beecee

Bummer! just stole my line!!! Nothing more relaxing then a beautifully set up aquarium...nice!

We are able to measure the passage of time. Many things exist that we really don't or nerver experience. I have never been to China. Does that mean China does not exist? "Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself." Henry Louis Mencken.

Time exists that much is as certain as space existing. It is only how we perceive time that maybe at fault. A great man once said words to the effect "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour, chat with a hot blonde for an hour, and it seems like a minute. Without time, everything would happen together, and the fact that there is no universal "NOW" in our universe, shows the legitimate existence of time. I like Sean Carroll's version....

Why would you put a legitimate scientific discipline in speculations? Astrobiology is the study of life within the universe. Basically it looks at other abodes within the solar system and beyond, and by comparing their status with the ranges of conditions and temperatures as well as atmospheric content, that life on Earth exists in, they can then deduce the possibility of life arising on other bodies. We refer to those bodies that should be comparable with the conditions on Earth, as being in the "Goldlock zone" of their parent star. As yet of course, we do not have any convincing evidence of life anywhere beyond Earth, but we also understand that the observable universe is awesomely big in extent, and infinitely numerous in content and the stuff of life is everywhere we look.

Ball lightening [if it exists] would simply be plasma created by electrical discharges and probably similar in many ways to the more confirmed "St Elmo's fire" and sprites. Our atmosphere can be highly volatile in certain conditions, and probably can also be attributed to UFO/UAP sightings in many instances.

A measure of a reputable scientist would I suggest be based on the amount of scientific papers and publications he has published in peer reviewed journals and such....... https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php Also obviously the number of times other scientists have had the need for citations of his work.https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=0smOZFIAAAAJ&hl=en 21 330 times since 2013: This may also be a measure.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins_bibliography

Sure! but science isn't a "stick in the mud" type discipline like for example, religious faith, and is a discipline in continued progress, always learning/modifying/adding/improving as time goes on. Scientists like everyone else, makes mistakes. The scientific method ensures we learn from those mistakes. That is what is needed to be taught.

[1]Can we also say that if there is a correct way in controlling and/or elimination this current covid 19 pedamic, we have no right insisting that we follow the science, and should also entertain Trump like pseudoscience and conspiracies? Is that what you believe? [2] Probably because I aint a scientist, but I fail to see a connection, in any sense. There is no reason to search for answers outside of science, until we know all of science. [3] We don't know that at all. [4] There was a time when the universe and our solar system was chaotic. As suggested with regards to the laws of physics etc, if it wasn't as it is, we probably wouldn't be here to appreciate it anyway.

Really, the most annoying thing out of all your posts, is the fact that you need to resort to claiming everyone is using adhoms against your person, and your usual mythical strawman dismissal. Let me sum it up again. What Krauss and others are saying is that we still don't know all the answers, but are reasonably logically able to deduce certain situations based on scientific speculation that answers some of these questions. The nothingness, the quantum foam from which the universe/space/time arose, is a logical answer, even though we still don't have the observational evidence to be able to raise this to scientific theory status. eg: Abiogenesis is the only scientific explanation explaining the evolution/arising of life, while still ignorant of the exact pathway. It just is. Far more sensibly logical to accept those obvious facts, and still strive to answer the why and how, then to invoke some mythical, unscientific being. [is that another adhom?] Rememeber how you misinterpreted the excellent summary by Feynman on magnets? 😊Embracing honesty in one line, then suddenly reverting to the opposite. You know very well that your "Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for "creation out of nothing") refers to the belief that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act, frequently defined as God" is not what is presented, meant, or referenced to in the paper. Your posts reflecting such tiring semantics, along with the continued accusations of adhoms and strawmen is not a pretty picture. ☺️ Obviously that is nothing more then just your opinion. So why not write up another paper for peer review, and in refutation of that? That would be interesting indeed. Your last statement is rather strange. Why would scientists writing up a scientific paper on how a universe had to arise from nothing or quantum foam as that nothing, then step outside of the realms of science into the mythical arena? Funny, I also thought that. Funnily enough, my story is while similar, actually the opposite. I was raised a good Catholic boy, in fact I was an Altar boy [confession at this point, I was dismissed from the Altar boy's union, after I and another were found drinking the altar wine behind the altar 😉]I also enjoyed immensley Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series in the seventies, am a lover of most movies, sci/fi movies, my favourites being 2001 A Space Odyssey, Mission to Mars, Forbidden planet, and The Day the Earth stood still [1953 VERSION] I also am not a scientist, simply an old retired maintenance Fitter/Machinist/Welder who has read a fair bit including Hawking's BHoT, Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps, The first Three minutes by Weinberg, and other books by Davis, Kaku, and others. Yes, I also loved Star Trek and never missed an episode. That's my story in brief. I do not, nor ever really have classed myself as an Atheist, simply someone who finds astronomy/cosmology and the emerging physics as awesome material, and have grown and learnt to appreciate science and the scientific method. Perhaps the closest I would come to god would be Einstein's god, being the sum of the natural and physical laws and facts of the universe/space/time, and I see that as astronomically distant from your own apparent and obvious beliefs. Yes it has been stimulating, but in reality you have proven nothing, other then that at this time, science/physics does not have all the answers. We all accept that, even a poor old retired old bastard like myself.

