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Author Topic:   Physical Laws ....What if they were different before?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 10 of 309 (662149)
05-12-2012 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by foreveryoung
05-11-2012 10:44 PM


What if there were a different set of values for all the constants and the equations for forces and fields and energies were slightly different at the beginning than they are today? Isn't it possible to have a functioning universe with a different set of constants and forms of the laws we have today?
Well, we can imagine it. But in science, things that look like universal laws (i.e. the proposition that they are fits all the evidence we have) are taken to be universal laws until someone can show evidence that they aren't.
This is not always guaranteed to lead us right, but it is the only way to do science.
Much of creationism is "proven" wrong because its claims violate known physical laws.
No, not exactly. The creationist hypothesis, after all, involves an omnipotent supernatural being who can violate the laws of nature. This itself may involve you in certain difficulties, but it does mean that you can overlook the fact that what you're proposing is impossible. The problem creationists actually have is an acute shortage of evidence that what they propose is true, in conjunction with a lot of evidence as to what actually happened.
It is true that if all the physical laws and constants have been the same as they are today then the claims of creationism are impossible without invoking "poof" type magic.
But isn't that exactly what the claims of creationism are meant to invoke?. When we come up with naturalistic explanations that don't invoke "poof" type magic, you guys get all cross. The poofing and the magic is just what you're trying to defend.
But, what if there is more to reality than the physical world. What is there is another reality that cannot be detected by physical means? If so, such a change in laws and constants would not be magic; it would merely be the result of actions of beings in the non-physical world.
A distinction without a difference, surely?

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 Message 1 by foreveryoung, posted 05-11-2012 10:44 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 13 of 309 (662160)
05-12-2012 10:39 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by foreveryoung
05-12-2012 9:48 PM


Re: change leaves evidence.
And once you've found a naturalistic explanation for the flood, you'll want to hear all about these naturalistic explanations we've found for other things such as the formation of planets and the origin of species. They'll be right up your alley.
I am talking about changing them all, even the laws themselves.
Are they still going to be dimensionally correct?
It could certainly be ...
It could certainly be ...?
Where does the certainty come into it?
Changing those to the values we see today would be the mechanism for a great catastrophe in my mind.
But somehow these vast changes in the fundamental laws of physics will leave biochemistry completely untouched, right? It will knock the Earth and the solar system for six, but a more delicately poised system such as an anteater will survive right through it with no help but an implausibly large boat?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 15 of 309 (662164)
05-13-2012 12:36 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by foreveryoung
05-12-2012 9:48 PM


Re: change leaves evidence.
It could certainly be the mechanism that would allow great quantities of water to come unlocked in the rocks of the mantle ...
Are we talking about hydrous wadsleyite?
Again I'd point out that if you're going to tinker with chemistry, you're going to be tinkering with biochemistry too.
... and a great quantity of water that is suspended about the solar system to collapse inward toward the sun and bathe all the planets on the way there.
While fortunately not making the Earth collapse inward toward the sun, because that would be bad.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by godsriddle, posted 05-15-2012 3:40 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 23 of 309 (662368)
05-15-2012 4:08 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by godsriddle
05-15-2012 3:40 AM


Re: change leaves evidence.
The thing about these things you say we "observe" --- is that we don't. For example, you write: "we observe that every clock (atomic and inertial) is accelerating as galaxies intrinsically grew". No we don't. Again, you state: "we observe how every atom keeps changing itself throughout cosmic history". To speak only for myself, I have observed neither cosmic history nor every atom. And again you say: "a literal biblical creation is visible". Not so much, no.
---
The opinions you attribute to scientists are not those that they actually hold, which would be another problem with your post. For example, scientists do not think that "all things remain the same". Nor do they believe that "atoms are perpetual motion engines".
How great will be the triumph of the Word of God over science ...
Not all that great. Nor all that triumphant.
... the system built on a single assumption - the very one the Bible predicted for the false teachers of the last days.
Let us know when you with reference to the "Word of God" can do stuff remotely comparable to what scientists can do. They can (in certain cases) make the blind see, the lame walk, and cure lepers, not to mention making this conversation possible, putting people on the moon, flying people through the air faster than the speed of sound, etc.
Now if they are doing all this based on one single assumption (which you say is false) then just image what you could achieve based on the matchless truth of the Word of God.
But wait! You've achieved nothing like that. You've achieved nothing remotely approaching a shred of a shard of a fragment of anything like that. All you can do is sit in a chair posting stuff on the internet, while scientists are busy finding another cure for another disease or planning their next mission to Mars ...
Could it be that the principle they've got hold of is in some way sounder than yours?

