Back to Home

God & Science Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | God and Science | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Reply To Alan!

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Richard D. Stafford, Ph.D. on August 23, 2002 16:45:52 UTC

Hi Alan,

I think you have missed the central issue of my response.

****
Alan: I'm sure you are aware that Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrodinger's wave mechanics turned out to be different views of the same thing.
****

That is very true; but they were both stated very precisely in the language of mathematics!

****
Alan: I put it to you: it is possible there exist other ways of looking at the subject your paper addresses, that accurately map the same phenomenon you investigated.
****

Certainly! However, if they do it accurately, they can be expressed in mathematical concepts.

****
Alan: Now; in your post above you have given a level of detail that was glossed over in your paper. Your paper was vague! It was open to several interpretations!
****

That is possible; but I believe there is only one interpretation which is internally consistent with everything I said and with the conventional understanding of the mathematical relations expressed. I did and do expect the reader to be familiar with serious mathematics. Without an understanding of the mathematics, what I say can easily be interpreted as the ravings of a lunatic and thus amounts to nothing.

****
Alan: What kind of subject-matter text should I have consulted?
****

You have exactly the same problem most people have when they do not study mathematics seriously: they do not understand what is meant by the terms. Your interpretation of what I said made it quite clear that you did not comprehend the fundamental nature of the relationship in mathematics commonly referred to as a function: if A is a function of B, that means that if you know B and you know the function, you also know A. Any function can be represented as a table (although, some cases, the table might have to be infinite; that is why mathematics uses "...").

****
Alan: I can not afford the money it would cost me to go through your whole paper at "a very low level", if it costs as much internet time as the first 3 equations have.
****

You certainly should not be working with the internet representation for serious examination; you should print out a hard copy.

****
Alan: In my defense: it has been said of Richard Feynman, that he could bypass whole complicated mathematical processes and get straight to the key in something intuitively. That is: there is more than one path from A to B. Your paper may get from A to B; but there may be much simpler paths from A to B.
****

There may be a simpler path, but I am unaware of it. What I presented is the simplest proof that what I say is true that I can come up with. As far as what Richard Feynman said, I think you are missing a very important aspect of the statement: what they are talking about is an explanation of his conclusions, not a proof that those conclusions are correct. My conclusions are quite simple also and can easily be expressed in a form that the common man can understand. In fact my conclusions are quite clearly stated in my paper: "Physicists have made exactly the same mistake that the ancient astrologers made!" They believe their world view is well defended by their successes (those successes being judged from the perspective of their world view. I prove, quite conclusively, that their position is completely unsupported.

Essentially, you want to use my work as support for your world view when it is in fact support for no world view at all. You claim you want to understand my paper. My position is that there are two issues here to be understood; first there is my proof and second there is my conclusion. The second is easy to understand but will be rejected as unacceptable because no authority will stand behind it and the first requires understanding mathematics.

****
Alan: I am rather shocked if you didn't get my "breakthrough". It will take me some time to follow the detail in your post.
****

Any world view at all will do fine so long as it is internally consistent. If you like your world view use it, but, if you want to communicate, use concepts well known to be valid: everything can be seen in terms of physical objects which obey the fundamental laws of physics (any self consistent set of concepts can be so represented).

****
Alan: It will be interesting to see if I can map your detail exactly into my breakthrough.
****

That is a problem internal to your world.

****
Alan: (One wonders if "uniqueness" means one can hardly call the unknown data "unknown")
****

You misunderstand the use of the term "unknowable" data as defined in my paper. The "knowable" data is that data which is absolutely true (not created by your subconscious) whereas the "unknowable" data is that data created by your subconscious to make the "knowable" data make sense. In the final analysis, there exists no way for you to differentiate between the two. The differences only exist in my mental model of the circumstance. In fact, my analysis goes through perfectly well if the "knowable" data vanishes and the entire universe is an illusion. "An internally consistent model of anything must obey the rules of my model (which, will say again, are, for the most part, the laws of physics).


****
Alan: Speculation:
Now, suppose he were to take this little model that has a "tracking program" tagged on.
This tracking (with unknown data tag-ons) has
so far isolated one special-rule-item into a system that has no rule other than the adding of unique unknown (tracer) data.

You could nest this cute little idea over and over couldn't you? All the way down to the last unknown special-rule-generated bit of data!

And look what you got: a beautiful logical construct that is "built of nothing (its rule is: NO rule other than NESTING and adding these tracer unknown data each NESTING.)
****

This whole idea of NESTING goes entirely counter to my presentation. My proof is valid only if all knowable and all required unknowable data is included from the get go. Given that constraint, how can one speak of "nesting"?

****
Alan: We make up our own rule? I mean, anything can fit this, can it?
****

Make up your own rule??? Make up what ever you want, but if you want to communicate it, put it in a form consistent with physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics. That is, if your rules are internally consistent, you can express your thoughts in a scientific manner.

Anything which cannot be so expressed probably contains a lot of inconsistent bull. The central point of my paper is that most all of science is a made up story (how the tiger got its spots) the only advantage of the scientific story is that it is at least internally self consistent (most of it anyway). That at least gives us a basis from which we can communicate.

Have fun -- Dick

Follow Ups:

Login to Post
Additional Information
Google
 
Web www.astronomy.net
DayNightLine
About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
"dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
are trademarks of John Huggins