Charge is agent...not a thinking agent...not a god. — Nickolasgaspar

No, of course not. The universal stuff is not the stuff of heaven. But it's still divine stuff, as they created it to let the heavenly realm evolve inside the material universe. So there has to be a magical agens behind or better, inside of matter. Not gods themselves but something they, in their great wisdom, created. Maybe they can influence it. The laws of quantum mechanics offer a means. The math that's used in the description of nature has no real existence but the stuff it describes certainly has. Tell me, what is charge?

Yes. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. When no attempt is made to know yourself, you are yourself.

Vide Daniel Dennett (consciousness is an illusion). — Agent Smith

That's his illusion, or desillusion, if you like. The guy is a computer freak.and compares the brain with a computer, which for his mind might actually be the case, but in my brain there is actually little computation going on. It doesn't compute, although it might be more fun to...

Are we our personality? Are we a soul? Are we our brain? What makes the real us? — TiredThinker

We all are our bodies, with magical worlds inside, walking around in a world like the gods in heaven walk and crawl around. The paradise gardens, once resembling heavenly paradise, are terribly fucked up though. Let's hope paradise returns. Seems the human gods (just one species of gods amongst many) did a sneaky thing in the preparations for creation...

You seem to contradict yourself — noAxioms

Who doesn't? The hands of the clock always move. Thermodynamic emergent time cannot stop. But a clock can stay put or move. So it can be that time moves while standing still. A clock is a periodic process in eternal motion. Before the emergence of one-directional TD time, there was a perfectly periodic time, still existent in the vacuum. The question is though why things don't move in the opposite direction, i.e., why time goes forward. Things could have moved that way. So the universe starting at its end, backwards to zero, and again backwards, and again, etc. So instead of eternal big bangs, eternal crunches.Entropy always getting smaller. You could say that's because the laws of chance but thats not sufficient. The laws of chance operate once the initial conditions are set. And that begs the question.

You really do just make it all up as you toddle along. — universeness

Exactly as science proceeds. Toddling along can both stimulate science as theology. They both are not static monolith institutions, as they both want it to be. In a sense, they are pretty alike!

nothing he says has to do with your "agencies" thought. He is addressing physical mechanisms. — Nickolasgaspar

Rovelli, like Sean Carroll, says a lot of weird things, far removed from reality. Charge is the agency that causes other particles to change. Charge is an "agens".

You don't seem to need to apply any kind of consistent logic in the points you make. — universeness

What's inconsistent? All forms of universal light have a heavenly counterpart. Even one of yours! He's probably denying you are real...

Because I understand English and your sentence above makes no sense in English — universeness

What doesn't make sense then?

You really do just make it all up as you toddle along — universeness

No! I got it all worked out. The universe, considering life in it, is a temporally finite, material version of heaven. Matter is bound to certain laws. But... they made it such that it can eternally repeat. Serial big bangs and all that.

Now you are postulating time for the movement, because you have read something on time, and imagining that it is flowing or moving forward. — Corvus

I dont think time is flowing. The hands of the clock move though. So motion is time. Periodic motion is the clock, irreversible motion what it measures and quantifies.

I sleep wonderful!

:yawn:

that is not what Hillary means by the term agency.... — Nickolasgaspar

You gotta admit though that Rovelli is quite an agency...

Ah! Rovelli! Conosco questo fisico! I'm not a fan though, as I'm not a fan of any. Well, only one! Harari from Israel. He's the only one who gave me a friendly reply. The others don't bother or ask money (you gotta pay one dollar to only ask a question, without a guaranteed reply). Look at his response, which arrived yesterday:

Dear Deschele,

 

Thank you for your kind and friendly mail.

If I have to guess, Rishons should be massless, but since the dynamics combining them into quarks and leptons is far from clear, it is truly an open question, even if the model is right.

I still believe, 43 years after 1979, that some version of this model must be right, and hope to live long enough to see it.

Fortunately, the decision is in the hands of mother nature and not in the hands of a public opinion poll.

Best wishes

Haim Harari

life might be wonderful....having to deal with superstitions in 2022 isn't that great. — Nickolasgaspar

Don't worry! But yes, I guess you have to deal with... But you could also just accept the gods as a given...

Time doesn't exist. It is just human psychological awareness of intervals on durations and moments in memories. No humans, no time. — Corvus

But how then can particles move towards each other or repulse each other. If there is no time they can't move.

you're making me really sad Hillary. You are a young individual with free access to knowledge but you are trapped by your iron age heuristics... — Nickolasgaspar

On the contrary! Im far ahead of my time. Already at 35! The world isnt ready yet. But my writings will soon be read in the whole world, Nobel prizes for physics and literature and maybe for peace will come my way. You gotta have a goal in life!

Don't feel sad Nickolas! Life is wonderful! Litterally!

