Truth and Knowledge

[swansont]

Then you'd still be wrong. There are (IIRC) 90 naturally occurring elements, max atomic number 92.

Depends on where you draw the line for "naturally occurring". Tc and Pm have no stable nor long-lived isotopes, and are below 82. At and Fr are the same, between 82 and 92. You could find the odd atom or two if you look quickly enough because of production in decay chains, but then you also get the odd Np and Pu atoms from piles of U. Saying 88 naturally occurring elements is OK.

[Pymander]

Depends on where you draw the line for "naturally occurring". Tc and Pm have no stable nor long-lived isotopes, and are below 82. At and Fr are the same, between 82 and 92. You could find the odd atom or two if you look quickly enough because of production in decay chains, but then you also get the odd Np and Pu atoms from piles of U. Saying 88 naturally occurring elements is OK.

 

Thanks. Just checked on this for changes. Promethium (#61) is a rare earth element (which are assumed to serve no biological function. But I have witnessed certain artesian waters cure arthritis simply by bathing (Muckadilla, Queensland is famous)) and wonder if some of these must be trace elements required from a once more varied herb diet, the more so with age. Technetium (#43), below Manganese in the table, does occur as a rare spontaneous fission product of Uranium (discovered since my research), but both these have found uses and are synthesised like Plutonium, for better reasons. Their isotopes are all unstable with half lives which do not compare with the age of the earth like #92 Uranium 238. They were conspicuous holes in the Periodic table. Primordial Technetium is a theoretical but unproven possibility. I guess 'Primordial' would have saved confusion. These alone are followed in the table by elements with stable (non-radioactive) isotopes. The detection of Technetium in Giant Red Stars raises questions about their processes. See Wiki for some interesting stuff.

[Pymander]

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This is blatantly untrue. While exams may be graded on knowledge of the accepted views most, if not almost all, professors will accept challenges to accepted ideas when writing a paper, research reports, presentations, etc. They only time I have seen a student's assignment given poor marks when they took a contrary stance was not because of the stance, but because of the poor writing and evidence used. Obviously this mostly comes when you have a decent understanding of the basics, not freshmen/sophomore level courses, because if you don't know the basics of what you're arguing against you're just soap-boxing.

 

 

 

I would hope few scientific departments truly try to shut down a students attempts to understand and further scientific ideas, because that's what makes science progress. If we didn't question the established ideas there would be no jobs for future scientists. Hell, many times I've seen professors get agitated because no one would try to figure out how things worked and why on their own and just relied on him/her to give us information. One prof would throw in some obvious B.S. in a lecture, stop, and usually do something like extra essay questions on the exam if no one could figure out what the B.S. part was.

 

 

 

What does this have to do with scientific establishment. 'Officially' science doesn't take a stance on a 'universal source' because it's not scientific to do so. Some scientists personally take a stand on it, as do many non-scientists, but the truth is for science it doesn't matter. A source doesn't explain anything better than the current model and adds more complexity and assumptions that are unnecessary. Therefore the model is not used because it's useless as a scientific model.

 

Pushed for time at the moment, but many of your points are reasonable and should be answered. They will require some work and unless fate intervenes, I will return to them.

[Pymander]

[/font]

This is blatantly untrue. While exams may be graded on knowledge of the accepted views most, if not almost all, professors will accept challenges to accepted ideas when writing a paper, research reports, presentations, etc. They only time I have seen a student's assignment given poor marks when they took a contrary stance was not because of the stance, but because of the poor writing and evidence used. Obviously this mostly comes when you have a decent understanding of the basics, not freshmen/sophomore level courses, because if you don't know the basics of what you're arguing against you're just soap-boxing.

 

 

 

I would hope few scientific departments truly try to shut down a students attempts to understand and further scientific ideas, because that's what makes science progress. If we didn't question the established ideas there would be no jobs for future scientists. Hell, many times I've seen professors get agitated because no one would try to figure out how things worked and why on their own and just relied on him/her to give us information. One prof would throw in some obvious B.S. in a lecture, stop, and usually do something like extra essay questions on the exam if no one could figure out what the B.S. part was.

