Phi for All

Observation: You "kinda" saw a video, you think you know when it was from but you're not sure. But your title suggests you think what you've learned about black holes spells the collapse of physics as we know it. I think this is creating a bit of cognitive dissonance that may be impeding your grasp on these subjects. Also, you keep talking about proof, and 100% surety, and a lot of people have told you in a lot of threads, that's not what science is after. We look for evidence that supports, not proof. It's never 100%, we never want it to be, since we stop looking for answers when we think we have them.

I have this awesome little lantern I give away to good clients. It has a small PV cell on top to charge the battery, and also has a hand crank. It has an AM/FM radio too, but the best part is the USB ports so you can charge cell or laptop. I almost forget it's also an LED lantern. I wonder if something like this could be set up on a bicycle (maybe using the guts from the lantern). Attach the hand crank generator to your wheel, charge your phone while you ride, charges as the bike sits in the sun, listen to music, and even power a headlight at night. It's not an electric bicycle, but this is doable for about US$25 and some ingenuity.

15% seems low, EdEarl. I'm replacing fluorescent lighting with solid state lights that save half the wattage, which works out to about a 20% overall savings on electricity, and that's just for lights.

You introduced a side topic that threatened to hijack the original topic, so your post was split to start a new one.

My art collection tells a different story. They seem to be masters at marking the cards, undone by a love of strong spirits.

While you may get conservatives on both sides of the aisle to take another look at same-sex marriage, I think it's the religious voters (Dem and Rep) that are going to massively ignore these findings.

! Moderator Note Let's save the side-discussion about math vs prose for another thread, folks.

Now you're talking. Do another cost/benefit analysis now. Odds of success go way up if you drop the drones and use a reliable old RPG. That's funny, I saw the trailer for this movie plot watching the other movie plot.

Oddly, the same suspension of disbelief allows us to simultaneously place an inordinate amount of hope in a system like flying drones, AND and a hopelessly low value on a proven concept like guided explosive ordinance. Drones can minigun down a crowd, but a missile strike ten feet from a target doesn't even make him miss a step as he runs on by?! No. Downplaying the effectiveness of current missile tech is necessary to make the drones seem viable.

I've gotten a lot of mileage over the years out of asking the trick question, "Do they have the Fourth of July in England?"

I think your first paragraph is spot on. If we had a vision today of a future technology based on light, with nothing familiar to help us find recognizable patterns, would we even know what we were seeing? Let's set our PerspectivisionTM glasses for 96 A.D., about when Revelations was written. Take anyone from any strata of civilization then, make them a prophet who sees the vision you describe above. Remember, these are PerspectivisionTM glasses, not DerisionvisionTM. I want to be objective. Metallurgy was completely primitive, so any modern metal wouldn't necessarily look like metal to the prophet. It would also be unexpected to see so much of it, since it was rare at the time. How many "devices" were there in the first century that would trigger pattern recognition with a modern device? And there's no context for a device that works just by standing near it, with no movement or seeming work output. Context would be very important, right? Like the writer of Revelations might not recognize a modern rifle for what it is unless he saw someone use it and made the connection, "Ah, weapon, kills from a distance like a bow and arrow but looks different". How would he know a device that doesn't act like any device he's familiar with? Revelations was written in Koine Greek, which had it's own numbering system. Would our modern Arabic numerals be recognizable as numbers in transacting commerce? And if the writer knew Arabic, I've seen ancient Arabic numerals, and few look like their modern equivalents. The visual overload would be severe as well, since virtually everything would look different, the eyes would be drawn simultaneously to the people, their hair, their clothing, the things they're carrying, the buildings, the streets, the cars, the glass, the lights, and the colors, more colors than anyone at the time and region could even imagine. Not to say it's impossible, but it doesn't seem probable even if you allow visions of the future. Too much contrast between the Iron Age and the Computer Age for context to be meaningful. Btw, I've been hearing versions of this since the 70s. It started out with The Beast, a supercomputer in Switzerland/Belgium/Washington D.C., that was keeping track of every credit card transaction in the world. I don't think we've ever had a single supercomputer that could approach that kind of task (personal incredulity alert!). If this was ever even partly true, the technology has marched on. Networks may control a lot but controlling credit for the whole world is something that should leave more evidence. It should be noted that author Joe Musser wrote Behold a Pale Horse in 1973. It's a work of fiction in which he invents just such a supercomputer, and called it The Beast. A movie was made, it was sensationalized, and nobody ever bothered to correct those who believed the story was true.

I used your words, "opposed to religion", to describe my personal state. I don't ascribe to one, but I don't oppose the concept or the choice for others. This is another strawman. Religion inadvertently created science because its explanations weren't good enough over time for many people, they couldn't keep up with our evolving intelligence. But we have a lot of people, and I understand that religious explanations are good enough for some. It's irrational to think all of us here to think the same way, respond the same way, and have identical worldviews. I'm skeptic enough to reject religion personally, but remain open to the possibilities inherent in the objective response, "We don't know".