I can see only a white page in the link. Which is understandable as the concept of charge in physics is poorly understood. Personally I litterally see it as a filling up of a three dimensional structure existing in six dimensional space. If three of six spatial dimensions are curled up to circles (S1xS1xS1) a three dimensional structure is formed and charge can be put in it. Like that, the particles are not pointlike, a solution for a Lorenz invariant Planck scale is offered, renormalization is superfluous, and black holes can't collapse to a singularity. Consider the basic particles massless, and the speed of light finite, and the equivalence between mass and pure kinetic energy is explained, as well as space and time being extended.

Science offers descriptive frameworks. — Nickolasgaspar

No, science offers more than abstract descriptive frameworks. Science offers mental simulations of reality. It depends on the region or domain investigated how this mental simulation looks like.

As agents we tend to see agency behind nature....even in our attempt to describe regularities in physical phenomena.
This is known as Magical Language and Thinking. Aeon has a great essay on this phenomenon. — Nickolasgaspar

There is agency behind physical phenomena. Particles possess charge, the agencies that couple to virtual fields by means of which they interact. That agencies evolved into the agencies of life.

In nature, there are in fact very few instances of exact mathematical shapes, apart from straight lines and spheres. All mathematical exact special functions are rarely seen and appear only in strict experimental set-ups.

Rovelli would disagree, and I with him. He says a system cannot measure itself (cannot collapse its own wave function) — noAxioms

Every interaction involves a collapse of the wavefunction. All particles in the universe were interacting from the moment they were created and still are interacting. By means of photons and CMBR, by local interactions, by gravity, and by the other two basic forces. The total wavefunction is constantly reshaping and collapsing.

I am not promoting MWI, but if I was, I am unaware of it positing ‘branching points’ at all. It is a common misconception that “at certain magic instances, the world undergoes some sort of metaphysical “split” into two branches that subsequently never interact”. That seems closest to what I suspect you’re referencing — noAxioms

Yes, indeed. The branching points are the points where a superimposed state splits into the two separate states after measurement. There is no collapse here, but the state before is different from the state after to conserve unitarity. That's the only reason the MWI is developed, to conserve unitarity. But the splitting is non-unitary, although it seems there is no collapse at all.

Tegmark doesn't say what the math structures are made of and non-exactly solvable problems or processes, which are most in nature, have no corresponding structure, while the processes exist.

So your gods are polymorphs? Shapeshifters? Like the Dominion on Deep Space Nine? — universeness

No, there are just a whole lot of gods.

Did it exist before its inhabitants or were they both magicked at the same instant? — universeness

It existed eternally and then a terrible thing happened which made them engage in creation efforts.

What? Does this make sense to you when you read it back to yourself? — universeness

Yes. Why not?

So do your gods eat, drink, tire, sleep, itch, sweat, etc? Do they have a bodily waste disposal system?
Do your gods experience joy, sadness, loss, fear, hope, love, hate, suffer pain? — universeness

Yes, all of it. They fly, crawl, quack, speak, yell, roll over, run, fight for a banana, philosophize, the watch sun go up, watch the heavenly stars, etc. But they let heaven exist in it's paradise state.

Thats what I thought you meant. If we are, by definition, unable to verify a thing (empirically im assuming), then how can we justify believing that it exists? Are we speaking of some platonic existence? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

In some sense, yes. Plato's mathematical heaven can't be known though. The heavenly gods can be known though by looking around. We are not their shadows but material copies and the gods actually might make contact with us. And we with them, as must be the case as they watch us.

So did the gods look like humans 13.8 billion years ago?
So the Adam and Eve fable is more likely then than the whole time-consuming evolution through natural selection story? — universeness

Good questions! The gods just look like all life in the universe, and they have created the universe and live evolving in it because like that all heavenly creatures get their turn.

Did they build this 'heaven' place you mention or did they command it to exist and from where did they issue this command? Did/do their bodies function like ours. — universeness

The eternal heaven is not build. It's an eternally existing state. Human gods invented all kinds of musings too. Of course, their gods musings are not true.

Their bodies function not just like ours. Only the material bodies in the universe decay and get reborn again, so in a sense all life is immortal too.

You seem to claim to know a little about what these gods want, so do you also know if their bodies function like ours or have they kept that a secret from you so far? — universeness

Their bodies don't decay like ours, nor are they born. They are not material.

What are intangibles? Could you define your term? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Things you can't touch, in principle. Out of reach of experimental verification.

Hello Hillary. You could have just answered with NO, you know of no other source for the god posit than humans. I think it's true that god needs humans like you to assign it value, in the same way that all fictional characters need human authors. No point in humans dressing up as Santa if kids no longer believe that the stories about him are true. — universeness

I did answer with no. Although I must admit that I don't know how humans on other planets look like. Probably just like us. And that's because humans have evolved into beings that look like the heavenly god beings.

God beings don't need us to assign them value. They just want to act life as was acted in heaven. They don't want worship or admiration. They just want life to live life. And watch it. The fantasy of Santa Claus is a welcome feature, but they get embarrassed if they see people building churches and bowing to them. They just want us to live. And that's why life is a miracle.