 

 

 

What does this have to do with scientific establishment. 'Officially' science doesn't take a stance on a 'universal source' because it's not scientific to do so. Some scientists personally take a stand on it, as do many non-scientists, but the truth is for science it doesn't matter. A source doesn't explain anything better than the current model and adds more complexity and assumptions that are unnecessary. Therefore the model is not used because it's useless as a scientific model.

 

My opening statement for the Truth and Knowledge article was:

'Main stream science' is required to be accepted without question at an academic institution.

[/Quote]

 

This was latter explicitly stated as it was intended to be understood:

If one studies main stream science at an academic institution, he will not receive credit by submitting assignments and answering examination questions from the point of view of an alternative paradigm that was not being taught.

[/Quote]

 

This has since been paraphrased as:

In most cases, however, and rightly so, when studying at a university one is meant to be Learning the basics. Until one has these thoroughly grasped then it is arrogant and frigging infantile to go wandering off and waffling about alternative paradigms.

[/Quote]

 

And again as:

While exams may be graded on knowledge of the accepted views most, if not almost all, professors will accept challenges to accepted ideas when writing a paper, research reports, presentations, etc. The only time I have seen a student's assignment given poor marks when they took a contrary stance was not because of the stance, but because of the poor writing and evidence used. Obviously this mostly comes when you have a decent understanding of the basics, not freshmen/sophomore level courses, because if you don't know the basics of what you're arguing against you're just soap-boxing.

[/Quote]

 

All generalisations have exceptions. If a generalisation is found to have no exceptions, which could only happen if it referred to a finite set of entities, it is still true, because generalisations belong to an infinite set, so that, in contradicting itself, it proves itself to be true anyway. Nevertheless, although tautologies are useless theories, generalisations essentially cannot be contradicted.

 

The importance of brushing away the case of the student with the statement:

'Main stream science' is required to be accepted without question at an academic institution.

[/Quote]

 

was to allow us to concentrate on the limits of scientific certainty. Albert Einstein took some pains to do this, as will be discovered in "Ideas and Opinions". Two of his most interesting statements, essentially equivalent, follow (if memory serves, possibly rephrased):

1. Science cannot prove that the senses are or are not some kind of psychic phenomenon.

2. The universe may not have an existence independent of the observer.

 

These observations are exploited by "Total Recall" and "The Matrix" movies. WHAT is actually primordial, in the sense that, being the first cause and irreducible reality, it is not derived from something more primitive? We may think that matter has assembled to create consciousness. It is equally possible that consciousness has assembled first mind, and then the illusion of matter. So which is primordial?

1. Spirit (in the sense of pure infinite consciousness);

2. Matter and Energy (in the sense of pure infinite BigBangium);

 

Why is this important? Because in the first case, our existence has a purpose, in the second, it does not. Therefore also, we may try to determine the purpose, and thus intuit the means, snd that IS science. In the second case, we start investigations bottom up, and cannot assemble the jigsaw at the end of our investigations, because it is too complicated to see the forest for the trees. ("Twelfthly: Therefore I am called Hermes Trimegistus, having three parts of the philosophy of the Whole World." from The Philosopher's Stone.)

 

Now we need to consider Albert Einstein's Principle of General Relativity, a special case of what? Two theories which cannot be empirically differentiated are equivalent. That means that conclusions from either are true, else they would be contestably different. If we are to admit this situation exists with case of 1 and 2 above, miracles with purpose, astrology, karma and reincarnation, and psychic phenomena all become real possibilities. These seem unscientific because science only accepts possibility number 2. But this kind of thinking was actually applied to gravity and acceleration to produce the Theory of General Relativity, and provide quantitative formulae for gravity itself.

 

I hope this will address:

'Officially' science doesn't take a stance on a 'universal source' because it's not scientific to do so. Some scientists personally take a stand on it, as do many non-scientists, but the truth is for science it doesn't matter. A source doesn't explain anything better than the current model and adds more complexity and assumptions that are unnecessary. Therefore the model is not used because it's useless as a scientific model.

[/Quote]

 

Plainly, it is not useless. Further, intuition is well served, and intuition has no other basis. You will find that Albert Einstein held intuition in the highest esteem, well stated in its most profound formulation:

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

[/Quote]

 

 

 

 

 

[HenryB]

I am having trouble following the argument. I think it might be the terms "Main stream science" and “Universal Source”, is there a difference?

