Phi for All

Listen, we're a science discussion forum here. If you want to invent a new version of science that's NEVER wrong, you should go somewhere else. You aren't doing what the vast majority of scientists call science, and your replies look like you're a petulant kid who is trolling the professionals with his misunderstandings. I hope that's not the case, but I'm not sure what to do about your willful ignorance. MOST people come here to learn, not to preach unreasonable stances. I'm not a mathematician, but even I can see that it's the math that's infallible, while our verbal description of theory often falls short (because of human interpretations like YOURS). Science is based on modeled maths, and our theories describe the models. Period. I'm not sure where you learned differently, but it's wrong. If you keep screaming with your fingers in your ears, you won't learn anything.

Wow. That's horrible reasoning, and reasoning is what you really need instead of logic (especially your hamstrung definition of it). You seem to misunderstand the concept of objectivity. If everyone had a different version of maths, where is the objectivity science searches so hard and rigorously to defend? Your definitions are subjective, and therefore worthless in science. Where did you get all this misunderstanding, videos and pop science articles? If you can stay here and read more than you post, I can almost guarantee you'll learn something.

Phlogiston and steady state theories have both been shown wrong.

You've been given at least two examples where science was wrong and acknowledged it. How can you assert that it CAN'T be wrong?

I'm guessing you don't do math. I understand, it's a difficult language. It's the language of physics. All of theory is just verbally describing mathematical models. You have it backwards.

Science has been wrong many times. It's probably the best demonstration of the power of theory over "proof". If we thought we'd "proven" phlogiston, wouldn't we still think it was right? Because science uses theory, evidence showed science was WRONG about that.

I'm neither a philosopher nor a mathematician. I'm focused on learning science (although I wish I had a better understanding of the language of physics). I'll take it slow. Science uses theory, based on mathematical models, to describe our best supported explanations for various phenomena. Science doesn't deal with "answers" or "proofs". If we did, we'd stop looking when we thought we "proved" something, or that we finally had the "answer'. Instead, we constantly amass more and more evidence, constantly making our theories stronger and stronger, but we don't regard them as some final answer or proof. Because that would be really dumb. Religion often claims answers or proof, but science needs to remove as much subjectivity as possible in order to be true to its methodology.

! Moderator Note AUDI R6, we don't get personal here, it's against the rules. Attack ideas all you want, but we don't attack each other. Civility is our #1 rule, so please adjust your behavior accordingly. This goes for everyone. Even in the Lounge, we keep it friendly and civil so it stays meaningful.

Back to school! Philosophy and maths work with proofs. Science works with theory, I know you've heard of it! Theories are supported by evidence, NEVER proven, always improving as new knowledge comes along. Seriously, this is something you really need to get straight, otherwise you'll never understand what's going on in science. You're here to learn like the rest of us, right?

Nobody can move things with their minds in a way that would satisfy normal scientific skepticism. If they could, why hasn't even one of them passed experimental observation? We could easily test for something like that, and we have, and we've never found anyone that could do it. Many claim to, but they never pass the testing. Do you know anything about evolution? Given that moving objects mentally would be a HUGE advantage to any species, a trait like that would most certainly be passed along to future generations. If "psy" powers were even a little bit true, it wouldn't take very many generations before we started seeing LOTS of evidence. We don't, therefore we can safely say these "powers" are unsupported and probably just wishful thinking. There is no evidence for telekinesis. As for the rest of it, there has to be a mechanism for channeling energy to be used for work. Muscles are one such mechanism, but we have no organs for "psy" powers. All the things we do with our brains (which is an AMAZING amount) may not be known currently, but there is no mechanism that could convert brain functions directly into work. It's similar to claims that "toxins" can be pulled from the body using an electrolytic foot bath. It's a bogus claim because, again, no mechanism exists for drawing anything from the soles of the feet (except perhaps skin cells and friction). But it SOUNDS like it would work, so the claims fool a lot of people.

! Moderator Note ...and we're done here.

Many, and all involve rushing a process that's in place to prevent rushing the process to favor profit over safety. "Promising" ≠ promise. If we don't respect the process, we're vulnerable to agendas that don't include better health and trustworthy drugs.

MigL, I proposed a single law where we guarantee a minimum subsistence level for all citizens to remove most of the reason people commit crimes. You bashed me for not including provisions for those who "broke" my law, but is it really applicable? How is someone going to break my law, which is similar to a Universal Basic Income? If they don't need/want the money, I don't see the need to put them in jail or fine them or lecture them for it. If I had proposed Social Security, would I need extra laws for those who didn't want to participate? The rest of your attack seemed aimed at trolling me, asking if I'm one of Trump's advisors, insisting I'd be heaping more hardship on citizens, all clearly arguments that show, yet again, that you've completely misinterpreted what I've said. It used to frustrate me because I thought I wasn't expressing myself with clarity and precision, but I've come to learn you have a certain amount of willful obfuscationism in your discussion style that is drawn to strawman arguments and not quite "getting it". You like to poke people who don't share your worldview rather than try to understand it. While I can appreciate that you often find yourself in ideological opposition with progressive thinking, I also think you EXPECT to be in opposition so often that it causes you to pre-judge what others write, making it seem like you didn't read it in the first place. And I still haven't heard a word about a US where the need to steal to feed your family is greatly reduced. That's the part I found interesting enough to post about.