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Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by godsriddle, posted 05-15-2012 4:30 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 25 of 309 (662372)
05-15-2012 5:24 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by godsriddle
05-15-2012 4:30 AM


Re: change leaves evidence.
I don't think you understand what a first principle is.
And I think I do.
Now, you say that science is built on a single assumption, which you also condemn. Suppose you're right about it being built on a single assumption --- then since science works, are you right to condemn this foundational assumption?
Science flies men to the moon ... that worked. And scientists did indeed plan that little excursion on the basis that the laws of gravity wouldn't change halfway though the mission, and that worked. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
Scientists, because they think with a single assumption, claim that the vacuum of space time is stretching the light.
As the phrase "the vacuum of space time is stretching the light" gets no google hits, this is apparently not what anyone thinks. How about you quote some actual scientists?
The radio signals from Pioneer 10 and 11 changed frequencies with distance (that is the past) relative to NASA’s hydrogen maser clocks of the moment. The ratio of distance to clock differences from the Pioneers approximated the Hubble ratio that scientists use to estimate the distance to galaxies using their observed light frequencies.
Possibly if you gave me a reference to what it is you are trying to talk about I could tell you what you should be saying about it.
We observe that, in general, ancient atomic clocks ran much slower than modern atoms.
Y'see, that is, again, not something that we observe. I am not observing ancient atomic clocks.
We see tiny globs packed with stars in equal chains around many of those tiny cores in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
Again, I think I can say with the greatest of confidence that I have never seen anything which is both tiny and packed with stars. Stars are big.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 45 of 309 (662456)
05-15-2012 10:50 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by foreveryoung
05-15-2012 9:34 PM


Creationism is only proven wrong if you assume all the physical laws and constants have been the same since the beginning.
No, as I said, we can waive that. The problem is all the evidence against it and for something else.
If you told me that God had just created an elephant in my backyard, then it would be foolish for me to argue against this claim by saying: "That's impossible"; because this is not an objection to the supposed action of a being who by definition can transcend the laws of nature. On the other hand, it would be highly germane for me to say that I'd just looked in my back yard and seen no elephant.
Like I said to nwr, if the prior physical universe and its laws were so radically changed and its forms radically changed to the point to were there was no way to tell it ever existed, you would have no way of knowing it ever existed. You can have a wild sex party in your parents basement but clean it up and leave everthing exactly the way it was before and make sure everyone has alibis for the time in question, your parents would have no reason to believe there was ever a wild sex party that occurred in their basement.
Yes, but then I'm sneaky that way. The trouble with omphalism is, it kinda requires God to be sneaky. Apparently he didn't want his parents to find out that he created a universe 6000 years ago, so he faked it like it was 13 billion years old, and then when his parents got back from their trip to the seventh dimension, he was all ... "Oh, that thing. No, you can see that that's been there for billions of years."
It's hardly the conventional idea of God, is it?
Really, what would God have to worry about? (Let's assume he doesn't have stern parents who disapprove of universe-creation, as would seem to be implied by your analogy taken at its most literal.) Why should he be afraid that people would find out that he's done what he's done? What bad thing would happen to God if we found out that the universe was young, that species were produced by fiat creation, etc? Why the terrific care to ensure secrecy about this, as though it were some shameful thing? And then having moved the very laws of time and space to conceal his creation, why didn't he also get all smitey on the ass of the complete fink who gave his secret away by writing the book of Genesis?
---
The other problem is that there's no particular reason to believe it. If you look out of your window now, you'll see evidence of me doing three mighty miracles. Shazam, I teleported a hippopotamus from Africa to outside your window, and abracadabra, at the same moment I made it invisible, and then hocus-pocus, I teleported it back again. I really am awesome, aren't I?
What do you mean, I didn't do any miracles? What you saw was completely consistent in every respect with the hypothesis that I did, and is therefore evidence for that hypothesis, is it not?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 53 of 309 (662478)
05-16-2012 2:07 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by godsriddle
05-16-2012 12:40 AM


