” of thinking,” is absolutely correct. A thing is either true or it isn’t, a thing is either alive or it is dead, you are either correct or mistaken, reality is what it is, no matter what post-modernist irrationality you want to thrust against it. Either you can jump off 30 story buildings on to the pavement below and live or you cannot. Care to make the test?
Hank
But you're small enough in character to label anyone who doesn't agree with you as *mental pigmies [sic] that cannot bear rational argument* or *ignorance worshipers*.
What’s wrong with them, do they have so little character that my opinion threatens them?
You're overrating yourself if you think that your opinion threatens anyone.
It's clear that you have no small opinion of yourself but you're just one person on the planet out of several billion and while you're entitled to your opinion, you have no basis on which to judge it as better than another's.
In the relativistic framework that non-believers of necessity operate, one opinion is just as good as another.
But you don't dispute them : )
The point being that Truth is by its nature a quest, never a final possession. And that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
I agree, except that some of us can only attempt to kick them in the toes in the hope that they will kick us up into the air : )
No, the reality is that the wavepacket has the uncertainty built in so to speak. That is why an electron doesn't immediately collapse into the nucleus. Both its position and momentum would then be known.
But the complementarity principle tells us that, at the end of the day, the two aspects are not only not mutually exclusive, but both are necessary to the complete description of the system of which they are "modes."
The complementarity principle doesn't apply. Think superposition principle.
“In the relativistic framework that non-believers of necessity operate, one opinion is just as good as another.”
Perhaps in your world, but in mine all truth and all values are absolute, and immutable.
It is only in the world of those who believe reality is undiscoverable and nothing can be truly known that “relativism” reigns.
Thanks for the comments,
Hank
Yes'm... '-) I have pondered it, and conclude that something that is experienced "in a limited and rather fleeting way" does not fit my concept of "Universal"...
I realize that we have shared (both in-forum and privately) testimony re experiences we have had -- that are special to us as believers. However, I don't feel justified in putting my own experiences in the same category as those of The One Who is not at all bound or confined by space and time...
~~~~~~~~~
P.S. Thank you for your kudos and support!
Certainly, neither do I. And that's a fact.
Still, there is the nagging problem of how human observers typically understand their "place" in the universe. Especially those who don't have a clue what the "universe" IS.
The method to my madness is to suggest a universe of such astounding complexity, and yet of such astounding order — and purpose — such that it could have had only a divine origin.
Whether you've noticed it or not, that is my basic motive for writing, here or anyplace else these days.
Try this on for size: The complementarity principle and the superposition principle are the dual constituents of yet another, "higher" (i.e., more general) complementarity. Think of it as a fractal sort of thing....
But only if you're a slave to Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle. :^)
What the complementarity principle does is to put two seemingly contradictory entities into a relation such that, taken together, a complete description of the system that they together mutually constitute can be given. Crudely put, "either/or" situations do not exist for entities in complementary relation; complementarity is a condition that exists when "both" are true, but neither in itself is "complete."
The concept is that mortal language tends to attach properties which it should not - no such terms (time, space, etc.) apply to God.
I often remark that eternity is merely time without end. The counting continues. The term "timeless" is more appropriate in our meditations on His Name, I AM.
No it doesn't Hank. It just makes arguments indeterminate, incomplete. This doesn't necessarily make arguments invalid — unless determinism is the result you wanted corroborated from the get-go, and you won't take "no!" for an answer. But that's "a horse of a different color."
In which case one could understand the dim view of folks who believe that knowledge isn't knowledge unless it's "certain" knowledge; who tend to hold a hostile opinion towards people who don't agree with them, especially those who have the temerity to produce non-conforming evidence....
No it doesn't Hank. It just makes arguments indeterminate, incomplete. This doesn't necessarily make arguments invalid — unless determinism is the result you wanted corroborated from the get-go, and you won't take "no!" for an answer. But that's "a horse of a different color."
In which case one could understand the dim view of folks who believe that knowledge isn't knowledge unless it's "certain" knowledge; who tend to hold a hostile opinion towards people who don't agree with them, especially those who have the temerity to produce non-conforming evidence....
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