Where do most of the biggest contradictions in religion come from? Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, all based on infinite capabilities fueled by limitless power. For me, it always comes down to this: If a god can ignore the physical laws of the universe and do whatever it pleases, why would it create them in the first place? Why do we have gravity if a god could make the universe work without it at the snap of its fingers? I don't find eternity/omnipotence plausible at all. To me, it seems much more plausible that, if there is a being we would define as a god if we were to be introduced, this being would merely be more powerful than anything we could imagine but still have limitations. A higher power, if you will, capable of astounding things, but not omnipotent, and not capable of superseding the physical laws of the universe.

I can't help but think there are multiple religious answers to this question. They will most likely be presented as fact, and they will contradict each other, and thus they will have limited meaning. Science, on the other hand, would warn you about the dangers of treating infinity as a common number.

The post you've been quoting was NOT a summation of any position. MonDie asked me if I lived my life expecting gravity to be falsified, because it's a theory built on accumulated evidence rather than "proof". I answered, and then proposed that religion (the process surrounding every god) has always had a problem with falsification. And then I gave an example of this in Catholicism. It was not "a jab at the pope". Supernatural phenomena are unfalsifiable. That's not to say they're real or not, it means there's no way to ever show they're false, and that's one of the first ways to test if a theory is sound. You can't accumulate evidence to support the idea that "God exists even though we can't detect Him". We always need a way to show that something is capable of being false, that we COULD find evidence if we tried, and you can't do that with beings who won't let themselves be observed and tested. God(s) are unfalsifiable.

I think you need to reread a bit. Nobody is disclaiming that a god could exist, so yes, it's an argument a child might use. We call it a strawman. Where did I claim god(s) doesn't exist? When I say I find no evidence of the existence of god(s), why do you feel the need to change my meaning into "God doesn't exist"? There is no "proof" either for or against the existence of god(s). I didn't claim there was. My point, from the beginning, is that you can't expect some kind of scientific approval or disapproval for what is inherently a supernatural phenomenon. We can't observe any god(s), we have no evidence that they exist or not because their very nature precludes consistent testing. The scientific answer is, "We don't know".

I was trying to see if you wanted a distinction between any "space" and Outer "Space".

! Moderator Note No harm or foul here, but I agree with some of the other posters that what's being talked about here currently should NOT be attached to this awful, ignorant thread from The Dark Ages. I'm closing this one, feel free to bring up any tangents elsewhere, except the notion that we only use 10% of our brains. That's been refuted.

This is why I trust science rather than believe in it. The entire theory of gravity is highly unlikely to be falsified. Bits of it might, because we gain our knowledge and understanding in bits, apply them and see if they agree with reality. Theories improve in this way. Religion has always suffered from falsification. How many Catholics suffered in the afterlife because they ate meat on Friday? Did they get a pardon when the Pope decreed it was now okay not to eat fish?

Are you talking about empty space, or empty Space? I've seen an experiment done to show that the inside of a van isn't empty. Hang a plumb bob from the ceiling of the van, and tape the string of a helium balloon to the floor of the van (they should both hang in the middle, but not obstruct each other's forward/backward movement). If the van was truly empty, when you accelerate you should see both the balloon and the plumb bob move backwards. Instead, you see the bob move backwards, but the balloon's helium is displaced forward as the air in the van moves back like the plumb bob. Looks empty, really full of air.

Like all numerology, gematria is based on coincidental patterns that emerge when you test a bunch of names (or whatever), assign them numbers and see what pops up. The Greeks had a similar system as well, for codes and entertainment. Iirc, 616 is the total if you add the letter values in Caesar. It works with Nero, too, and Caligula. It works with some biblical names as well, but I forget which. Not a fan of numerology at all. Not all patterns have significance.

I snipped your quote here because this is all that's needed. The rest is just your own cognitive bias on the subject. The reason I'm opposed to religion is precisely why you think it should be the norm. I see nothing but age to distinguish any religion from another, or from one I might "construct" (VERY interesting choice of words, btw) myself. It's all guesses and fabrication and allowing people with poor critical thinking skills to determine the ethics of how you should live your life, based on the ancient guesses and fabrications of iron age mystics (or something fabricated I've told myself to make me feel better). I'm capable of being a moral and just person, a benefit to my society and a capable husband and father without religion. In fact, I would posit that I might be a bit more trustworthy in that regard, because I know why I am this way, and it's NOT because I fear the retributions of a god. It has nothing to do with political correctness. It's about the precision of definition of the words we use to communicate with. If I say "religion" (a group organized to worship a god or practice spiritual beliefs), but you hear "religion" (any activity people place a supreme amount of importance on), how effective is our discussion going to be? We should always be wary of changing a definition to suit our purpose.

Metaphor madness. If you keep using them often enough, you start taking them literally.

Are you thumbing your nose at Dell by using an Apple mouse?

Your doctor is the best person to answer questions like these, but unfortunately, he's not a member. I'm reluctant to second-guess him, especially because I hope you'll ask him to join and tell us his answer. I don't want your doctor mad at me for giving uneducated medical advice to his patients.