And I see your argument as flawed as it steps outside the scientific method. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221268641300037X Spontaneous creation of the Universe Ex Nihilo: Abstract: Questions regarding the formation of the Universe and ‘what was there’ before it came to existence have been of great interest to mankind at all times. Several suggestions have been presented during the ages – mostly assuming a preliminary state prior to creation. Nevertheless, theories that require initial conditions are not considered complete, since they lack an explanation of what created such conditions. We therefore propose the ‘Creatio Ex Nihilo’ (CEN) theory, aimed at describing the origin of the Universe from ‘nothing’ in information terms. The suggested framework does not require amendments to the laws of physics: but rather provides a new scenario to the Universe initiation process, and from that point merges with state-of-the-art cosmological models. The paper is aimed at providing a first step towards a more complete model of the Universe creation – proving that creation Ex Nihilo is feasible. Further adjustments, elaborations, formalisms and experiments are required to formulate and support the theory. Discussion and future work: This paper presents a model for the Universe creation ‘Ex Nihilo.’ The proposed theory's main advantage is that it does not require any explanations of the physics prior to the Universe creation. This stream of research can also provide an explanation to several unexplained phenomena, such as the second law of thermodynamics, the existence of virtual particles in vacuum, the source of symmetry in the Universe, the evolution of matter and anti-matter, and non-local influences in quantum mechanics. The paper provides a first step towards a more complete model of the Universe creation – proving that creation Ex Nihilo is feasible. Further adjustments, elaborations, formalisms and experiments are required to formulate and support the theory. Two of such elaborations include: (1) formulating the mathematics of the dynamicity laws in the Universe platform; and (2) modeling specific mechanisms responsible for the evolvement of observed phenomena in the Universe, and in particular life itself. Such future research could demonstrate how complex and unpredictable phenomena can be generated from a small set of rules, and how it is possible to simulate dynamic life and other computational processes from a small amount of initial information. Possible directions for such future research may be based on the discovery of information structures that maintain ‘life’ properties such as ‘survival,’ ‘growth,’ and ‘duplication’ during changes in the Universe; or representing the evolvement of information in the Universe either as an extended case of a cellular automaton, or as an artificial neuron network.

And the means are substantial. eg: GR and quantum mechanics. Not really. It simply stems from the point you are making that something beyond science and the scientific methodology maybe responsible. eg; god/or whatever Probably because it is a strawman? Hmm, is that so. I'had thought you did, but anyway, I'm too lazy to go back checking through your rhetoric. I'll take your word for it at this time. Reaffirming things simply reaffirms the science and scientific method. Nice to see you agree though. Your argument? Sure, and I see it as totally subjective and personal, and you are entitled to those opinions, but again essentially wrong. This is imo and Krauss' opinion, where science and philosophy converge and is at the core of Krauss' critique of philosophers. And I certainly do not dismiss Professor Carroll.

Sure I have heard of Sean Carroll, and I see him as reputable...he also says this.... "Theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll, writing in The Wall Street Journal, described the book as speculative but ambitious: "The important lesson of The Grand Design is not so much the particular theory being advocated but the sense that science may be able to answer the deep 'Why?' questions that are part of fundamental human curiosity." Professor Lawrence Krauss also predictably drew the ire of many philosophers and their supporters in his critique of them. I also see much of that ire as more sour grapes and believe Krauss made a good point.