Re: first assumption
Light is fundamental. We detect no particle, no energy, no space, nothing apart from light. Indeed, the properties of all matter are always associated with light.
And this, children, is why blind people don't know anything.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 71 of 309 (662806)
05-18-2012 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by godsriddle
05-18-2012 6:12 PM


Re: first assumption
You invented the notion that the vacuum of empty space is stretching itself ...
A phrase which gets zero google hits, and is therefore probably not exactly what anyone believes.
... something never observed which is by definition unobservable. That is like believing in angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Nah, that's more like believing in gravity, something which is unobservable, but the effects of which have been observed.
Gravitational lensing is another example of scientific mythology at work. Allegedly galaxy clusters have 20 times as much invisible matter as visible matter, in order to discount what is visible, that small spiral galaxies were ejected from large elliptical galaxies as they changed their quantum frequencies and left treams of gas in their wake.
Again, you're making a very, very strange use of the word visible. It is not visible "that small spiral galaxies were ejected from large elliptical galaxies as they changed their quantum frequencies and left treams of gas in their wake."
We observe hundreds of billions of ancient galaxies crammed with stars and none of them (near or far) shine with the clock rates of lab atoms.
That doesn't mean anything.
Scientists are trained to reason using a first principle, a fundamental assumption that is the basis for their empirical definitions, measuring units, mathematical methods and "constants".
And apparently it's this "first principle" and "fundamental assumption" that allows them to heal lepers, make the blind see, and make the lame walk. Which makes me think that there might be something to it. Meanwhile your first principle allows you to write meaningless crap on the internet.

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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 92 of 309 (662864)
05-19-2012 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by godsriddle
05-19-2012 2:37 PM


Re: SN1987A part 1
Yet the Magellanic stream does not orbit the MW, it links back to the southern end of our galaxy.
Where are you getting this from?
The evidence that miniature galaxies were ejected from larger active galaxies is visible ...
This would be another of those visible things that we can't actually see, right?
The chains of star globs spreading out is visible ...
Like this.
Really, you have the strangest idea of what "visible" means.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 93 of 309 (662865)
05-19-2012 9:10 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by godsriddle
05-19-2012 1:13 PM


