If I'm going to dig a hole in my yard, it's important that I know if there are buried gas pipes in that location — T Clark

When you wanna bury your wife they could serve as a good cover. So check out the scheme first. Sure the city hall can provide...

Joking aside, there is lots of a priori knowledge waiting for the baby child to be explored. It once was no a priori knowledge, but it has become a priori for anyone interested. Laying there, in the world, to be discovered.

A 'dogma' is defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority and held to be incontrovertibly true.” — I like sushi

That's exactly what is done in the scientific world. And I have encountered it directly. I have questioned the standard model with a preon model. Quarks and leptons being made if three other particles, preons. The model offers only advantages, but the dogma is that quarks and leptons are fundamental and point-like (string theory offers string and brains but they are supersymmetric in orinciple, contrary to observations). When I offered the midel as an alternative, the dogma defenses were activated.

Buddhism for example has no belief in a creator god, yet it seems to be similar to theistic religion in terms of its ethical philosophy and behavioural demands (celibacy, non-violence, non-coveting etc) and even in many philosophical respects. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but in physics, especially quantum physics, there seems to be an inclination towards eastern philosophies. Especially the relation between the parts and wholes, and the holism (lacking in the "hard" reductionist sciences) inherent in eastern philosophy, seems attractive. So maybe "the whole" is holey ("wholey"!).

The Indians too were very good logicians. — Agent Smith

They had to be, in meeting up the western invaders... :grin:

From Wiki:

Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted.

We must put logic in the dock, interrogate it! How did it come to be this powerful? What vile trickery did it put to its service? Who were/are its accomplices? — Agent Smith

Once upon a time, in a country far far away, called Greece....

That is not the definition I was using at all. It is one plied by religious dogmatic types to justify labelling science as ‘dogmatic’. — I like sushi

And what definition is that?

- it's rationality that cautions against rationality! — Agent Smith

Sounds rational!

I sense you're conflating authority with knowledge — Agent Smith

You are, by law, directed towards the institutions of knowledge. In my humbly humbleness I can't help calling that authorative... :grin:

There is no dogma in science. There is dogma in religions. — I like sushi

A dogma is an unproven conjecture. And there are lots of them in science.

There is no causation involved in the first place, in the cushion example. The ball just lays on the cushion. An event has no cause or effect in itself. Only other events can bring these into existence.

Perhaps if you read the OP and the link you would see? — I like sushi

There is no link in the OP, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Just because scientists can be ‘dogmatic’ it does not mean that science contains dogma — I like sushi

Same for, say, religion.

are you suggesting the brain does not/cannot perceive? — universeness

I think a perception is a construction.

The way in which the human brain deals with propositional logic is not fully understood. — universeness

That's because the brain doesn't deal with it. Only thoughts

Even though I have clearly stated that my projections are based on my current readings on genetic engineering and technologies such as CRISPR, quantum computing and biological computing. Despite this, you insist on tubthumping about the current limitations of electronic computing. why? — universeness

I don't mind if you belief in some far away future fantasy. But you can't prove them right. There is no evidence apart from a device with a human mask answering preprogrammed questions fooling us as if there is actually someone behind the face. So basically I try to demask people who believe in such future possibilities.

So the notion of proper time and proper length are used is special RELATIVITY and are 'relative notions.' — universeness

How can the proper lifetime of a muon be relative if it's the same for all? It's just defined as the time as measured in the restframe of the muon. Of course, if you look at the muon as it travels fast, the proper time seems to slow down, but its the same still.

You would prefer that we stay at the mercy of some or all of the 4 threats I mentioned? why? — universeness

Because I don't see it as a threat. Of course it's not nice to get sick and time will show itself in the body and brain. I think this aging can be fought against from within. If you change your telomeres it will do. If telomeres stay the same length you wont age. Telomeres stay the same in cancer cells, which don't age. But try to replace your genes with new from outside... No way. Only from the inside. And besides, life starts again after dead, in a new universe!