 

 

Can it be explained in terms of Copernicus vs. Einstein? Suppose in school each were asked to turn in a paper on astronomy and one gets an A and one goes to jail, does it matter?

 

 

[Ringer]

My opening statement for the Truth and Knowledge article was:

 

 

This was latter explicitly stated as it was intended to be understood:

 

 

This has since been paraphrased as:

 

 

And again as:

 

 

All generalisations have exceptions. If a generalisation is found to have no exceptions, which could only happen if it referred to a finite set of entities, it is still true, because generalisations belong to an infinite set, so that, in contradicting itself, it proves itself to be true anyway. Nevertheless, although tautologies are useless theories, generalisations essentially cannot be contradicted.

 

The importance of brushing away the case of the student with the statement:

 

So you made a statement that is wrong, and explain it away as a generalization?

 

was to allow us to concentrate on the limits of scientific certainty. Albert Einstein took some pains to do this, as will be discovered in "Ideas and Opinions". Two of his most interesting statements, essentially equivalent, follow (if memory serves, possibly rephrased):

1. Science cannot prove that the senses are or are not some kind of psychic phenomenon.

2. The universe may not have an existence independent of the observer.

 

1.) Yes it can and it has. We have a very good understanding of how the nervous system and the senses that are in it.

2.) If it didn't the things that nothing is watching would be different than those that are being watched. Blatantly untrue.

 

These observations are exploited by "Total Recall" and "The Matrix" movies. WHAT is actually primordial, in the sense that, being the first cause and irreducible reality, it is not derived from something more primitive? We may think that matter has assembled to create consciousness. It is equally possible that consciousness has assembled first mind, and then the illusion of matter. So which is primordial?

1. Spirit (in the sense of pure infinite consciousness);

2. Matter and Energy (in the sense of pure infinite BigBangium);

 

Why is this important? Because in the first case, our existence has a purpose, in the second, it does not. Therefore also, we may try to determine the purpose, and thus intuit the means, snd that IS science. In the second case, we start investigations bottom up, and cannot assemble the jigsaw at the end of our investigations, because it is too complicated to see the forest for the trees. ("Twelfthly: Therefore I am called Hermes Trimegistus, having three parts of the philosophy of the Whole World." from The Philosopher's Stone.)

 

Now we need to consider Albert Einstein's Principle of General Relativity, a special case of what? Two theories which cannot be empirically differentiated are equivalent. That means that conclusions from either are true, else they would be contestably different. If we are to admit this situation exists with case of 1 and 2 above, miracles with purpose, astrology, karma and reincarnation, and psychic phenomena all become real possibilities. These seem unscientific because science only accepts possibility number 2. But this kind of thinking was actually applied to gravity and acceleration to produce the Theory of General Relativity, and provide quantitative formulae for gravity itself.

 

I hope this will address:

 

 

Plainly, it is not useless. Further, intuition is well served, and intuition has no other basis. You will find that Albert Einstein held intuition in the highest esteem, well stated in its most profound formulation.

 

 

 

Yes it is useless, just like the majority of doing armchair science on the brain and consciousness. It answers nothing.

[Pymander]

HenryB

 

I am having trouble following the argument.I think it might be the terms "Main stream science" and"Universal Source", is there a difference?

 

[/Quote]

 

"MainStream Science" to me means that which is selected as canonical and part of the curriculum, for those who may eventually be interested in research and need credentials to be able to do so.

 

"Universal Source" means that responsible for the productions of the senses that we like to call "reality". Specifically, time and space. Even mass is derived from these, and any standard (e.g. A proton at rest).

 

Can it be explained in terms of Copernicus vs. Einstein? Suppose in school each were asked to turn in a paper on astronomy and one gets an A and one goes to jail, does it matter?