Re: first assumption
No observation from billions of galaxies supports the notion that atoms do perpetual motion.
Newton did NOT begin his book Principia Mathematica with first principles. He simply assumed his principles and went on to define matter space and time as a measurement OPERATIONALLY. He rejected the common sense notion of time (crowing roosters and twilight) and defined time as a mathematical entity that is unaffected by anything exterior. Yet no one has ever detected any time or measured any of its properties. There is not a shred of evidence that time has an actuality. It exists in our minds, as Solomon explained 3,000 years ago. Yet scientists actually use it as the independent variable in many of their formulas and laws.
The death of modern physics will come about because of the visible history of the cosmos. Not a single ancient galaxy shines with the light of modern atoms. When we compare the morphology of galaxies at many ranges, we observe how clumps packed with stars accelerated out from formerly naked cores. We observe how galaxies intrinsically grew as the properties of all matter kept on changing in defiance of every law of modern physics.
Because scientist were trained to think with a single assumption, a first principle, they have filled the universe with magical things like invisible matter and vacuums that stretch themselves as they stretch all the light passing through the vacuum. No pagan could invent such absurd myths as scientific mythology / cosmology. Why? None of their laws of physics is being followed anywhere in the past. None of their definitions are supported by visible evidence. So they obfuscate - exactly as the Bible predicted they would do - because they think that all things remain the same. Even the Earth follows the simplicity of biblical physics. The continents only fit together on a tiny globe without major seas. The Bible states three times that the Earth spreads out in unbroken continuity and this happens above the waters.
The scientific first principle is visibly false which is why none of their laws of physics, which were contrived with an assumption, work in hundreds of billions of galaxies. But they work locally, says the scientists! They only work in the world of mathematical symbols. The symbols do not represent reality. If clocks are accelerating - as we observe - then the symbolical world of mathematical reality will crumble. Only a biblical cosmic history and biblical creation are supported by the only history that is visible as it happened, galactic history.
There is no need to keep repeating yourself. We already know what it is that you wish to be wrong about. Now would be the time to put up some arguments in favor of your views. Assertion is not evidence. Repeated assertion is still not evidence.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 99 of 309 (663291)
05-23-2012 2:24 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by godsriddle
05-23-2012 12:20 AM


Re: first assumption
As I have commented on your blunders in physics in previous posts, I shall refer you to my previous comments. You seem to have added some mistakes in geology, viz:
They continue to hold to subduction even after the drill cores showed thin, layered, undisturbed sediments in the ocean trenches.
You appear to be denying the existence of accretionary prisms. And you claim that this denial is based on drill cores. Curiously enough, that's not what the people doing the actual drilling say.
* Ocean Drilling Project report on the Barbados prism
* Ocean Drilling Project report on the Nankai prism
* Ocean Drilling Project report on the the Costa Rica prism
* Ocean Drilling Project report on the the Cascadia prism
See, they're drilling into the prisms. And what they find are not "thin, layered, undisturbed sediments". What they find are accretionary prisms.
I've noticed before that creationists deny the existence of accretionary prisms. May I ask where you get this crap from? Only clearly it's not from reading the drilling reports. There must have been some original creationist who made it up, but as creationists are so lax about providing citations I have not been able to find out who he was or how he came to make such a stupid mistake.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by godsriddle, posted 05-23-2012 12:20 AM godsriddle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by godsriddle, posted 05-23-2012 3:14 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 101 of 309 (663298)
05-23-2012 4:51 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by godsriddle
05-23-2012 3:14 AM


Trenches
Here, have another one. According to the Ocean Drilling Project, they found "over a mile" of sediment in the Tonga Trench near Vanuata.
The Cascadian trench is filled with sediments, but they came from massive floods that flowed across Washington, evidently when ice dams broke.
The Cascadia trench runs from northern California to Vancouver Island, y'know.
Look, here's how big it is:
And according to this paper from the "Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Project" the sediment in it is 2.5 km thick.
So, exactly how much sediment do you think there was in Washington before these glacial floods of which you speak?
The Aleutian trench has magnetic stripes running down into the trench perpendicular to its long axis. This suggests that the trench is a stretch feature, not a subduction zones.
Possibly that meant something in your head when you decided to write it.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 115 of 309 (663413)
05-24-2012 11:43 AM
Reply to: Message 111 by godsriddle
05-24-2012 3:31 AM


