Phi for All

I, for one, was trying to dissuade you from believing this type of discussion had any meaning, since it doesn't have to embrace reality much more than occasionally. I have failed. Happy Holidays!

You've taken some data (relativity has no preferential frame of reference), that was turned into information (in general relativity, you can use the math to make a frame of reference stationary), and turned it into misinformation (the Earth could be the center of the universe). As I mentioned before (and you ignored), if you put Earth in a fixed position, the orbits of the planets and sun look crazy impossible. Even early astronomers noted this. When the sun is at the center of our system, the orbits make sense, and physics isn't violated. You think you're doing something special, that your way of looking at a problem is untainted by the evils of modern education, and that your intuition is capable of solving problems that takes others years of study. You believe you are capable of thinking outside the box without knowing much about what's inside. It's a bit delusional. You didn't study science in school for some reason, but now feel an affinity towards it, and think you see glimpses of understanding when you read popular science articles, and that empowers you to feel like maybe you didn't need all that studying anyway. You can hold your own with people who did study, because your brain works differently. It doesn't need all the knowledge, because you can leap from conclusion to conclusion without the tedious study, experimentation, research, trial, error, methodology, and critical thinking. You can intuitively leap ahead and wait for the scientists to catch up to your conclusions. I encourage you to learn, and keep thinking, but you might want to stop rambling, stay away from "truth", and study the gray areas a bit harder. Critical thinking and the scientific method are better than rambling, the best supported explanations are far more trustworthy than anybody's "truth", and coloring in the gray areas is the most obvious reason for existence there is.

Very well put. It's like insisting we figure out how to leap over the forest while ignoring a map that shows a path through it.

"Sorry, the issue is that I need one of you detectives to investigate my claims that we exist in a simulation." "What evidence do you have to support these claims?" "None at all, but I suspect I'm right." "Without evidence, you could claim anything you want. Which makes the claims meaningless without it." "My claim is possible, therefore it should be considered." "Without evidence, you have no claim. Without extraordinary evidence, you have no extraordinary claim."

Not making this about geocentrism, I'm more trying to show you that where you're coming from is a position you have to hold in the face of multiple intellectual obstacles. You've been filling in the gaps in your understanding of relativity with god, and it sounds like you cherry-pick your information to fit your concepts, which is foolish in the extreme. You insist on putting an unnecessary and unobservable god in the middle of necessary and observable phenomena. This bastardized pseudo-scientific, quasi-religious approach creates more questions than answers, and produces nothing trustworthy as far as explanations. It has no predictability. To go back to the geocentrism momentarily, you should look at our own system's orbits if the Earth was at the center. They're insane, they make no sense. Put the sun in the center though, and all the orbits make nice, smooth, predictable, reality-based ellipses.

Think about what you're saying here. You're saying it's more likely that, out of all the trillions of massive bodies in the universe, ours just happens to be the center of all of it? You're also throwing out all the actual evidence that says there is no center to the universe, as well as all the science we have that the Earth orbits the sun, which in turn orbits a galactic center. Occam's Razor. I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

On the one hand, we have your idea that somehow we lost knowledge (those who had it died before passing it along?) (it was somehow struck from the memories of every human?) (it was such a great idea it was destroyed for some reason?) that we once had about some things, including our god and his purpose for us, which would arguably be the most important thing we could ever know. On the other hand, we have reality telling us we don't seem to have lost anything super important, and still see no evidence of god(s). Occam's Razor might be a good tool to apply here. Also, the popular theme I meant is the Atlantis story, where we somehow had a more powerful yet simpler technology than anything around today, and we lived in harmony with nature until we deviated from that path, busted something, and sunk into the ocean. Now, of course, we MUST remember what was lost or we'll end up like the Atlanteans. What else in our (actual) history is like that? Where else have we made something better in our earlier history than what we have now? Technology doesn't really work that way.

It's a popular theme, but are there any real-life examples of knowledge we used to have but no longer possess? I'm not talking about the arguments from incredulity where you can't imagine how the pyramids were built, so you assume that knowledge was somehow lost. I'm talking about quantifiable processes that we can no longer reproduce because we somehow "lost" the knowledge of how to do it.

Given that we have no evidence for a god(s), and given that you think this knowledge would have been unquestionable if it existed, isn't it more likely that it never existed?

We have none to support one's existence. It isn't that there is no God, it's that there's no evidence for one. Basing these beliefs on incredulous feelings is probably exactly how these religions were formed in the first place. "The next village over got flooded, but we're safe. I can't believe there isn't a magic sky god watching over us!"

