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The Real Reason You Don't Want To Talk

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Posted by Luis Hamburgh on October 26, 2001 23:17:15 UTC

Thomas,

I cannot be entirely sure what you call "science," as it is obvious you are the one who doesn't understand much. Sit back and enjoy while I enumerate a few areas of your incoherence:

1) English:
There is a huge difference between 'describe' and 'prescribe' ("Are you saying there's something behind the numbers that DESCRIBE natural phenomena?" [emphasis mine]). Any phenomenon that rules the universe would be prescriptive, not descriptive.

Perhaps you should brush up on your vocabulary before trying to debate someone with a superior command of the language with which you express your debatable views.

2) The Strong Anthropic Principle:
You apparently do not appreciate the perils of working from this anthropomorphic philosophy ("What would that something be... as it always turns out to be the case, more numbers?" [sic]). As such, you're as guilty of confusing cause and effect as are religious fanatics; your credibility thereby belongs in the same trash heap as theirs.

3) Mathematics:
Every discipline requires its own language ("How do you describe a wave function using words?"). Likewise, any scientific discipline will have a language of its own – based within mathematics. If this weren't true, I'm afraid we'd not be able to hail science as the enormously successful tool that it is. (A thorough review of my previous post will show even the most remedial of readers that I never said mathematics is only a language.)

4) Einstein:
Earlier, in some dimly conceived attempt to prove your point (actually, someone else's point), you cited Einstein's notorious reaction to quantum mechanics -- "God does not play dice with the universe." This quote was a putative attempt to show that you somehow understand more than I do about the fallibility of "Einstein the physicist" and "Einstein the philosopher."

Yet you neglected to mention that Einstein accepted QM as "the most successful physical theory of our time," and that he spent his last years trying to resolve the incompatibility of QM and relativity.

;)

So Thomas, as is painfully clear now, that which inspires you to "not talk" is *your* lack of understanding, not mine.

Have a nice day.

-LH

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