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"The opponent conceded in exchange for the antidote" (paraphrase from twitter) I fail to see why his win would be worthy of discussion, as it was a foregone conclusion.

I did. In the context of this thread, I just wanted to make sure you knew it was a smug, slowly shaking my head, kind of laugh.

- What is matter? - Never mind. - What is mind? - No matter.

I agree with you that banning him was most likely a foul play. I am saying that the biggest problem is that Putin is popular and its in my opinion very hard for people without knowledge of Russia to comprehend how is that possible. I stated one reason, ignorance and disrespect Russians feel from the West, which in turn makes them lets say even more stubborn and supportive of Putin. That is my interpretation anyway. Its like, how come people voted Trump or Berlusconi or Brexit? Sure, disinformation and lies backed with lots of money. In my opinion that is not the whole, not even the main, story. Obviously, we are not the only ones asking the question, for example here: What Makes Putin So Popular at Home? His Reputation Abroad - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/opinion/putin-popular-russia-election.html

Cognitive dissonance (the force) is strong with you, but which side will you choose? The gun or Jesus (light or dark)?

Read your Bible (hint Joshua)

That the word "panic" comes from the ancient Greek god Pan. From Wiki Etymology The word derives from antiquity and is a tribute to the ancient god, Pan. One of the many gods in the mythology of ancient Greece: Pan was the god of shepherds and of woods and pastures. The Greeks believed that he often wandered peacefully through the woods, playing a pipe, but when accidentally awakened from his noontime nap he could give a great shout that would cause flocks to stampede. From this aspect of Pan's nature Greek authors derived the word panikon, “sudden fear,” the ultimate source of the English word: "panic".[1] ------------------------------------------------------- Effects Prehistoric humans used mass panic as a technique when hunting animals, especially ruminants. Herds reacting to unusually strong sounds or unfamiliar visual effects were directed towards cliffs, where they eventually jumped to their deaths when cornered. Humans are also vulnerable to panic and it is often considered infectious, in the sense one person's panic may easily spread to other people nearby and soon the entire group acts irrationally, (...) ---------------------------------------------------- So for the ancient Greeks, when someone got under panic, it was caused by the intermission of the god Pan. At the end of the Marathon battle, the myth says that runner Pheidippides encountered the god Pan who asked him why the Athenians didn't adore him. Pan had come to the battlefield and helped the Athenians to win the battle. Pheidippides answered that from now on, Pan would be adored by the Athenians (and indeed since then they create a temple to Pan in a grotto under the Acropolis. The concept that Pan helped the Athenians makes me think that when they saw the Persians run back to their ships it was for the Athenians a sign of panic.

This is a tough one. How should a government (or journalists or even scientists) refute lies? The obvious answer is to point out that it is not true, that the claimed evidence was faked, etc. But when people get sucked into an emotionally appealing narrative, it can be hard to convince them that they have been taken for a ride. You could ask, "why not do scientific studies to refute it?" But should scientists really have devote their time (and money) to refuting every crackpot theory? Should they have to disprove claims that the world is flat? Or that man didn't go to the moon? (And, of course, further studies have refuted it. Plus the fact that autism rates are no lower in those countries with rising cases of measles and other diseases because of low vaccination rates.) And I don't believe that the UK government's response was [only] about saving money. They will, quite rightly, have pointed out that it would be a massive extra cost to the NHS for no reason. Should the NHS really have to spend its limited resources on something just because of fraudulent claims?

Took seems like a more appropriate word "wins" but it is all a matter of perspective. Putin's strongest challengers were kept off the ballot. Russia's GDP has been declining year over year for the last few years. In 1995 there were 148 million people in Russia and today there is 143 million so the population is also in decline. Putin's reign, from the outside looking in, hasn't been good for Russia.

Now one sees to what the substantivation of 'true' to 'truth' lead to. There are different kinds of facts, and the possible truth or falsity of propositions about them need different methods to be verified. But the 'truth' designates the same in all examples: the (claimed...) correspondence between propositions and the facts. Of course propositions can be presented as 'truths' when in fact they are not: the claimed truth of propositions can be a lie, can be premature, can be pure fantasy etc. Just calling everything true what is claimed to be truths is bollocks. Depending on the domain of what the proposition is about, the ways of finding out what is true differ. Your listing is not a listing of truths, but a listing of truth claims. But claims are human products, so they can be wrong on all the possible ways that humans can make false claims. Three remarks on your list: Propositions about personal experience can be honest. If I feel pain, I can be honest about it, even if somebody else does not feel pain. I can even be honest about a hallucination. If I see little green men coming through the wall, I can be honest reporting this. It would be something else if I claim that it is an objective truth, that little green men really are coming through the wall. Religious truths do not exist, because there are no facts corresponding to religious propositions, there is no methodologically justified way to verify them (one can be more nuanced here, but I let this stay for the moment) About Gödel: how can we know that a theorem is true, when we cannot prove it? Gödel's proof is about propositions generated on axioms and logical inference. It shows that there are propositions that can be made in the terms of the axiomatic system, but cannot be generated by the system. However we can see the truth of it by means outside the system.