AFAIK universe expansion implies "creating new space". Quite far from this response.
d) This kind of universe expansion is equivalent to measurement contraction.

I have the same viewpoint as c. I think you can expand into something which is infinite but that which IS infinite cannot expand. — universeness

Why shouldn't something infinite be able to expand?

So the notion of proper time and proper length are used is special RELATIVITY and are 'relative notions — universeness

Proper time is just an infinite small interval of time which is independent on the frame used. It's different from coordinate time, which is frame dependent, and which is used in Lorenz transformations. and does not exist for a photon, which follows lightlike paths.

The prevailing view is that the universe is infinite. This is based on observed flatness. But just as for a flat Earth, if you look beyond the horizon, the Earth is pretty much sphere! So basically, flat spacers are the same as flat Earthers...

If someone told me they were going to duplicate and replace my brain with a mechanical one... — RogueAI

,...then you should tell them to think carefully about that again. They tell you a lie. Well, they're maybe not tell you a lie, as telling a fantasy when one is psychotic can't really be called a lie. I should ask them firstly what they have in mind.

What's got that ship to do with it? There has to be a copy of you or me in the first place to compare. A copy can't be made. So no comparison can be made. You can imagine a copy, identical to the preon level, but then you just imagining yourself.

Maybe they have already done this on you — Angelo Cannata

I know for sure this hasn't been done.

If someone told me they were going to duplicate and replace my brain with a mechanical one (and dispose of the organic one), I would consider that death. However, if they could replace it incrementally and guarantee I was conscious the whole time, I don't consider that death, Does anyone else share this intuition? — RogueAI

You should read Chalmers. He claims that if every neuron is replaced with a small computer which has neuron signals as input and outputs signals other neurons, like the real one, you'll be conserved up till the last neuron replaced. Can you believe he's serious?

David Chalmers

There is a reason why scientific theories adapt and change over time and The Bible and Koran remain exactly the same - one is Dogma and the other is constantly changing — I like sushi

There is more than the bible or koran. The books of classical mechanics don't change ever. They form a dogma. And that dogma, by authorities and law is forced upon the upgrowing people.

No. Science is not dogma. Scientists can certainly be ‘dogmatic’ though with their beliefs and ideas. — I like sushi

Indeed. But a lot of unproven dogma is used. And the same holds for religion. There are some pretty dogmatic people in the world of religion and science.

His example is an illustration of how, now that the ball is on the cushion, it's causing a dip — Cuthbert

Only the act of laying the ball on it is causation. If its never laid on it there is no causation. Causation is time dependent. The causation doesn't continue after the act of laying the ball on the cushion. The dip could also be the cause for the ball laying on it. If time runs backward, the cushion can shoot the ball away instead of the ball falling on it.

The pure/impure is Kantian terminology specifically, meant to show the distinctions in what can be considered a priori — Mww

So Kant's pure reason is a priori reason? Are we born with reason? Can we find it somewhere hidden in a cave? Between the lines maybe? How we know it's not declared a priori after it's introduction?

in practical situations - when we are concerned about what is or isn't the case - it is not obvious that our talk is wrong, incoherent or somehow theological. — Cuthbert

Indeed. The example is out of this world. Cushions with balls laying on them eternally presuppose an eternal gravity field. If this is an eternal state then the ball aint laid on it. Nor will it be taken off. In fact, we can't even see if time goes forwards or backwards. It could be the ball flies off if time starts!

If we think of the depressed cushion first and then lay the ball on it, the depression is indeed the teleological cause.

Time is movement. — chiknsld

I think you're basically right here. I knew a wizard's daughter, Kika (she was the daughter of Ti-Ta-wizard whose objective in life was to change strawberries into camels, but never succeeded), who could stop time. If she clapped her hands, everything stood still.

The sneer of the peon. Answering these questions - fundamental questions in philosophy, that is - will make you wealthy and happy. Happy? — Bartricks

It's better to live the peony life!

