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Author Topic:   The problems of big bang theory. What are they?
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 330 of 389 (631647)
09-02-2011 8:12 AM
Reply to: Message 327 by Alfred Maddenstein
09-02-2011 7:18 AM


ad populum
Unfortunately in spite of the intrinsic impossibility of those complicated matters being explained in a way to make sense to the commoners by the caste of those well qualified, it is those simple-minded janitors, engineers, geologists and philosophers on whose faith in the correctness of the explanations offered by the elite of mathemagicians, the very upkeep and existence of the mathemagicians entirely depends.
Fortunately, we are moving toward a time when the truth is not dependant on it's popularity or ease of comprehension. There is plenty of nutritional value in a steak but not if you are a herbavore.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 327 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-02-2011 7:18 AM Alfred Maddenstein has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 335 by Pressie, posted 09-02-2011 8:31 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied
 Message 336 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-02-2011 8:42 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 341 by NoNukes, posted 09-02-2011 5:43 PM Dogmafood has replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 342 of 389 (631794)
09-03-2011 10:16 AM
Reply to: Message 341 by NoNukes
09-02-2011 5:43 PM


Re: ad populum
I think is meant for Alfred at msg 327.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 341 by NoNukes, posted 09-02-2011 5:43 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 343 of 389 (631795)
09-03-2011 10:18 AM
Reply to: Message 336 by Alfred Maddenstein
09-02-2011 8:42 AM


Re: ad populum
Not being patently absurd and hiding the fact behind the equations like the priests hide behind the intricacies of the biblical text claiming an immunity to logical scrutiny .
The real conspiracy of the priests taking advantage of the ignorance of their audience was eventually exposed when the audience learned how to read. The priests actively and obviously tried to suppress any dissension or discussion. Your imagined conspiracy of physicists has withstood decades of scrutiny from the world’s greatest minds. Your conspiring physicists are actively teaching what they know and seeking criticism. Their motivation is to know the truth. A far greater reward than some paltry wage.
Your argument is entirely cynical and requires an absurd conspiracy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 336 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-02-2011 8:42 AM Alfred Maddenstein has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 346 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-03-2011 10:50 AM Dogmafood has replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 344 of 389 (631796)
09-03-2011 10:24 AM


I found this on Michio Kaku's site.
Einstein also said that behind every great theory there is a simple physical picture that even lay people can understand. In fact, he said, if a theory does not have a simple underlying picture, then the theory is probably worthless. The important thing is the physical picture; math is nothing but bookkeeping.
Did Einsein actually say something like this and would the readers here agree with it?

Replies to this message:
 Message 345 by cavediver, posted 09-03-2011 10:39 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 348 by Percy, posted 09-03-2011 11:50 AM Dogmafood has replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 351 of 389 (631824)
09-03-2011 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 345 by cavediver
09-03-2011 10:39 AM


Einstein said; Thus, in a certain sense, I take it to be true that pure thought can grasp the real, as the ancients had dreamed.
Did he mean by this that ‘pure thought’ is thinking in mathematics?

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 Message 345 by cavediver, posted 09-03-2011 10:39 AM cavediver has not replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 352 of 389 (631825)
09-03-2011 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 348 by Percy
09-03-2011 11:50 AM


Einstein said; All physical theories, their mathematical expressions notwithstanding, ought to lend themselves to so simple a description that even a child could understand them.
This seems fairly close in meaning although not as far reaching. Would you agree with that statement?
Jar said in one of these threads that (paraphrase) ‘Reality need not be logical.’ I was thinking that I did not agree with this. If our perception of reality and our understanding of logic do not mesh doesn’t one of them need to change?

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 353 of 389 (631826)
09-03-2011 12:55 PM
Reply to: Message 346 by Alfred Maddenstein
09-03-2011 10:50 AM


Re: ad populum
The whole edifice disappears in a few puffs of my logic yet it persists on the ground and there are very good reasons for that and those reasons again have got none to do with any conspiracies whatsoever.
Well, what are those reasons? I thought that you were saying the reasons are the selfish interests of the physicists. Out to protect their funding streams. Sounds conspiratorial to me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 346 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-03-2011 10:50 AM Alfred Maddenstein has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 354 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-03-2011 3:14 PM Dogmafood has replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 358 of 389 (631901)
09-04-2011 9:26 AM
Reply to: Message 354 by Alfred Maddenstein
09-03-2011 3:14 PM


Re: ad populum
There is a minimal need to conspire in order to be protecting the interests of a group one is belonging to.
So, even worse than a conspiracy. All the tens of thousands of physicists the world over are just naturally lacking in personal integrity. Even the ones who have no need for funding. All the students and lay people who study physics just hop on the bus of deception in order to preserve some facade of false knowledge? All of the theorists pouring over their equations for months and years in an effort to prove something that they know in the back of their minds to be false?
Doubt and uncertainty are the engines of science. There may be many dishonest and conniving scientists in the world but I suspect that most of them work for the pharmaceutical industry. You can hide the side effects of some drug for a while but it is pretty difficult to bullshit your way through a moon launch or a global positioning system.
So there must be some point of divergence between the verifiable real world implications of the BBT and the bullshit part. Can you indicate exactly where that is?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 354 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-03-2011 3:14 PM Alfred Maddenstein has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 361 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-04-2011 11:55 AM Dogmafood has replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 363 of 389 (631970)
09-04-2011 10:48 PM
Reply to: Message 361 by Alfred Maddenstein
09-04-2011 11:55 AM


cynical disbelief
Well, if you want to persuade me that scientists as a group may possess any greater than the rest of humans integrity, whatever that might mean, I may have to remain unconvinced.
I take your point that all people lack integrity to some degree or another and I agree. Everybody’s got something to hide ( ‘cept for me and my monkey). This is a long way from being patently false at the root of your existence. Whoring your intellect out to anyone who has the cash. I am not saying that scientists are more pure than the rest of us. They don’t need to be. Most of the people that I know and meet are honest. Not perfectly but fundamentally. Your perspective is cynical.
Professionals, like physicists, are absolutely held to a higher standard of integrity and accountability than your average person.
Now given that the general human condition is to be in egregious fundamental error of thinking and to persist in the error indefinitely unless and until the persistence is met with an irresistible force, there is nothing unnatural in the current situation in cosmology under my scrutiny.
This may be true for the religious zealots and luddites of the world but the entire point of research is to find the truth. The real dividends come from knowing what that truth really is and not from the research funding.
I would not dispute that there is a lot invested in the status quo. I would point out that it is invested there for many reasons. Nobody wants to back a losing horse and if the one that we are on should break a leg I am sure that it will be put down with ruthless efficiency.
I understand the weight of vested interests but if the opposing force really is irresistible then the changes will come. It will take more than cynical disbelief.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 361 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 09-04-2011 11:55 AM Alfred Maddenstein has not replied

Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 372 of 389 (632584)
09-08-2011 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 371 by Pressie
09-08-2011 2:51 PM


Re: ad populum
One only becomes an expert at something the moment you realise how much you don't know about that subject.
If this were true, I would have degrees covering my walls.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 371 by Pressie, posted 09-08-2011 2:51 PM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 375 by Pressie, posted 09-09-2011 12:51 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied

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