It is far far far more sensible to scientifically speculate then to step outside the realms of science and use fairy tails or myth as an argument. All scientific theories and models start off as speculative. And the instability of the "quantum foam" is certainly within reasonable speculative range, while we do not as yet have a complete picture of quantum mechanics. And again, it is far far more likely that quantum foam possibly may be the real "nothingness" that we generally infer as nothingness. Far more simplisitc then some complicated entity sitting up in a cloud. I wonder what he/she/it did in the eternity that existed before the BB. My argument, as opposed to yours, is that while science does not yet know everything, it is progressing day by day, and possibly one day be able to explain the big questions. The other point worth emphasising is that strangely enough, you seem to see the fact that while scientific theories are always open for review/addition/modification/invalidation as a disadvanatage or hindrance, it is in reality what makes science in general superior to everything else and why the scientific methodology will always prevail. The more observational data we have, the better and more complete and more certain our theories become..eg: SR/GR, the BB are overwhelmingly supported, up to the theory of evolution which has become established fact.

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-physicists-observationally-hawking-black-hole.html Physicists observationally confirm Hawking's black hole theorem for the first time: There are certain rules that even the most extreme objects in the universe must obey. A central law for black holes predicts that the area of their event horizons—the boundary beyond which nothing can ever escape—should never shrink. This law is Hawking's area theorem, named after physicist Stephen Hawking, who derived the theorem in 1971. Fifty years later, physicists at MIT and elsewhere have now confirmed Hawking's area theorem for the first time, using observations of gravitational waves. Their results appear today in Physical Review Letters. extract: In the study, the researchers take a closer look at GW150914, the first gravitational wave signal detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), in 2015. The signal was a product of two inspiraling black holes that generated a new black hole, along with a huge amount of energy that rippled across space-time as gravitational waves. If Hawking's area theorem holds, then the horizon area of the new black hole should not be smaller than the total horizon area of its parent black holes. In the new study, the physicists reanalyzed the signal from GW150914 before and after the cosmic collision and found that indeed, the total event horizon area did not decrease after the merger—a result that they report with 95 percent confidence. more at link.... the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.04486 Testing the black-hole area law with GW150914 We present observational confirmation of Hawking's black-hole area theorem based on data from GW150914, finding agreement with the prediction with 97% (95%) probability when we model the ringdown including (excluding) overtones of the quadrupolar mode. We obtain this result from a new time-domain analysis of the pre- and postmerger data. We also confirm that the inspiral and ringdown portions of the signal are consistent with the same remnant mass and spin, in agreement with general relativity.

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-earth-cryosphere-square-kilometers-year.html The global cryosphere—all of the areas with frozen water on Earth—shrank by about 87,000 square kilometers (about 33,000 square miles, an area about the size of Lake Superior) per year on average between 1979 and 2016, as a result of climate change, according to a new study. This research is the first to make a global estimate of the surface area of the Earth covered by sea ice, snow cover and frozen ground. The extent of land covered by frozen water is just as important as its mass because the bright white surface reflects sunlight so effectively, cooling the planet. Changes in the size or location of ice and snow can alter air temperatures, change the sea level and even affect ocean currents worldwide. The new study is published in Earth's Future, AGU's journal for interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet and its inhabitants. more at link.............. the paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020EF001969 A Holistic Assessment of 1979–2016 Global Cryospheric Extent Abstract: The cryosphere plays a major role in earth’s climate system. Most cryospheric assessments focus on one or more of its components and their response to climate change. However, to date, there has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the entire global cryosphere. We therefore determine such a holistic estimate and quantify changes to the hemispheric and global cryosphere due to climate change, by synthesizing sea ice, snow cover, and frozen ground extents into one global cryospheric extent dataset. The 1981–2010 climatology of daily global cryospheric extent ranges from 45.7±0.7×106 to 87.2±2.0×106 km2 (9.0%–17.1%), from 13.3±0.8×106–66.3±1.7×106 km2 (5.2%–26.0%) in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and from 17.9±0.3×106 to 33.6±0.4×106 km2 (7.0%–13.2%) in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). The monthly maximum cryospheric extent of 85.84±1.91×106 km2 occurs in December, whereas minimum occurs in July with 45.92±0.70×106 km2. During 1979–2016, global cryospheric area extent lost approximately 87±11×103 km2/yr, with a decrease of 102±9.7×103 km2/yr in the NH that was partly offset by an increase of 14.6±4.4×103 km2/yr in the SH. The first day of cryospheric cover was delayed by 3.6 days at a rate of 0.95 days/decade, and the last day advanced by 5.7 days, at a rate of 1.5 days/decade. The duration and number of cryospheric cover days decreased by 8.7 days and 7.6 days over the study period, respectively. These variations of global cryospheric extent are correlated with rising air temperatures. Our findings highlight the importance of assessing the cryosphere as a whole, and provide a way to quantitatively estimate its overall changes. Supplementary article............ https://phys.org/news/2021-07-183c-antarctica.html UN confirms 18.3C record heat in Antarctica: The United Nations on Thursday recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) made last year. The record heat was reached at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said. more at link............