So, tell me, what is the cause for the cushion's deformation?
— Agent Smith

The ball is the cause — Cuthbert

We can say the cushion is the cause of it's depression. The ball can only be the cause if it's laid on it, which isn't the case here. We can not say what came first, the ball falling on the cushion and depressing it, or the depressed cushion making the ball fly away. Say that instead of the ball laying on the cushing we see a ball eternally above a neat cushion. How do we know what caused them to have this relationship? We don't. The situation can be said it's own cause and it's own effect. Who created the ball and the cushion is a different question. A religious question.

On the other hand, if the rules of logic are understood to embody norms of conduct and linguistic representation, as opposed to embodying empirical contingencies, then the rules of logic do express lawfulness, namely the conduct and ethics of the logician.

It is the simultaneous presence of both types of meaning in science and logic that leads to the normative notion of "law" being misconstrued as an empirical matter of fact. — sime

A wise conclusion an apperceptive observation. The laws of logic being contingencies themselves? Like the empirical world being contingent to the logical world? Somehow I hear Plato and his follower, the great Aristotle, speaking through you.

Ah, I see, very interesting — chiknsld

Yes. And that's all it is. Black holes can be mind boggling. "Boggle boggle".

A logical cause is no physical cause. A cause in a syllogism, or in a logic puzzle (of the kind of two jealous men on an island which have to take their women to another isle in a rowboat) is a mind-like cause, not a material or physical cause.

The problem is that the concept of "mass" which is principally a temporal concept, is fundamentally unintelligible under the principles employed in modern physics, relativity theory. The concept of time dilation makes the incoherency of "mass" in modern physics glaringly obvious. — Metaphysician Undercover

A mass near the speed of light never can form a black hole. Only two in relative motion. If you consider matter to be made of massless particles, the interaction can provide mass, i.e., matter moving slower than light. In the standard model this is done by making massless matter interact with a fictitious matter field, with unbelievable properties (a non-zero value of the vacuum expectation value, for which no reason is given; it's just posited). But the mass can also emerge if massless particles interact amongst themselves. Pure kinetic energy turned massive.

We can't even begin on this question, until we first figure out what is matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

Matter consists of tiny Planck-sized spheres, filled with physical charge. If you wrap up three dimensions of a 6d space into Planck-sized circles, you're left with a 3d large space, with 6d micro structure. Like a circle on a thin cylinder. The circle being the particle. Note that you can't construct a singularity like this. How much particles are crammed on each other, it doesn't matter. No point singularity comes to be. No if you consider this 3d space (actually 6d) wrapped around a 4d (actually 7d) wormhole, then because of the negative curvature on the wormhole (like the inside of a torus), a 3d universe can inflate away on each side of that hole, that singularity.

What, they weren't skeptical? — apokrisis

Yes. But no one actually knew what the model is about. Neither do you, apparently.

Oh wow, you're saying that a blackhole would cause an infinite chain-reaction of more blackholes were it not for these properties of the particle? — chiknsld

Dont think I said that. The formation of a black hole is rather tricky. The formation of the event horizon, I mean. Once it's there, does it grow? How can a small hole, seen from the outside, evolve into a massive one? This question has implications for the supermassive black holes in galaxies. Primordial bh are lately seen to be dark matter. An idea already proposed by Hawking way back. I think he was right.



Read it! :up:

From our friend Wiki:

for an encyclopedic entry. (November 2020)

Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society

"not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma"

Ain't school learning you what authorities say you must? Fir example there is the dogma of molecular biology. And many more.

Ok, surely the brain is the only body organ that 'perceives' a colour — universeness

I don't think it perceives. It rather constructs. Or resonates. The construction is a continuous process which isn't set in motion with an on and of switch. It's no programmed process. with "start" and "stop". Or "if", "if not", "iff", "and", "nand", "or", "nor", or "gondor".

If those who vote against it are a majority then their representatives in authority must vote against also and then scientific endeavours in the direction of genetic engineering, transhumanism and artificial intelligence must stop until the majority can be convinced by further discussion from those who
support human progression. — universeness

That's a fair approach! I'm not convinced though that what you see as progression is actual progression.