Do you know of any god posit or worship from a non-human source? — universeness

Goodday uuuuuniverse(ness)! Animals don't question gods. They just live their life to please the gods (unknowingly) as they did in heaven. It are humans having knowledge of the heavens. Already in heaven they stood apart from the other gods. Trying to investigate everything, questioning eveverything philosophizing about everything, fooling around, theorizing, mathematicing, trying to find out their origins, etc. As human gods took part in the common effort of trying to find the right material for creation, it's no wonder humans in the universe try too.

If we have no existence then gods have no existence ad we created them. — universeness

That's the big question!

Time moves forward because our faces are not on the backs of our heads. — whollyrolling

What if our faces were on our back? Would time move backward then? We would see what we did only after we had done things, after turning around. We could wear a mirror device on our heads to look forward, like we can to look backward only. What if our whole front was on our back. Doesn't time move forwards because it was set in motion forwards? Time could have run backwards. If the begin situation was right...

From the link:

Religion consists in the belief in a superhuman controlling power especially in a personal God or gods entitled to worship ( Defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary). In other words religion is the branch of knowledge that deals with the methodology of worship and the praise of God.

I believe in gods but don't think they have controlling power. They just created the universe and let it,go it's way, including all life in it. Like it's happening in heaven. They have the power of creation but uncreating or intervening in what they've made is something completely different, although quantum mechanics seems to offer possibilities.

Yes, it's always good to be euphoric about something. Be it gods, science, astrology, or the witches within. You can be religious about the developing Johnny Depp trial, the Webb telescope, about love, the neighbor, your canary, or sculptures and paintings. Prove of existence or even the question if something/someone really exists is of no real importance. The important thing is if gods exist in someone's experience. If so, gods exist.

"Our site is currently unavailable due to construction maintenancies"

Says it all...

A space hotel in 4 years? Takes even more on Earth. Gravity though, will be no problem. Apart from taking materials there. It's actually a good question. "Is this possible?"

Indeed. Was a nice small digression.

So, I see there are two current threads about atheism. There are no atheist churches, obviously. But can there be atheist religious devotion?

"The red star is on the rise my fiend." Did you mean "fiend" or "friend"? — Bitter Crank

Ah! Sorry bout that! It's a small r between love and hate...

Billy Bragg! Alright! Thanks my fRiend! You feel he means it!! Two for you in return:

I hire a lot of new graduates from university, I have rarely met any who care much for science. I don't think science is all that popular. Certainly not in Australia. In fact I'd say we are living in anti-science times. Maybe it's different where you live. — Tom Storm

I don't talk about universities. I talk about schools where the children go by force of law.

Where Aboriginal children taken away from their parents in the name of science or religion? What was the reason? Was it because they had other gods, instead of the Christian monster God?

I often wondered that, especially in the modern world this question is often asked. My mind reacted with psychosis, depression, and addiction. The psychosis and depression are gone, though psychosis actually feels wonderful. Good and bad are simply part of creation. No big deal. It is their unnatural acting out that leads to problem, not the good and bad per se. To answer the question: of course it's better to exist than never to have existed at all, because if you didn't exist, you couldn't ask this question in the first place. It we didn't exist though, that would be a good sign as well. The gods in heaven would still be living their normal life.

Exactly - that's what I am saying - if you think you have better ideas and can help people, you want to share it with others. Bingo! :up: — Tom Storm

Indeed! But what are better ideas must of course be determined after the facts. And science and technology, however interesting and wonderful, haven't done a good job so far. Just look at the state of the world. Science has taken global control, our schools have become it's indoctrination institutes (the bible replaced by science books), and the young people are turned into colorless replicators of the knowledge crammed into their minds, as if computers are programmed.

I think there are many types of atheism. Including religious or mystical atheism (atheist idealism). And there are atheists who embrace supernatural forces like astrology or ghosts. I think most beliefs come with the desire to spread a message or engage in public advocacy. This is true for religions especially (evangelism), secular beliefs systems, the arts, politics and law reform groups. This is a natural thing in a pluralistic society. — Tom Storm

Like it is true for scientifically thinking atheists. Just look at Dawkins, Harris, Krauss, Dennet, Pinker, and other cruscaders of the religious devotion to the one and only way.

I never said that, and that wasn't what we were discussing, but you may be right about this, atheism isn't quite as dreadful to other people. Good point. :up: — Tom Storm

Yes you're right! Just listen to that freak Dawkins...

Who's talking about science? I was addressing this below which is clearly missing a large part of the story. — Tom Storm

Yes, I understand that. But you make it appear as if atheism doesn't suffer from the same defects as religion.

"Religions don't have that much in common either. Even within the one faith, they have often knocked off each other in endless vicious schism infighting about doctrine and dogma. As it turns out theists can't agree about god/s"

Just replace religion by science and theists by scientists.