Are you saying that you know they don't know? How does that work? All ideas with no evidence are unsupported, and therefore equal. No religion has presented evidence that can't be refuted, so any stories about a creator are equally unsupported, whether they come from "them" or you.

There's room for capitalism and peace, imo. There's nothing wrong about finding gold for yourself. I just think you'd be more likely (everyone would be more likely) to find that gold if we were supported in our education to the highest degree.

I agree about the petty fears. What if the focus was on education, and making certain that everyone was educated through college (or trade school)? Put all our social efforts into producing the best 22-year-old humans we can, and everything that entails, including good food, good health, and accommodations for shelter and clothing if you don't have them. No private schools, so all resources are put into a single extraordinary system, where the focus is completely on blending talent with opportunity, and profit isn't even considered. If we could perfect a system like that, it would open up a lot of prosperity, and hopefully that might show us all that peace isn't something to be afraid of.

We see this so much, people making assertions, claiming they have evidence they'll be ready to give soon. If it really was supportive evidence, they could just put it out there at any time. Why wait? Why make all the "readiness" claims? The only kind of evidence that needs to build suspense is the kind proposed by charlatans and tricksters. Scientific evidence stands on its own merit. I don't know who Zakir Naik is, but to claim anything is "scientifically provable" is nonsense, and to claim nothing in Islam contradicts science is absurd.

Most wealthy Republicans hate paying taxes, even for public programs that benefit them, like highways, ports, and the military. They don't like paying their share even for things they use a LOT, even though many poor people help pay for airports they'll never personally use. So the idea of regulations that will be inevitable if climate change is acknowledged is enough to make them put multiple species in threat of extinction. They can't envision being able to profit if they listen to the smartest people on the planet. Fear drives them, imo, for many reasons.

I don't think you can achieve this by focusing on all this from the beginning. You don't need to force everyone to be peaceful; it would be much more effective to simply open up the path to unity and peace, and let the path itself encourage participation. Start with some kind of minimum subsistence requirement for human life. With all our gifts, we should be able to provide food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education at a basic level for every human. If we can make that much of an investment in ourselves, we'll truly see what our potential is. It should be a level of support that can't be taken away by anybody, and available to anybody, no matter the circumstances.

See, now THIS is the type of thing that would really spice up your LinkedIn page. Make a note to add this.

! Moderator Note Welcome to SFN! Normally, since we're a science discussion site, videos aren't allowed to take the place of your own arguments, and members should be able to participate without watching lengthy videos. But I think you gave us enough in your OP for discussion, so I'll leave the videos there in case anyone would like to watch. I hope promoting this video isn't your agenda, and we all look forward to hearing your thoughts on this concept as well.

It's easy to fall into the trap of using scientific principles to justify a spirituality that's supposed to use faith to guide it instead. But it's not so easy that all the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam fall prey to it.

A valid argument, made unsound by misinformation. Please recheck your sources for "woman's brain" and "all women are bisexual".

The differences have been explained, so I'll attempt an analogy. Let's make it a capitalist analogy and say you own a store that sells merchandise. The Trump to Hitler comparison works because he's getting an invitation to come visit our store and look around, see if there's anything he likes. He's charismatic and friendly if you stay on his good side, and before you realize it he's got a truck parked around back, and he's filling it up with your merchandise, and thanking you for your generosity. He's in control of your life because you invited him. Sharia in the US would be like trying to drive the truck through the front of the store to steal the merchandise. We've got all kinds of security cameras watching the front, we've arranged the approach to the store so a truck can't get going very fast, and we've put those steel posts in front of the doors to prevent the truck from smashing through and ransacking. And as a last resort, even if they could get the merchandise, we've got ways to track it so we can get it back. And we have the police to help us stop these attempts as well. As long as we keep our protections in place, this is NOT a successful strategy.

Well, I'm no engineer, but I have this great idea about economy cars. You see, I figure if you design the car to take advantage of DRAFTING (following closely in the turbulence wake of another car), you won't need costly systems like steering and braking since you'll basically be "towed along" by the car in front of you. It's so simple! I can't believe none of the "professional" engineers ever thought of this before, but that's the advantage you have when you aren't "locked in the box" of mainstream engineering teachings.

I would expect an engineer to understand more of how science works. This is a caricature you have in your mind, where all scientists learn by rote without understanding the foundations of the subject, so they're susceptible to following teachings blindly. It's an image that lets you believe you have an advantage in ignorance, and I think an engineer would should know better.

According to the OP, I don't think that's a valid conclusion to draw. Underfunded ≠ without benefit.

If you don't mind, I'm just going to read this statement every time you post one of your ramblers about how you were born a poor, black anecdote, uphill both ways in the snow.