Dawkins does far more then marketing his products...he is a scientist and as such also educates. I suggest he sets an admirable example to young minds, not the least being following the logic and Dawinism. Why oddly? forums come and go. My first science forum is now defunct. Shit happens. Just as those persons who do not accept his science based facts, claim he [Dawkins] is delusional. At least Professor Dawkins has science as his fundamental support. The individuals he discredits, perhaps deserve such criticism, particularly some I have seen attempting to lambast him in certain debates. Perhaps it is the certainty that you seem to base your "opinions" on, that reflect more on your posts then anything else...opinions mostly without any evidence, references or proof, just plain old rhetoric.

Wasn't it Stephen Hawking who said words to the effect "Science cannot prove the existence of god, but science does make him/her/it an unnecessary entity" Researching a bit and found this....The phrase was from his book "The Grand Design" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_(book)#Reactions Actual words being, "One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary" extracts from the link critiquing the book.... Evolutionary biologist and advocate for atheism Richard Dawkins welcomed Hawking's position and said that "Darwinism kicked God out of biology but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace."[11] Theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll, writing in The Wall Street Journal, described the book as speculative but ambitious: "The important lesson of The Grand Design is not so much the particular theory being advocated but the sense that science may be able to answer the deep 'Why?' questions that are part of fundamental human curiosity."[12] Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, in his article "Our Spontaneous Universe", wrote that "there are remarkable, testable arguments that provide firmer empirical evidence of the possibility that our universe arose from nothing. ... If our universe arose spontaneously from nothing at all, one might predict that its total energy should be zero. And when we measure the total energy of the universe, which could have been anything, the answer turns out to be the only one consistent with this possibility. Coincidence? Maybe. But data like this coming in from our revolutionary new tools promise to turn much of what is now metaphysics into physics. Whether God survives is anyone's guess. The authors writes: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going"

Yet the reputable professionals say you are wrong, but you are entitled to disagree, albeit with no evidence and simply rhetoric. More rhetorical denial. Anything supernatural like fairies at the bottom of the garden or some magical deity is myth...no evidence and as I have shown previously is continiously being pushed back into oblivion, as science continues to explaim more and more and more.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141106-why-does-anything-exist-at-all extract: Relativity is very different from quantum mechanics, and so far nobody has been able to combine the two seamlessly. However, some theorists have been able to bring the two theories to bear on particular problems by using carefully chosen approximations. For instance, this approach was used by Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge to describe black holes. In quantum physics, if something is not forbidden, it necessarily happens One thing they have found is that, when quantum theory is applied to space at the smallest possible scale, space itself becomes unstable. Rather than remaining perfectly smooth and continuous, space and time destabilize, churning and frothing into a foam of space-time bubbles. In other words, little bubbles of space and time can form spontaneously. "If space and time are quantized, they can fluctuate," says Lawrence Krauss at Arizona State University in Tempe. "So you can create virtual space-times just as you can create virtual particles." What's more, if it's possible for these bubbles to form, you can guarantee that they will. "In quantum physics, if something is not forbidden, it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability," says Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.

[1] Wrong. It follows reasonably logically, that our universe may have evolved/arose from nothing: because as inferred by quantum theory, nothing is inherently unstable. [3] Wrong: your continued "god of the gaps"explantion doesn't hold any water.