[/Quote]

Copernicus is cited as the Father of Astronomy. He flew in the face of "Main Stream Science" in his day. He was also conversant with an eclectic of disciplines (mathematician,astronomer, jurist with a doctorate in law, physician, quadrilingual polyglot,classics scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, governor, diplomat andeconomist – Wiki). Catholicism was in a sad state ("The Great Controversy" byEllen White can be downloaded. While her history is superb, as far as it goes, her eschatology disagrees with the Edgar Cayce readings. Inconsistencies create problems for doctrines, prelates and Popes, supposedly representing God. These sparked the Reformation when Martin Luther translated scripture out of Latin and was the first to survive the attempt. At this point, distinction between literal, metaphysical, and spiritual interpretations could not be recovered).

 

A contemporary, Christopher Columbus, was proving the Earth round, like Julius Robert Oppenheimer for Einstein, and reinforcing a public awakening. Note though, that an Alexandrian well, and a building in Athens, were used to measure the radius around 100BC. Similarly, Oppenheimer (Father of the Atomic Bomb) recognised the effects from ancient Sanskrit scriptures. The Occidental power vacuum, created by the fall of Rome, brought in the dark ages, and the Popes with absolute power. History during Roman/Byzantine times is disputed and rather politically arbitrary.

 

Albert Einstein was an office chair scientist working as a patent officer for ten years. To my mind, though it remains officially unrecognized, he has synthesised science and religion back into the "science hoary with age" that was the occult of (disputed) Atlantis (Plato's "Timaeus and Critias"). Currently, proofs of a universal mind and akashic record are ignored and even disdained. This is the contestable difference between "Mind over Matter" (Hermetic philosophy) and "Matter over Mind" (materialism), as competing theories. An eclectic of disciplines is required, which our age and its complexity has rendered almost impossible. Also, time to absorb and evaluate the necessary evidence becomes less available. At present jail is replaced by what follows, and may become more extreme:

 

13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,

to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the

name of the beast, or the number of his name.

REVELATION (lines 37442 to 37443 of 'C:\ECR\The Bible and Apocrypha (KJV).txt')

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Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

 

"The importance of brushing away the case of the student with the statement:"

 

So you made a statement that is wrong, and explain it away as a generalization?

[/Quote]

 

This was to indicate that my answers concerning this statement were already given.This again puts word in my mouth and derives intentions to boot. I will acknowledge corrections, and duplicity is not my nature.

 

"Plainly,it is not useless. Further, intuition is well served, and intuition has noother basis. You will find that Albert Einstein held intuition in the highestesteem, well stated in its most profound formulation.

 

'When the solution is simple, God is answering' "

 

Ringer

 

Yes it is useless, just like the majority of doing armchair science on the brain and consciousness. It answers nothing.

 

[/Quote]

I don't want the last word. But you can have 50 from you know who. If you don't believe me, believe him. We share the same teacher, if nothing else.

 

Albert Einstein

 

1. Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

 

2. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

 

3. If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

 

4. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

 

5. I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

 

6. No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

 

7. I want to know all God's thoughts; all the rest are just details.

 

8. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

 

9. Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

 

10.Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

 

11.Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

 

12.My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior Spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

 

13.The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

 

14.There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

 

15.The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

 

16.The only real valuable thing is intuition.

 

17.Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

 

18.Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.

 

19.There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

 

20.The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

 

21.It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

 

22.Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

 

23.The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

 

24.Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

 

25.Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

 

26.Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

 

27.Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

 

28.Force always attracts men of low morality.

 

29.Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

 

30.God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.

 

31.All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

 

32.We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

 

33.We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

 

34.The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

 

35.We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

 

36.Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

 

37.Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

 

38.True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

 

39.We still do not know one thousandth of one precent of what nature has revealed to us.

 

40.The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

 

41.The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

 

42.There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

 

43.Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

 

44.That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power,which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

 

45.The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

 

46.Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

 

47.It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

 

48.It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

 

49.I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

 

50.I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the yearsof maturity.

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Edited July 29, 2012 by Pymander

[Ringer]

 

This was to indicate that my answers concerning this statement were already given.This again puts word in my mouth and derives intentions to boot. I will acknowledge corrections, and duplicity is not my nature.

 

I wasn't accusing you of duplicity, I was asking if you were admitting to making an incorrect statement or if you stood by that statement.

 

 

 

 

I don't want the last word. But you can have 50 from you know who. If you don't believe me, believe him. We share the same teacher, if nothing else.

 

 

 

I really don't care what his opinions on things were, especially if you just quote words and not data. Words are worthless, words without data are worth even less.