This is a discussion forum. You've already made the black list by NOT giving us an opening post that invites discussion. What do you want to talk about?

Notice how little time you spend on what I actually said about my law wrt the thread in general, and how much time you spend doing damage control because you wanted to strawman me with Trump references and arguments I never made? My whole point was that I would like to see what Americans could do if they didn't have a private army of "justice seekers" trying to put them in jail for profit. I think we could make our whole society better if we weren't housing 25% of the world's prisoners on a business growth model. How about you respond to that?

! Moderator Note This has been done many times, but unfortunately you are very willful and insistent, and this may be blinding you to the obvious errors being pointed out (you obviously don't recognize what others are posting, or you wouldn't keep asking for the same thing they've already given you). Now you're just preaching. Discussion is a powerful tool in science, but it requires that you remove your blinders and be reasonable and listen. A better strategy for you would be to take a formal course in Relativity so an instructor can isolate your misunderstandings in a way you'll recognize. This thread is closed, it's become circular and unproductive.

A friend of mine told me it's important to make a distinction between a "trip" and a "vacation". A trip is full of sightseeing and adventure and exploration. A vacation is where you park your butt on a beach and relax with a good book (or sunglasses) and DON'T think about all that other stuff.

Wow, what a load of straw-filled crap, MigL! I only proposed the one law. It's my hope it will show us all who really wants to be a criminal, and who was pushed there by circumstances. I didn't change anything else, so if someone feels the need to steal after their basic needs are met, hopefully they'll have their pick of empty prison cells. As always, my "basic needs" includes lots of free access to accumulated human knowledge by formal education. I have no problem imprisoning criminals. I think it's SO important, in fact, that we should take public responsibility for ALL actions of our justice system. Introducing profit and private contracting when determining someone's guilt and whether or not to curtail their freedom is cowardly, corrupt, and inhumane. My "railings" against the US prison system are all about favoring a people-as-commodities business model, and to me it's little different than sex-trafficking or slavery. Please notice I didn't accuse you of supporting slavery or sex-trafficking, even jokingly.

Take some good reads, but I did the same thing in Cozumel when I had a 3-year-old. When we weren't playing in the surf and sand and pools with her, the resort had daycare to keep her ocupado while mom and dad explored for a while.

Agreeing to live cheek by jowl, be vaccinated, obey laws, support the economy, help others, and generally help keep the place clean, all those sacrifices we make for our societies should have clear and specific benefits, other than potential. I'd pass a law guaranteeing a certain minimum subsistence level so members of my society had no real need to resort to criminal behavior to feed their families. I'd like to see what relieving that stress would do to other elements of our lives.

Let's really look at what you're doing here. You THINK you're allowing for possibilities you can (or can't) imagine with your "ever" restriction, but you're only taking a perfectly great definition (impossible = can't ever happen) that gives you a LOT of clarity in descriptions, and lends a great deal of persuasive power to any argument you might make, and watering it down to meaninglessness. How does it help to use "impossible" when I really mean "can't be done (unless we figure out how to do it in the future)"? I really NEED to use the accepted definition of "impossible" when talking about violating the laws of thermodynamics, and I have lots of other words to describe things that aren't possible NOW. You're polluting essential language! I don't think you understand how critical it is for science to remove subjective influences, and use rigor and precision when verbally explaining a phenomenon. Remember, theories are describing mathematical models, so we can't afford to misuse definitions. Does that make sense to you?

You took the brain/sponge analogy too far.

This seems like a specific definition of empty space being applied to ALL space. It's unworkable as a scientific definition. It seems like you're purposely choosing an unworkable definition to show that your observation has merit, which is just a semantics trick. I, for one, wish you would stop wasting brain power and other intellectual resources to discuss these word games. There are many interesting things to ponder about the universe, and this isn't even close to being one of them. This isn't even interesting nit-picking, and we LOVE nit-picking! Because your reasoning in this regard is terrible.

Of course he's right. "Nothing can change" is probably the most untrue sentence ever uttered. The whole universe is based on change, try studying some chemistry.

! Moderator Note At the heart of the matter is your lack of physics knowledge, so how can you possibly judge whether an explanation (NOT an answer, science isn't looking for answers) is sound or not? How many times have the members posted something along the lines of "physics doesn't work like that"? Your threads are pages and pages of misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up IF you could put yourself in "learning mode" instead of "I don't understand so it must be wrong" mode. It's pretty insulting for you to be questioning the sound reasoning of people who studied this extensively, especially when they're taking their time to help. Doubly especially when basic concepts are met with "Please explain". I think everyone here is more interested in discussing science than they are teaching it, especially in this shambolic style where concepts continue to be misunderstood. It's great that you're interested, and you're obviously very smart, but how effective do you think this learning style is, where you guess at what you don't understand, and make judgements based on that lack of knowledge and understanding? It seems to generate a lot of questions (which are good) but not a lot of understanding. ! Moderator Note You ask for explanations but you reject them because you don't understand the underlying, basic physics principles at work. This Catch-22 is hampering your progress, I think. Do you feel as though you're learning anything here? Are you any closer in either supporting or rejecting your idea? You don't have to answer a modnote, but I want you to think about these questions. We're all just interested in discussing the best supported scientific explanations for various phenomena in a meaningful way, and I don't think that's happening here.