Quite relevant in fact and the definition supplied to reflect your own position. In fact it is you who has misunderstood, or simply being obtuse. Just because the laws of physics and nature cannot as yet be explained, does not mean that they never will. I see no reason why anyone need depart from the scientific methodology to the unscientific myths, unless of course to maintain that warm fuzzy inner glow, as emotive as that may sound to you. Stop being obtuse. You are inferring with your questionable claims and rhetoric some supernatural entity, or a "god of the gaps" simply because science as yet does not have the answer. If that offends you then I would question why it offends you. The possibility of quantum foam is certainly a scientific explantion, unevidenced as such at this time, and until we have a proper quantum theory of gravity. Proving hard, but that's science, the discipline in eternal progress, based on our observational and experimental data and the scientific methodology. That friend is why science is superior, and I would guess the reason why you appear to be denouncing it. Thankfully that eternal progress will continue without resorting to unscientific supernatural myth. And on your second claim about scientists to just "dumbly stare" and claim, I see as rather silly. As I explained most lay people would see the quantum foam as nothing anyway, and whether we need to redefine nothing to mean the quantum foam, it is infinitely closer to the general acceptance that we have of nothing today, then substituting some sort of deity of choice, based on your personal deep seated prejudices and biases. Emotive terms like "dumbly stare"? My use of "warm cozy inner peace" certainly stands, as a prime reason for religious beliefs, rather then accept the factual nature of the finality of death. I have also listened to many competent thinkers over the years, some are pretty smart and excellent at putting their case, and yet when we all finally get down to the nitty gritty of it all, we all know the superior position science takes in explaining the universe around us, and the fact that supernatural explanations just don't hold water. I also see where you have raised the Newtonian concept of gravity and the inverse square rule, and GR. What you should understand is that we still use Newtonian mechanics every day on Earth, in near all situations, plus of course near all of our space shots to Mars, Venus, the Sun etc. This should tell you that Newtonian mechainics is not wrong, but rather simply a less accurate method [but still accurate enough for all examples I have given] and that GR is the more accurate method. Afterall if we did decide to use GR in all my examples, we would get the required answers as Newtonian gives us, but far more accurately, and I might add, with far more difficulty and complication....the accuracy of course is not needed so we stick with our old mate Isaac.

I'm pretty sure our friend has not yet worked out the difference between the absence of a centre of the universe, to the factual centre of our observable universe, of both me and my cousin in M31.😉

GR tells us that once the Schwarzchild radiu/limit is reached, that further collapse is compulsory, but at the same time breaks down at the quantum/Planck level, I believe is correct. So a QGT takes over eliminating infinities. Most physicists today dismiss the Singularity of infinte density and curvature anyway. Awesome stuff anyway of what I am able to comprehend!!

This is what is known as "nonlinearity" correct? or gravity makes gravity. So in essence the incompatibilty is one treats gravity as discrete, the other continious, correct? So what about concepts of Planck limits? My thinking is that these are simply useful manmade concepts. So what will a validated QGT entail do you think? Good question by the way and good answers thus far..

No it is not. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion Religion: "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects": :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: And I didn't mention anything about any "orginized" religion, simply that your your arguments/inferences boil down to supernatural, unscientific myths, as of course is any belief in any god. Therefor, no reason or logic involved. My advice, stop being obtuse. I have given a possible scientific explanation for the origin of the universe/space/time, as detailed by Professor Lawrence Krauss, and the possibility of the pre BB quantum foam, being the "nothing" that simply has always been there. That is far more logical and reasonable then resorting to some supernatural myth about some supernatural old bloke sitting on a cloud. By the same token one could accept fairies at the bottom of your garden. The usual "God of the gaps" argument again...sheesh! My only "fallacy" as you put it, is simply the scientific methodology over religious supernatural unscientific myth, generally shown to be brought about to maintain a warm cozy inner peace, rather then the cold, natural finality of death and the cessation of everything. !!! Holy hell!!! that just about sums up what I was going to say about you!!! The remark you made when misunderstanding Feynman..............thus... "This is exactly what Feynman explains here in the video I posted already, perhaps you missed it: So if you are wont to reject explanations that raise further questions you might as well reject all of science my friend."