Re: question unanswered ...
How do you extend the measurement of the number of modern days between the flash and the reflection at SN1987a to the notion that days and years have equal durations?
Operational definitions can short circuit the brain. One can end up believing in the actuality of the thing defined with the procedure, even though it is completely undetectable. Just because scientists assume that atoms are perpetual motion engines and use this to define seconds does not mean that time has an actual existence.
A light year is not a fixture of nature. It is a mathematical procedure based on the above assumption. No has ever sent beams of light to distant reflective targets (at various ranges) and counted the number of years before they were reflected back.
It is impossible to support the notion that SN1987a is 168,000 light years distant since such a measurement is assumption dependent and the assumptions involved are visibly contradicted.
1. Billions of galactic orbits are observed to accelerate, when we compare the shape of the most distant galaxies with closer ones at many ranges. We observe how small galaxies were ejected from active galaxies all over the universe. The Magellanic stream connects the MCs back to the MW, clear evidence that the same ejections occurred here. An ejection is an acceleration, not a clock - like orbit. (What we observe is not allowed in the scientific system, which is why scientific cosmic history is mostly about magic).
2. Every atomic clock in billions of galaxies clocks a different frequency from modern atoms, and the differences often correlate with distance (dimness and morphological compactness).
3. If the same laws are operating in the solar system as we observe in galaxies, then the ancient claim that the planets made close passages just a few hundred generations ago would be supported. Have you ever wondered why ancient astronomers kept measuring a decreasing solar parallax? Have you ever wondered why the earliest astronomical record showed Venus in a much different orbit than what it is in today? Have you ever wondered why the ancients, including the biblical authors, claimed that a planet was crushed in a collision a few millennia ago? Have you ever noticed the crushed planet pieces with volcanic and sedimentary rocks circling in the same direction in the asteroid belt? Seems like the stories of the ancients have more likely validity than the undetectable matter astronomers insist they measure.
4. An empiricist might claim to measure unchanging gravity and clock like orbits. In countless examples at many ranges, we observe how galaxies grew into local growth spirals. The atomic clocks visibly accelerate along with the accelerating star streams.
5. What causes orbits to accelerate outwards?We know that the "gravitational effect" does NOT propagate at infinite speed. This should produce a difference between the pull on the trailing side of the Earth as paraconical pendulums show. This should accelerate days and years together. You say, if that were happening we could measure it with clocks. Not if the observed acceleration of atomic clocks is the cause of the gravitational phemomena.
The claim to measure how many years ago SN1987a occurred is unsupportable except with assumptions that are visibly contradicted in billions of galaxies.
The scientific first principle is indeed the foundational assumption in scientific empiricism, yet there is no visible support for this premise anywhere in the universe.
You're being wrong about the same things over and over and not producing a shred of evidence for anything you're saying.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 130 of 309 (663934)
05-27-2012 9:11 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by foreveryoung
05-27-2012 8:51 PM


Re: question unanswered ...
Until you can present evidence that change ALWAYS AND BY NECESSITY leaves evidence of that change, you have nothing but fantasy and fairytales
No, that's not how it works. The burden of proof lies with you.
Alice: There are flying pigs.
Bob: Let's see some evidence for flying pigs, then.
Alice: Er ... don't seem to have any.
Bob: Then you have nothing but fantasy and fairytales.
Alice: No, unless you can present evidence that flying pigs ALWAYS AND BY NECESSITY leave me evidence of their existence, you have nothing but fantasy and fairytales.
Bob: That's really not how it works.
Now, who's in the right? Bob, obviously. Alice can't shift the burden of proof like that, it's absurd.
Now if she'd said: "There might conceivably be flying pigs", then she would be justified --- to refute that, we would indeed have to show that if they existed we would have evidence of them. And in the same way we can conceive of natural laws being somewhat different in the past, but we have absolutely no reason to believe it: it is fantasy pure and simple.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by foreveryoung, posted 05-27-2012 8:51 PM foreveryoung has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 134 by foreveryoung, posted 05-27-2012 9:16 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 145 of 309 (663955)
05-27-2012 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 134 by foreveryoung
05-27-2012 9:16 PM


Re: question unanswered ...
That's all well and good but you and jar are the ones who are claiming that flying pigs exist.
No, not even metaphorically.
We are suggesting that something for which we have no evidence didn't happen.
You are suggesting that something for which we have no evidence did happen.

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