If we get back to the original problem, space-time is regarded as 4 dimensional since position can be specified by 4 independent coordinates. In GR, the some region around any point in space-time looks like a R4 - e.g. for any point near a black hole you can still find a region (possibly very small) that looks like R4. I think we have been sidetracked from the original question by the language used, which tried to simplify the answer by saying that the coordinates can be used to find an object of some sort. Actually the coordinates specify a location even if there is nothing there, or we do not know where something is. Methods of finding things is a totally different topic about which discussion could go on forever.

What do you think about particle accelerator driven Thorium reactors? They seem require no Uranium or Plutonium, subcritical (no threat of meltdown) and can burn lot of radioactive waste. It is claimed accelerators with required parameters are on the verge of development. https://phys.org/news/2011-06-pint-sized-particle-nuclear-energy.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerator-driven_subcritical_reactor http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph241/baxevanis1/

Time is an element of the continuum called spacetime. Trying to cut the continuum in parts lead to errors. IOW there is no Time by itself, and there is no Space by itself.

There are things that are axiomatic, 2+2=4, but what is the value of 4, a square has 4 equal sides, but how big is it? Perception and truth aren't the same but they are interdependent.

Paddy. Saint Patricia's day is 25th August. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/st-paddys-day-vs-st-pattys-day

I think these two quotes sum it up for me: the reality of the elephant is absolute, impersonal and objective; the perception of the elephant is relative, personal and subjective. I'm reminded of a brilliant 80's Irish sitcom ( Father Ted ) where Ted was explaining to dumb Dougal that cows are normally the same size but the very small cows were " far away ". Regarding the OP, my perception was that Gees , in this case, was using truth to mean honesty, when asking if truth can be trusted, so i would say that absolute, objective Truth/Reality can be trusted, ( if we can recognize It as such ), whereas relative, subjective truth obviously can't be completely trusted. That seems pure and simple but, as Oscar Wilde said: " The truth is rarely pure and never simple ". As for sticking to unwavering, absolute honesty, i would say that a benign expediency, or even silence, is sometimes the better course to follow. Are right and wrong related? I would say no - if something is right, it's just right; it isn't right because something else is wrong: 2 + 2 = 4 isn't right because 2 + 2 = 86* is wrong. ( * That is wrong, right ? ). .

The fidelity of our description of the universe improves with experience but we can never know it absolutely because we and it are constantly evolving.

Truth is relative. I'm going to write a paper: On the Relativity of Truth.

Agreed. It is absolutely true that there are no preferred frames! Which makes the truth of simultaneity quite a challenge. I'm not sure what a good definition of truth is. Something that everyone would agree was a fact, maybe? So if everyone in one frame of reference says two events are indisputably simultaneous then it must be true (to them) that they are simultaneous. But if everyone in another frame of reference agrees that they are not simultaneous then their truth is different.

I wouldn't say that was an opinion. I would say it is something that is true and proved to be true. In all cases. It is an absolute truth, in that sense. I am just not convinced that all truths are absolute. I'm not sure what you think is false. We know simultaneity is relative; this was proved by Einstein over 100 years ago. So I guess it is the fact this undermines absolute truth? But it can absolutely true for one observer that A happened before B, but for another observer it is absolutely true they happened at the same time, and for yet another it is absolutely true that B happened before A. So we have three absolute truths which are contradictory. I don't know what to make of that.

2+2 = 4. Read that aloud. Now read this: "Marcus was wrong."

The truth is an abstract concept that we are discussing. I am just testing how one would define it as absolute when it can be different for different people. So there are things that are neither true or false? What about the spin of a particle that hasn't yet been measured? As far as we know, it doesn't have a value until you know it. So truth is conditional? So if we are sitting in the middle of a train and we see two flashes of lightning hit each end of the train at the same time, we can it is true that those two flashes of light were simultaneous? And that is always true and cannot be changed by anything?

That suggests you should (must) be able to uniquely determine whether every single statement is either true or false. If not, how do you know it is binary. What about things that are unknown? Or unknowable? Or partially true? Or provisionally true? Or conditionally true? If you look at Snopes and other fact-checking sites they don't have a binary distinction because they know reality is more nuanced than that. What about facts that are relative. Is it "true" that the Sun is stationary and we orbit around it? Or is it true that the Sun orbits the galaxy and we follow a complex path around that? All motion is relative so can you say that it is true that A is stationary and B is moving? Can you say it is true that two events happened at the same time when, from another frame of reference one could have happened before the other or vice versa?

Challenge accepted: Q: What does Itoero post on science forums? A: Belgian waffle.

So on a completely unrelated matter, there is a thread i posted about energy and subsidies. I posed three little questions. For some reason nobody is able to give a simple straight answer. I suggest you take a look because it actually ties in with what I have written here. You will be amazed at the lengths people will go to to avoid answering a simple question. Have a look sometime. It is hilarious.

Energy is measured in joules. Watts is a measure of power. I am surprised that there were no 'physics' qualified mods to help you with that. Probably too busy looking to nit pick bad old Norton rather than help you with a basic scientific misunderstading. I hope I have been able to help you.

Hey pal, I'll learn something if you post anything wothy of being learned, IYO.

True Pi = 729/232 "If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.” Nikola Tesla