[Pymander]

I wasn't accusing you of duplicity, I was asking if you were admitting to making an incorrect statement or if you stood by that statement.

[/Quote]

I agree that the basics are a prerequisite to any research. I also agree that guided discovery, and even insightful and precocious discovery MAY be accepted. The 'atmosphere' concerning 'greenhouse gases', 'hydrogen fuel' and 'renewable energy sources' was such that no teacher or professor would risk his job discussing these with me, and this included paleontological indications. "Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry" by E. Sherwood Taylor (a 1931 Oxford text) states "The gas, Carbon Dioxide, occurs free in the atmosphere to the extent of about three parts in 10,000, and its presence is of the utmost importance to plant life." Three simultaneous tornados through London changed this situation quickly. Investigate the suspicious death of Rudolf Diesel, whose idea was to use vegetable oils for fuel. The fate of the Hindenburg was also in the hands of Texas Oil, the only source (then) of Helium being trapped alpha particles.

This was not supposed to be the focus of the thread, only what followed. 'All generalisation have exceptions' was a lark, like 'This statement is false'.

I really don't care what his opinions on things were, especially if you just quote words and not data. Words are worthless; words without data are worth even less.

[/Quote]

 

I am not so fortunate it seems, as needing to lean on masters. Everything I didn't learn in the child minding centre, where the blind lead the blind, while both parents grind the wheel for our bread, I had to chase down in books. They were my birthday presents. We didn't have television, or the net. I was so pleased they used some WORDS before the symbols appeared. Also pleased half a university sprang out of the woodwork in Greece, and started to think, about 500BC. Mankind developed in the last 0.05% of his 7,000,000 year tenure (10.5 million according to Edgar Cayce when we believed only 100,000). Have you tried leaking the irrationality of root 2 to the public? Can you prove Pythagoras theorem, or construct the pentagram with compasses? Do you know that it is a wire frame diagram of a pyramid? That the proportions, base to height, are those of a hemisphere, and the secant of the slope height is the golden mean? The circle and the star are what? Superstition? Right way up, mind over (the four elements of) matter, or material life. So who has detected the solution of the famous Delphi riddle (squaring the circle) in the construction geometry? Algebraic and transcendental numbers, yes, but the beginning of such research. They don't teach chess in schools either, and there's no money in it. What use is there for strategy and tactics from Jose Capablanca, Niccolo Machiavelli, or Sun Tzu? Not even "Ideas and Opinions" by Albert Einstein (Amazon) or "Outline of History", the first weighty tome by W.G. Wells. These last two make the mistake of treating Christ as an historical character.

 

These are great at parties, when not impressing a barmaid with the laws of physics. So let's see? We are dealing with truth and knowledge, and the logic and mathematics to evaluate data (or evidence), and you just want DATA. Not knowing just exactly what data you are looking for, I hope these bits will do, for a while at least. Just words certainly CAN be less than worthless (as in negative of potential truth). Little wonder that God has revealed unto babes what He has hidden from the prudent and the wise, a saying that echoes from archaic Egyptian papyrus to Matthew 11 KJV. Agreement again! You obviously see with your own eyes, and feel with your own heart.

 

"My opinion of the human race is high enough that I believe war would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the peoples not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press." Albert Einstein.

 

Now this is what I want:

1. A good explanation for the New (near side) and Old (far side) Moon. This will be far from simple, with evidence spanning 4,600,000,000 years. Contrary to conjecture from D.H., this supporting evidence surprised me AFTER my conjecture concerning the cause of the Permian Extinction in 245MYA.

2. Proof that antimatter does not have negative mass. This will cost more than CERN, considering the orders of magnitude difference between electric and gravitational forces, and the difficulty containing appreciable quantities of electrically neutral antimatter. The questionable means certifying quarks and neutrinos are less than impressive.

3. The reason why the failure to explain away Patience Worth and Edgar Cayce didn't go public as the converse was most certainly designed to do. See "There is a River" by Thomas Sugrue (Amazon.com), and "The Case of Patience Worth" by Walter Franklin Prince (PDF downloadable, more from Wiki).

Edited August 1, 2012 by Pymander