You never do. Challenge, often, disappoint, never. I'm actually surprised and quite satisfied with your reply. There's hardly anything in your post I would strongly object to. I think the only problem is that you are reading things which Dick didn't write, and jumping to erroneous conclusions. I don't think anyone is to blame, the issues he's dealing with are as subtle as they are pervasive, it's not easy at all to understand where he's coming from.

When I said I never found a single logical error in his writing, I don't necessarily equate that with perfect correctness. What I get from his ideas is a feeling that he's on to something I have no idea what. By the way, science (good science) gives me the same feeling, so perhaps we can learn something from both approaches.

>> We don't know how Dick discovered his equations, but we do know that he already had Schrodinger's, Dirac's, Maxwell's, etc equations sitting in front of him as he charted out his course. Did he personally set out to obtain these equations? Did he throw out equations which didn't work? What if he worked out 100 fundamental equations and only selected the one that gave the best results? Don't you see that hindsight is the best aid to developing models such as Dick's? Talented individuals can devise models that work if they already know the output that they must manufacture. > ... without humanity having a better understanding of physics I don't see how we can possibly know. > Hmm... it seems to me that some individuals act like God a heck of a lot more than Hawking who is very humble about such speculations. > I think I disappointed you Aurino. If so, I am sorry that I cannot live up to your expectations.

• Always good to hear from you - harvey1 - December 13, 2001 - 20:52 UTC